Black Christmas (1974) [Revisited]

I originally saw and "reviewed" Black Christmas back in 2010, and if you're wondering why "review" is in quotation marks, go ahead and click on the link. For what it's worth, we weren't exactly trying to write actual reviews in those days - this all started out as sort of a novelty Christmas blog where the gag was we were binging as much holiday stuff as possible and writing about the experience. Sharing our discomfort as we sat through genres we didn't enjoy was all part of the fun. Or so we hoped.

But over the years this site has evolved, as have my taste in movies and my knowledge of the history of Christmas media. Even back then, we knew Black Christmas was important (which is why we included it that first year). And as I've encountered various think pieces exploring the film, it became clear I really needed to revisit it.

Having rewatched it, I still wouldn't say I enjoyed the experience, but it's far more nuanced and interesting than I originally gave it credit for. The control of tone is impressive, and the last act is genuinely scary, which is rare in horror from the era. This is, in short, a good horror movie, particularly in the context of when it came out.

The movie chronicles a sorority house where members are being murdered by a serial killer hiding in the attic right before Christmas. While it takes a while to become apparent, the movie has a main character: Jess (played by Olivia Hussey), who's just discovered she's pregnant and is planning to get an abortion over the objections of her boyfriend. Throughout the movie, Jess receives a number of lewd, anonymous phone calls from the aforementioned killer.

Jess is the archetypical "final girl" (arguably the original). Joining her (at least until their grisly deaths) are Phyl, Claire, Barb (played by Margot Kidder), and their housemother, Mrs. MacHenry. Claire is the first to die: she's suffocated, and her body is taken to the attic and placed in a chair, an image that would adorn the movie's posters. Mrs. MacHenry eventually stumbles across the scene only to be murdered and left hanging on a hook. No one finds either of their bodies. No one's even looking for MacHenry, since she had a trip scheduled around the time of her disappearance.

The sorority girls go to the police for help with the anonymous calls, but the first cop they interact with is fairly useless. Eventually, they meet up with a more competent detective who takes the matter seriously. By then, Claire's father has also shown up looking for his missing daughter, so there are multiple suspicious events connected to the sorority. They tap the phone, hoping to determine who's placing the calls. Through this, Jess is also dealing with her boyfriend, who's becoming a bit unhinged after learning she's pregnant and planning to get an abortion. The movie, to its credit, films these from Jess's perspective and portrays her as the rational one, while the boyfriend is depicted as emotionally unbalanced.

The pace picks up when the body of a missing local teenager is discovered murdered in a nearby park. The movie never tells us for certain whether she's a victim of the same killer, but I assume that's the implication. Regardless, the police become more invested in finding Claire and in determining the identity of the caller. When they finally trace the call, they learn (pause for suspense) the call's coming from inside the house. They tell Jess to leave immediately, but she runs to fetch Barb and Phyl, only to discover them murdered. She also spots the killer's eye as he watches her from behind a door. He chases her, and she hides in the basement, where she's found by her boyfriend.

Unfortunately for him, by this point she believes he's the killer (as do the cops), and she kills him with a fire poker off camera. The police find her traumatized and barely conscious. They take her to her bed while they deal with the rest of the scene. When Claire's father collapses, as well, they rush him to the hospital, leaving Jess alone. The camera then moves to the attic to show us Clair and Mrs. MacHenry's bodies. We also hear the killer, implying he's still up there.

Like I said at the start, I still don't love this. A lot of that comes down to genre preference and the era this was made: until the last act, it's paced pretty slowly. I also don't find the humor - of which there's a surprising amount - all that entertaining (I don't find Bob Clark's other beloved holiday film, A Christmas Story, funny, either, so adjust your expectations accordingly).

That's entirely subjective. I do have at least one issue I consider more substantial: the movie really doesn't seem interested in exploring the sorority girls' relationships with each other. We're shown they care about each others' safety, but their relationships ultimately come off as casual and superficial.

To be fair, there's a pretty good reason for this. Clark set out to portray the girls as mature, realistic people (as explained in this article from Slashfilm). In a huge departure from the usual depiction of young women in 70's movies, they discuss sex openly, they swear, and they mock authority. I imagine this was extremely refreshing when the movie came out, and it's deserving of praise. However, looking at the film in hindsight, it does feel like it overcompensates and fails to show us meaningful emotional connections between the main characters, which in turn sacrifices an opportunity to invest us emotionally with them.

I feel like this would have been less notable had the movie revolved around Barb, the crassest, hardest-drinking, most caustic of the girls. I kept waiting for her callousness to flip around into toughness, but she winds up devolving into a mess too drunk to realize she actually saw the killer at a point where the knowledge might have saved her.

I don't want to disparage Jess: as a POV character, she's fine. But she's also kind of a blank slate. Of all the girls, she has the least personality. I think she needed stronger onscreen connections to other characters to fully sell the weight of the story.

But since we're discussing Jess, I should probably touch on the aspects of the character admittedly ahead of their time. Hell, treating a college kid seeking an abortion because a child would interfere with her plans as a mature adult is still unusual in movies today. That said, I'm not entirely convinced the movie was trying to paint her decision in a favorable light. There's a scene towards the end where she watches a group of kids singing carols that could be interpreted as her having second thoughts.

Or maybe it's just trying to show us that the decision to have an abortion shouldn't be equated with a dislike of children. There are quite a few ways we could take that moment, including some that are ambiguous. Which is arguably the case with most of the movie's themes, honestly. Earlier, I linked to an article that was celebrating the movie for its feminist themes. I'll link it again - it's worth reading regardless of your feelings towards this film. But while I like the article, I'm not sure I agree.

To be clear, I'm not sure I disagree, either. And, right or wrong, it's an interesting take. I've seen similar analyses of the movie elsewhere, and I certainly see where they're coming from. But if that's the point of the movie, I find the execution a bit muddled. For instance, if the movie is trying to illustrate that the safety of women is undervalued, it's odd to portray the higher-ranking male police officers as effective public servants (at least until the ending, which... more on that in a moment). Likewise, it's a little difficult to reconcile that reading with sequences that contrast Claire's level-headed conservative father with the more outlandish Mrs. MacHenry and Barb.

That said, there's something to be said for this treating its female characters as complex people, and the fact the movie's message - assuming it was intended to have one at all - is unclear isn't necessarily a problem. The act of showing sexually active college women as realistic, intelligent people in a '70s horror film could be considered progressive in itself, even if the movie doesn't manage to say anything further on the subject. It's also worth acknowledging the movie never treats its characters as eye candy, as would become the norm in the subgenre this helped spawn. While there's an implicitly exploitative aspect to slashers, this never shows the women nude or frames their bodies as something for the viewer to enjoy. Their deaths are depicted as horrific, rather than exciting, which is unfortunately more than I can say for some horror movies.

Setting politics aside for a moment (though perhaps not too far aside), I want to talk a little more about the ambiguous ending, an aspect I complained about fourteen years ago. The movie never tells us who the killer was, nor is it clear as to Jess's fate, choices Clark apparently fought for. In my original review, I argued the ending added nothing to the narrative, and the idea the police would leave without even searching the attic was laughably absurd.

I'd very much like to retract those points.

First, the ending reinforces the underlying sense you're hearing a folktale or having a bad dream. Tonally, the movie conveys these through the way the killer and bodies are shot throughout the film, as well as the score and the inhuman phone calls. The resolution doesn't need to make logical sense; I'm embarrassed I ever thought otherwise.

Mea culpa.

It's almost worth exploring whether the killer is symbolically linked to Jess's pregnancy. In a sense, his presence in the building mirrors an impregnation, and there's an infantile aspect to the way he talks. He references her pregnancy and planned abortion on the calls, too. I have no idea whether this was intentional, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Though, again, I'm unsure how to interpret it. Under that reading, you could just as easily view the movie as a horror about the fear of unwanted pregnancy and the significance of choice as a condemnation of the decision to abort. Perhaps the ambiguous ending is an invitation to read whatever politics you want into the story. There's nothing wrong with the approach, assuming it's what Clark was going for.

Regardless, I feel like I have a much better idea for why this is as beloved as it is, and I have a great deal more respect for the film than I had after my original viewing fourteen years ago. That said, I still wouldn't say I like it. The pacing through the first two acts drags by today's standards. And, while I think the last act is good as a horror, this isn't really a type of horror I personally enjoy.

Whether or not you should track the film down depends on your interest in the history of slashers, your curiosity about the politics, and your tolerance for slow-paced horror. If the first two pique your interest and the last isn't a deal-breaker, by all means check this out. It's a classic for a reason, regardless of whether or not it's my cup of tea.