Black Christmas (1974)

Memorable, crazy movie

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The 70's were without a doubt the golden era of horror films. Many brilliant classics have been produced in that time and "Black Christmas" is one of them. This is the godfather of all slasher films and rarely surpassed - "Halloween" would be on the same level as this one. Some argue that the first ever slasher made was Mario Bava's "A Bay Of Blood" which came out three years earlier from "Black Christmas". If you are a fan of the genre I would definitely recommend it since it does contain heavy elements common to the genre but nevertheless "Black Christmas" has a look that is considered modern even today. It has all the ingredients that make a great horror film: creepy atmosphere, tension that never lets go, nice camera work, eerie soundtrack and a nice mystery. There is even some dark humour thrown in. You will not be bored for even a second. The characters are interesting as well; they are not all your cliche college students which became very common in future slashers. Highly recommended to every true fan of classic horror.

First off I want to say the remake is totally lame but this one is awesome! It's a fun slow burn horror film and this is before John Carpenter HalloweeN film came out. The story is good, the acting is great, and the script is good. The phone calls are down right disturbing like it's better than the remakes phone call. Yeah this movie is a pre Scream world at the time but it's effective still. The kills are creative but the sad part about this movie is that it's forgetable like not alot of people know this movie. This is my review on Black Christmas (1974), a forgetable underrated classic.

Halloween (1978) is often credited for kick-starting the slasher film craze that went into hyper-drive after the subsequent success of Friday the 13th (1980). But it could be reasonably argued that there were much earlier films which could more accurately be said to have laid the groundwork for this sub-genre such as several Italian gialli such as Mario Bava's Bay of Blood (1971) or Sergio Martino's Torso (1973). But it should also not be forgotten that the Canadian film Black Christmas touched on many of the ideas that would become slasher clichés in later years and should most certainly be considered a hugely influential and significant work. For my money, this one tops all of the aforementioned movies and remains one of the absolute classics of the horror genre. Set during the Christmas holidays, a psychopath surreptitiously enters a sorority house and hides out in the attic; from here he commits a series of brutal murders.This one scores in that it manages to combine what was a pretty original horror concept in 1974 within the framework of a story populated with well-rounded characters and a sense of realism. The cast is great and all do fine work here. We have a commendably serious performance from Olivia Hussey as the main protagonist, better still is Margot Kidder in a scene stealing role as the constantly drunk live-wire Barb, Marion Waldman puts in an amusing turn as the alcoholic dorm lady, Doug McGrath is very funny as the idiotic inept cop at the station, genre favourite John Saxon is great as ever as the police captain and Keir Dullea is suitably odd as the slightly unhinged music student boyfriend of Hussey's character. This type of top drawer talent and properly thought-out characters are very welcome in a sub-genre which would go on to be synonymous with paper thin characters who were little more than cannon fodder for a maniac. In Black Christmas we have an actually rather disturbing killer who is even more frightening in that he stores the bodies of his victims in the attic totally unbeknownst to any of the other characters. He also indulges in some highly creepy obscene phone calls to the girls in the house – these were practically as disturbing as any of his acts of murder. In fairness, the film is not overtly violent and much of its fear factor comes from the more psychological end of the spectrum.In amongst all this is another surprise – humour that is genuinely amusing. The scene where Saxon confronts McGraths dozy cop about the questionable name of the sorority house he had witlessly taken down is comedy gold. Director Bob Clark's previous film, the quirky zombie film Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972), was far more directly about eliciting laughs but it sort of failed to be scary at all. With Black Christmas he delivered a far superior product and truly directs this one with great skill. The festive atmosphere really works in this one's favour too with the snowy Christmas background adding a lot of additional atmosphere. This is also a film which is not afraid to ultimately hold back information and never feels the need to explain absolutely everything. This mystery which can never be fully explained adds additional intrigue to proceedings and ultimately winds up with a rather bleak, yet very effective ending. In summary, Black Christmas is a genuine horror classic and a film so well made that it rewards repeat viewings.

I've seen this on Christmas Eve and I honestly thought it was gonna be a good movie. However, I felt disappointed when we still didn't get to see the killer caught and yet, the audience like myself knew who done it. If they ever thought about a Christmas horror film, at least give it a proper ending and not be messing it up like as if we'll leave it at that! Hello, I was getting interested in seeing one of the girls boyfriend get caught. I wish I had something more to say about this film, its just it left a bad question mark for me and thats why Im giving this a 6/10 rating instead of 8/10.........