Review : Black Christmas (1974)

Another gift from the great Internet, the Canadian horror film - 1974's Black Christmas. Great horror, must not miss!

Pictured: Prey

The plot can be summarised with one of its rename - Stranger In The House, which means, there is a stranger in the house. Catch is, you don't know it, and it is killing the tenant. Simple ay? Some psycho get into attic of a sorority house as his base and start killing the tenant there after some sick phone call he made prior to the killing. Since the killing happens around Christmas night, thus, the film is called Black Christmas, and none of the leads are black.

We have the 70s Louis Lane before she got into Hollywood and eventually got mad.

Well, the interesting part is, the viewers already know the killer is in the house all the while, so the suspense is how will the characters in the movie learn about it, and what will be the reaction. Although the method is relatively old fashioned, but we are teased with a few red herrings through out the films until the climax where the nice pretty survivor (at least until the credit roles) learn the shocking truth that the killer is with them all the while.

John Saxon, remember him? Nancy's father in Nightmare of Elm Street. Still playing a police, this time a smart one, the believer.

And who is the killer? No fancy name like Leatherface or Pinhead or Lecter. He is simply known as Billy, and even this is what we deduce it to be. He does not have special gimmicks on how he looks. No mask, no weird costume, no favourite method of killing. In fact other than his jeans and clothes, we only manage to see his hands, and one of his eyes. Most of the scene with him are shot from his POV, which is the most interesting part of this movie.

No blood, but horrible enough, especially when its rocking on the chair.

The film has a balance between drama and action. The plot may look slow paced, but it serves it purpose. If only the phone call scenes can be made better, like in Japanese horror, but then, it was the 70s, the Ring hasn't even out yet. Not only we can't see how the killer looks like, the obscene phone calls he made is rather blurry, not those deep voice trying-to-play-game like voice as in Scream series.

Obviously this gorgeous lady is the survivor.

While all those stabbing and slitting are not explicitly shown, but the out come is shocking enough with the make up effect. Sometimes, even if you gut out a person it may not look scary when you gutting him, most of the time it is the finish product that is stomach twitching.

Your room is not the safest place...

Again, although it's a teen slasher horror, and all happens in a sorority house for ladies, there is no nudity and it is good, so we can focus of their expression rather than their breasts! Still, horror in the 70s never fail to give us some haunting and traumatic images~!

The killer, Billy. The only part of his face we got to see in the entire movie.