December 11, 2008: Black Christmas
The late Canadian director Bob Clark made his name in the 1970s, perhaps most famously with the low-budget and influential horror classic Black Christmas (1974). He went on to direct the popular and much-reviled though in my opinion underrated Porky’s in 1982, and the 1983 cult favourite A Christmas Story (the movie about the kid who wants a BB gun for Christmas). He never really hit it big again after that, largely directing for television in his later years, and was unfortunately killed in a car crash a couple of years ago.
Of course I’ve been familiar with Porky’s for several years, finding the titillating TV commercials for the film appealing even as a young boy. I had heard a lot about A Christmas Story for years but as of this point I had never seen it and resolved to remedy that with my family this Christmas season. And I had never bothered to watch Black Christmas, despite my interest in the roots of horror films and how they have all borrowed techniques from one another through the decades. It was time to finally to see what this one is all about.
Black Christmas occurs at a sorority house one evening around Christmas. The young ladies are being terrorized by a strange person repeatedly phoning them and threatening them. One by one, they start to disappear, and the police try to help but are baffled when they can’t figure out how the caller is involved. Eventually we’re left with just one young woman being chased through the house as the cops figure out what’s actually been going on through the evening. Lots of people are killed, but one escapes and survives. Sound familiar?
Well, it wasn’t quite so familiar back in the day. This film is acknowledged as being part of the inspiration for Halloween and other films following a similar pattern. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was also released in 1974 and ends up following a similar pattern of members of the group disappearing one by one until just one young woman remains and is rescued. We’re witnessing the birth of the modern horror film.
I suppose in a certain way it’s perverse that I was playing a video game, namely one of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, while watching this movie. They say that violence in movies and video games turns people violent these days. Maybe two wrongs make a right? At the very least, it may contribute to a lack of attention span, as might be observed in this review up to this point.
Worth noting is the cast of this film. There’s a small but notable very early role for Margot Kidder, who later became well-known on the big screen as Lois Lane in the Superman movies. Andrea Martin, later of the SCTV television spinoff from the Second City sketch comedy troupe, cut her teeth on 1970s grungy Canadian B-movies, having appeared the previous year with Eugene Levy in Cannibal Girls. And Olivia Hussey is the lone girl at the end. It seems to be that I’ve always liked her, yet I can’t remember her from anything other than the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli version of Romeo and Juliet, but she brought such an innocent, fresh-faced energy to that role, I guess it left an impression. It was great to see her again here in Black Christmas.
Speaking of Cannibal Girls, another thing it shares in common with Black Christmas is that they were both “tax credit” Canadian movies of the 1970s. As the Canadian government tried to bring more filmmaking north of the border, generous tax credits were offered, which resulted in a number of movies, such as these, which because of this financial structure didn’t need nearly as much box office success in order to make money. For any of them that did hit it big, it was just a big bonus on a minimal investment.
Black Christmas is well worth a look for anyone who is interested in the roots of modern horror films. It’s a good example from the genre, but it’s still solidly OF the genre, so if that doesn’t do it for you, it might be best to stay away.
Post a Comment