Anyone who knows me will tell you that a have something of a soft spot for slasher films. Good or bad, I do love the schlocky nature of the majority of them, and the very simple premise of a bunch of teenagers getting killed by masked men means I can easily just turn my brain off and enjoy the ride. And for those of you who have been with me for these Christmas reviews before you will know I have covered my fair share of Christmas based slasher films, which are mostly pants (even if I did love Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987) for the so bad it is good nature of it). So, you would forgive me for going into Black Christmas (1974) expecting much more of the same. How wrong I was. The film follows a sorority house who have been receiving disturbing phone calls from a mysterious person. Shortly after these calls begin one of the members of the sorority goes missing, leading to a town-wide manhunt. But the real answers, and the true horror, are all found in the house…
The heyday of the slasher film was the 1980s, all inspired by the success of one of the classics of horror cinema, Halloween (1978). Going into this film I didn’t bother to check the release date and so automatically assumed this was one of the films that came during this boom. I was even spotting moments in the film that seemed to be direct pulls from Halloween, or moments where it would go against the conventions of the genre that were almost invented by that film. Imagine my shock then when I discovered that Black Christmas pre-dated Halloween by four years! Upon learning this my whole outlook on the film changed. I had gone from thinking this film was inspired by John Carpenter’s classic to realising that this very much influenced that film. The fingerprints are all over it, no more so than in the film’s use of POV to put the audience in the position of the killer. This film opens with this particular shot, and it reuses it several times throughout to great effect in creating an eerie and unsettling feeling throughout the entire film. And if I am being honest, and this may come as being sacrilegious, but I think this film may actually be better than Halloween.
I have to admit that this hot take probably comes from the fact that I have seen Halloween a ridiculous number of times and so my initial opinion of the film may very well have been lost due to the number of times I have seen it. But I am not lying when I say that Black Christmas is one of the best horror films I have seen in a good while. This isn’t hyperbole either, I think this is an extremely effective horror film. The first thing to mention is that I felt genuine tension throughout the film, especially towards the climax. And this is in a slasher film, a genre that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to great tension. And that is because this film creates characters that I cared about, which again is not a slasher staple. But I genuinely feared for these characters and wanted them to survive, and this means that when they are threatened, I felt genuine tension. The film also manages to create tension throughout with its choice of shots, with the film employing a technique I love in horror films, which is putting the danger in the corner of the screen. This is usually done in shadow, so you have yourself questioning whether that is actually the killer or a trick of your mind. The use of this technique also means that when the film employs still shots of the empty house you are almost expecting something to appear in the corner and it adds so much dimension to what would be normally pretty bland shots. It is hard to explain exactly why it works so well, but it is so effective. Add to this some great moments of comedic levity and you have yourself an extremely effective and fun slasher film.
If Halloween is the granddaddy of the slasher film, then Black Christmas is the forgotten member of the family, and it deserves so much more recognition than it receives. Yes, it has two remakes (and we will get to them) but I hardly ever hear people speak about this film. It doesn’t tend to appear in lists of horror classics, and yet it is an incredibly effective piece of horror cinema. If you are into slasher films it is an absolute must-watch, and I would say the same if you are into genuinely tense and engaging horror cinema in general. It is a film I wish I had seen earlier and one I will definitely be returning to.
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