Christmas Horror
Thursday December 27, 2007 in films | 70s cinema
Made in 1974, Black Christmas is a particularly nasty US horror. Coming a few years before Halloween, it looks like John Carpenter made copious notes after seeing this film before he went on to make his better known classic. Many of Halloween‘s most remembered themes turn up in Black Christmas. The seemingly safe sleepy neighbourhood, the ruthless maniac, the college kids who get more than they bargained for, inept police officers, the disturbingly open ending – this film appears to set the blueprint for every horror that’s followed since the mid 70s.
Black Christmas was shown recently on Film 4, but it’s unlikely you’ll see it on any of the more mainstrean channels. It’s a little too blood curdling and there’s strong language that’s still shocking today. A young girl is terrorised by nuisance phone calls. The police attempt to trace them, telling her to keep the menace talking for as long as she can while an expert chases around the local telephone exchange trying to discover where they are coming from. They eventually find out – the calls are coming from inside the house and the madman is revealed to be camping out in the attic. (Incidentally, a plot stolen by a later and another better remembered film called When a Stranger Calls).
Unlike Halloween, there’s no comfort in the fact that the monster might be something supernatural and unworldly – something that isn’t really out there. Black Christmas features a very real and ultimately more disturbing killer. The bogeyman is there alright. Worth catching for horror completists, and to see Margot Kidder in a pre Superman role. The film was remade in 2006 (as was When a Stranger Calls), but the remake disappeared without trace. Accept no imitations.