Black Christmas (1974) - Classic Christmas Archive

|December 20/2010|

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A real troubled psychopath has found a new home in the attic of a sorority and he often calls them to rant and rave perversities and memories which haunt him from the past involving Billy and Agnes. Who these two are isn't as important as the fact that the person blabbering incoherently and loudly about them is extremely dangerous and unhinged. While some of the sorority girls go on their Christmas vacations, a few remain and they are sharing their college house, unbeknownest to them, with the nutcase who continues to telephone harass them. When one of the girls is suffocated with a plastic bag, her body sitting comfortably in a rocking chair by the killer in the attic, the victim's father will come looking for her. His search, along with the scary phone calls, might just get the police into action..that and another missing girl in the area who was supposed to be coming home by way of the nearby park. What I think allows BLACK Christmas to persevere is the balance of laughs and chills. The mere thought of your house being invaded, without your knowledge, by a real wacko is frightening enough, not to mention the fact that he torments you by phone over and over with horrifying ramblings which make little sense, for the exception that the tone is disturbing. To open the film with the killer climbing up the wall and into the attic through a point-of-view shot really sets the viewer on edge for we experience his invasion personally..in his body, through his sight, we enter the house and know he, in essence, now has an advantage over those within the building. Clark uses the Keir Dullea character of Peter as a red herring, but I never felt he was the one behind the murders in BLACK Christmas. What is established though, and effectively I believe, is Peter's questionable sanity. Peter is quite an intense individual who can act irrational and immature. His whole piano recital goes haywire because Peter reacts through the musical arrangement the anger he feels towards pregnant girlfriend, Jess(Olivia Hussey), who wants an abortion. So even if he isn't the killer, Peter is certainly a bit suspect in behavior. Margot Kidder is obviously the comic relief, although I found her a bit sad because it seems she's using liquor and acidic humor as a means to hide certain underlying troubles and disappointments in life. Her fellatio scene with hapless Sargeant Nash(Doug McGrath) is recognized as a highlight, but her outbursts towards some of the girls(and their reactions of dismay)proves she can be a polarizing presence to those around her. John Saxon is Lt. Fuller, the detective who goes out of his way to find the missing girl(s)in his sleepy Canadian college town. Marian Waldman as the profane, alcohol-guzzling housemother, Mrs. Mac, also earns some giggles as she turns up various liquor bottles she has hidden in the house while grumbling about the demands of her position. James Edmond as the worried father, Mr. Harrison, dedicated to finding his daughter and Art Hindle, in an early part, as the girl's concerned boyfriend. Hussey, the lovely and elegant heroine who loses all of her friends while almost exclusively on the premises(memorable scene being when one of them is stabbed repeatedly with a glass unicorn while her Jess listens intently to carolers), is the anchor of the film, responsible for having to endure those burdensome phone terrorisms. Andrea Martin, the other sorority sister, Phyl, who is one of the unfortunates who stays at the house during the Christmas holiday. Certainly a loaded cast full of talent, but it's really the subject matter and Clark's ingenious methods of mystery in regards to the menace that really lifts this masterpiece of dread to its cult status which maintains thirty years later.

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