 |  |  | | 
| The final of three key Horror genre films Canadian director Bob Clark made in the 1970s is his influential 1974 thriller Black Christmas. At least as much as Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and the original Exorcist and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it is the film most responsible for John Carpenter's Halloween (oh, those holiday titles), the film is not hurt by endlessly unnecessary sequels and holds up extraordinarily well.
Our story focuses on a sorority house on Christmas Eve, with the girls and their closet alcoholic mentor Mrs. MacHenry (Marian Waldman) celebrating. Lately, they have been getting obscene phone calls from ‘some creepy guy' who will not leave them alone. The girls (including Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder and Andrea Martin among the recognizable faces) are trying not to let it faze them, but Jessica (Hussey) has an annoying boyfriend (Keir Dullea) who she seems to be ready to dump. Unbeknownst to any of them, someone has entered the house and is hiding in the attic, ready to kill. Can even an aggressive police lieutenant (John Saxon) save anyone when the first dead body surfaces?
This is the template for so much of the slice & dice films, yet is not as graphic, though usually scarier. The issue of technology is interesting because even when some of it is old, it is also forgotten, so a whole new kind of suspense is here even Clark and writer Roy Moore could not have expected. There are a few story flaws here and there, but the film is so well made, you keep watching. The women characters are not the usual type in the genre and the men are a series of beiger oddballs than you would expect, even in authority, though the film is too naturalistic and realistic. The energy level is pitch perfect and it pretty much is an unacknowledged classic... |
| | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
| |  | |  |
| | | | 
| Predating Halloween (1978), this Canadian produced horror flick has its feisty or frightened college girls stalked by a maniac at their sorority house, where there's an obscene telephone caller on a line from inside the house, an idea furthered in Fred Walton's When A Stranger Calls (1979). Also, the old dark house becomes like another character in the film, too, explored in detail by a prowling camera in a slick expressive style that was later championed by Argento for Suspiria (1976) and Inferno (1980). However, there's far more here than just the anticipation of slasher trends, and Black Christmas (aka: Silent Night, Evil Night; or Stranger In The House) is one of the greatest suspense thrillers of the mid-1970s, its cast of genre stalwarts, including Margot Kidder of Brian De Palma's Sisters (aka: Blood Sisters, 1973), all seemingly at home with this exploitation material, and there's much enjoyment to be found in the likeable characters' lively banter.
Director Bob Clark came to this project from the weird and unsettling Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972), going on to make the Sherlock Holmes' classic mystery Murder By Decree, the hugely successful but actually pretty lame teen crowd-pleaser Porky's (1981), and underrated satire Turk 182! (1985). Clark has since acquired something of a cult following, one that's well deserved on the evidence of this, still very impressive, low-budget feature. |
| | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
| | | | |
|
