 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. This is for the 1974 release Black Christmas, and this is a most highly revered holiday horror movie and myself included with that because I quite quite quite enjoy this film. I had a great time doing the notes and rewatching this and I'm very excited to do this review. So when I am doing this review, it is still available for streaming on the Shutter streaming service but I actually watched it with the recent purchase I made of the Black Christmas Blu-ray that I got through Scream Factory, which by the way, they did a really good job with this. I have never seen the movie look as good as it does on this Blu-ray, and I know there are a lot of, you know, special features that look really awesome. I have not gotten into those yet. I'm very excited to. But I mean just the cover art on this looks really nice. Love it. Anyway, directed by Bob Clark. If people don't know, he's done other things such as children shouldn't play with dead things, death dream, breaking point, murder by decree, porkies, porkies to the next day, a Christmas story, yes, a Christmas story, baby geniuses, and super genius, or super babies, baby geniuses too. So kind of all over the place with his movies. The first film I ever saw by this individual by Clark was a Christmas story. It's probably the same situation for a lot of people. It is crazy to look at this film and look at a Christmas story and realize it's done by the same person. Very different. It's just nuts, but it's awesome. I mean, great filmmaker. The script for this was written by Roy Moore, who also wrote scripts for The Last Chase, as well as the Black Christmas 2006 remake, which is the very first iteration of Black Christmas I ever saw. I saw it in the theater. Didn't even know about the original at that point. I didn't know I was watching a remake. I was in about the film and I should probably revisit it just to just to see how I feel about it now. Probably not nearly as as well as the original. It was originally titled Stop Me and was originally released in the United States as Silent Night Evil Night. The reason for that was they didn't want to release it initially as Black Christmas because during that time there had been a bunch of Black exploitation films and they didn't want people to get confused and believe it to be a Black exploitation film. So Silent Night Evil Night actually is a good title, but I like Black Christmas more. The original script actually had gorier kills to it, but Clark thought that it would be much better if they played it kind of subtle, that it would actually have more impact that way. I think he may be right. I do like how it is played more subtle. I do like that the kills are very violent and it's insinuated that they're violent and the way that camera work is done insinuates that it's very violent and savage, but you're not seeing a lot of gore. You're not seeing a lot of the violence. You don't see anyone actually die like the life leave them. You see the bodies afterwards. I think your brain, if you haven't watched the film in a while, just kind of fills that stuff in, which actually happens with Texas Chainsaw Massacre as well. You don't actually see people get killed in that film a lot of the times. You just fill it in with your brain, just naturally does it. So people will be like, oh my gosh, it's so gory. It's so brutal, but it's not really that gory or brutal. So same type of thing. The phone call audio was added in post and the actresses, when they were doing the acting that is on film reacting to the phone calls, that was actually Bob Clark yelling things at them from off screen. So they were reacting to different things. They didn't know what the voice and the noises were actually going to sound like until after it was done. Carl Zitterer, who did the music for the film, said that he had tied forks, knives, and combs to piano wires to distort the music. He had also then replayed it and recorded it while putting stress on the recording, something like that to kind of mess it up, which it sounds great. Like the soundtrack for this is very good. It's very creepy. It really, I think, helps to maintain tension a lot of the time. Another thing to point out about noise-related things, Nick Mancuso, who's the person who was the killer, who ended up doing all the voice work for those phone calls and everything. He actually apparently, in order to get the sound and make it so kind of like guttural and disturbing and stressed, he apparently would stand on his head basically and have pressure put to like his abdomen area and kind of talk like that and do all of his acting that way. And that's kind of how he got that sound. Very interesting information. Malcolm McDowell was originally offered the role of Peter. That would have been very interesting. I love Malcolm McDowell. I think he's a great actor. Betty Davis was offered the role of Mrs. Mack. Also would have been interesting. And Gilda Radner was originally going to be Phyllis. She had actually signed on to be Phil, Phyllis, before she ended up having too many obligations with Saturday Night Live at the time and she had to drop out and then that was recast. Margot Kidder insisted on actually drinking real alcohol whenever her character Barb was drinking alcohol on screen. So I think that's a cool little tidbit to know when you're watching the film that every time she's cracking a beer or swinging on some booze, that's real. She's actually doing it. So that makes me wonder, was she actually drunk at times? Because you do multiple takes of scenes. So depending on how many multiple takes and what her alcohol tolerance was, she could have legitimately been sloshed during part of that. So maybe some of it was just acting drunk or maybe some of it was actually drunk. I don't know. Though you don't find out anything about Billy himself, the killer, Bob Clark did create a backstory for Billy. I found this very, very interesting when I was doing research. Okay, so this is the backstory that Bob Clark worked up for Billy. He was abused as a child, locked in the attic and eventually killed, ended up killing his parents. When he ends up referring to Agnes because he says the name Agnes a lot, he is referring to his little sister who he actually tried to kill, but ended up escaping. And the fact that he tried to kill her and she escaped is what set up his kind of dislike of women. And that's why he was going after just these women at the sorority house. So there you go. Now that backstory was actually used somewhat for the 2006 remake. So I found it very, very interesting that that backstory was available for the making of this film. Very, very interesting. So Bob kind of had a frame of reference and I'm sure he gave that to Mancuso as well to work with. I always find those things interesting when there's kind of like a secret story worked out for a character that you don't find out about until, you know, decades later. Clark was actually, Bob Clark apparently was actually working on a sequel to Black Christmas in 2007 when he died. He was actually hit by a drunk driver and killed, which really blows. I mean, it makes me sit around and wonder like what would he have done for a sequel to Black Christmas? And would it have involved the new year? Would it have been Black New Year? I don't know. Would have been interesting. Many involved with the film fought to change the ending, believe it or not, but Clark actually refused to change it at numerous times and even won many of them over when they finally saw the finished film. A lot of people didn't like the idea of it ending with Billy still being alive or actually the killer not being Peter, the killer being someone you don't really know and don't have the backstory for and still just up there in the attic. So he fought vehemently for that and kudos to him because I love the ending. I think the ending's great. They hit you with Christmas in this film very hard immediately with the Christmas music, with all the lights lit up at the sorority house, so you know it's definitely a Christmas film. The killer point of view, or I'll just call it POV shot from here on out. So the killer POV camera work is so effective at being unnerving and they use it very, very early on in the film, which I love. It just really sets the stage with how early it's used and how effective it is. Now a lot of people have said that this was kind of like the beginning of that kind of killer POV, but I know that a lot of Gialo films from Italy had actually done that prior. So in the United States maybe it was kind of the first time it was really being seen, but it had been done before. But very effective and I thought they did an excellent job of it in this film throughout. Actually seeing Billy climbing the lattice moves the tension up super fast. So you're starting out not only are you seeing this killer POV shot, but then you see him actually scaling the side of the sorority house, going up the lattice and then you know, because you end up following even further, he gets into the attic, he ends up coming down through the attic while there's basically a party going on, people are drinking and having fun. So it's this interesting dichotomy then of a, you know, raucous awesome time happening on the main level and then upstairs some killer coming in the attic, coming down through the attic door and going, you don't know where at that point. And just knowing that he is around in the house. And as an audience member, you're like who's getting it? You know, like when is he going to run into people? Who's he going to kill? How many people is he going to kill? Is anyone going to be able to see him and stop him and how long is that going to take? So I really like the setup. The phone calls are very unsettling and unhinged. It gives the audience the idea this person has no rational side. And the first call is even more chilling because the voice goes normal just as it says, I'm going to kill you. And then hangs up. This indicates it's not just crazy ranting going on with this, but there's kind of a rational plan of violence to it. Because prior to saying that one line in a normal voice, it's kind of like these, like a crazy person's rantings and ravings and just like noises and people like, well, this person's not, they're unhinged. And you wouldn't really take someone like that seriously necessarily, but it shows some level of planning and some level of cognizance of what you're doing when it switches to that normal voice and says, I'm going to kill you. So I found that very chilling and effective for the film. The jump scare of Billy grabbing the first victim with the plastic garment is savage. Once again, this goes back to what I was saying about how it's shot in a very intense, savage, violent way, even though you're not really seeing the person die and it's not gory. So it's very effective. And a lot of that just comes down to the acting and the way they shot it, in my opinion. Plus, I just love the shots of the POV of Billy inside the closet looking through that garment bag. Very, very cool idea because it's all distorted, just looks good. Mrs. Mack, the boozehound, is an amazing character. I love that character in this. She adds such a level of levity to the film. And there are other things that add levity to the film. There are jokes kind of thrown in. There's actual humor that is kind of funny, but it does a great job of not messing up the overall atmosphere of kind of dread and tension and creepiness. So they work well together. I particularly like about Mrs. Mack when you're finding all her little hiding spots for her booze. My favorite one in particular, the one in the toilet tank, the back tank of the toilet. I love that one, which pulls up the string and there it is and just rinses her mouth out with it, basically. The cut to the dead body rocking in the attic chair is brilliant and they actually do that a few times. And especially with how long it's focused on so you can kind of take in the horror of the facial expression of the dead person. I think it's Claire is the one. Yeah, and they do that at the end as well, like really focusing on it. So you're seeing her dead expression. It's very unsettling. And that's just one of the things overall that's really done in this film are the feelings of like being unnerved and being being unsettled. Great, just really good. Mrs. Mack talks about how immoral she thinks the girls in the house are, which kind of shows their impurity that potentially leads to their targeting by Billy. And this kind of sets up what ends up coming later within the slasher genre of people who are impure, immoral, get killed. You know, this this is kind of laying those tracks for films to come, not intentionally, obviously. The whole abortion situation. Okay, I'm going to talk about the abortion situation in this film, but I'm going to kind of pretext this with the fact that during my research, it is reported in an interview that Bob Clark said that the abortion thing isn't wasn't put in there to to go either way to be to say anything about pro-abortion or anti-abortion, that he said it was just thrown in there as something for the characters to talk about. Now, I'm not sure if that's really true because the level that it's used in the film is, I mean, it's effective because it's kind of used as a, it's not just something to talk about, it ends up being used as kind of a thing that ties potentially Peter to being the killer. So I'll talk about that. The whole abortion situation is a way to cast suspicion on Peter as the killer. And later also, when he plays piano, the piece he plays is discordant and dark, which plays as an auditory expression of his emotions and potentially his mental state, at least a, you know, a peer appearance of that to the audience at the time. Then he goes even further and he destroys the piano showing a propensity potentially for violence. Then he shows up in the house without Jess knowing he was there and she tells him she won't marry him. So all these things kind of just build up, build up, build up throughout the film so that it totally seems to the audience, it's got to be Peter. And then especially at the end, when he shows up after she's already been running from the killer and you're like, Oh yeah, you know, it's got to be Peter. So I love that in the end it is not Peter because it is so mysterious. And it's one of those things that like much like in in other horror films like creature features, when you don't necessarily see the entire creature, your mind, your imagination creates something so much scarier, so much more shocking for you personally. And I think this film kind of does that, especially because there's no backstory to Billy. So you kind of just wonder like what happened to this person? Why are they doing this? What drove them to this? So I think it works really well for that. You don't see Mrs. Max's death, but the setup drives home that it's going to be very violent and gruesome. Once again, another one of those things with kind of, you know, pulling it back a bunch with the gore and it having plenty of impact at the same time. The carolers that come about and distract Jess, I think is a was a cool little thing that they did that not only brought Jess away from Barb so that she could be killed with the glass unicorn, which that's my favorite kill, probably a lot of people's favorite kill in the film. But also it's the the fact that the carolers are making so much noise that when Barb makes some noise when she's being stabbed to death, she can't hear it. Jess can't hear it. And it's reasonable within that context that she would not hear it. So it works quite well. That's one of those things of integrating something into the script that when you see it in the film, it just makes sense and you don't question it. You're not like, oh, this just seems like it's in there for the convenience of moving the story where they want to. So the crazy thing is when Jess and Phil go around locking all the windows and doors, they are actually locking themselves inside with Billy. Now, obviously they don't know this at the time, but you as the audience member do know this because the entire time Billy has just been sneaking around the house. I mean, I guess, well, I guess you might assume if you were believing that it was Peter on your first watch through, you may assume that he was kind of coming and going, but upon your second viewing and ever all the viewings after that, because let's be honest, if you watch Black Christmas once and liked it, you're going to watch it many more times. You do know that they're locking themselves in, which I find very interesting to kind of think about that while it's happening. You have to hand it to Jess. She's a badass going upstairs for Barb and Phil after she just found out that Billy is in the house. Literally when they say the call is coming from inside the house, which that's where all of that stuff started in this film because it's shown up in many other horror films since and some other films, I believe as well. So she gets that information and they're literally telling her like, get out, get out of the house. You got to get out right now, but she's a badass. She grabs the, I think it was the fireplace, the poker and goes upstairs and goes looking for her friends, knowing full well there is a killer, a confirmed killer inside the house. Badass. The shot of Billy's eye through the crack in the door when Jess is going into Barb's room and him whispering and he whispers this line, Agnes, don't tell what we did. It's unbelievably creepy. The sound of it, the way it was shot, it looks so good. It looks so scary, so creepy. Bob Clark, man. Bob Clark, so good. The discovery that the call was from inside the house is such a great moment. As a viewer, you felt tense the whole time, but at this moment, the characters become aware of what's going on as well. Love it, love it, love it. Plus, like I was saying, you know, on your first viewing, maybe that's the first time you're finding out that the killers never left, that they just keep calling from inside the house. Also note, real quick, note, because I didn't pick this up the first time I watched it, and maybe not even the second time I watched it. Graham, the one guy who was in there tapping the phones, when he was in there tapping the phones, he actually makes reference to another phone line in the house because they asked if he tapped everything and he said, well, I tapped, you know, this main phone line there. He said there is another phone line, but no phone calls have come into it. Now he says have come into it. He didn't say anything about calls going out. And so that kind of sets up already the premise that there is another line inside the house so that later when it's said the call is coming from inside the house, you can think back and say, oh, well, they've already actually said this. So yes, there is another line in the house. They laid the track for that. The ending, in my opinion, is pretty amazing. You think it was Peter and everything is resolved as he's dead laying on Jess's lap, but then the huge surprise and you believe the killing will probably continue. Unfortunately, we didn't get a sequel to this to find out about something like that, but Bob Clark was working on it and they got killed. It's terrible. The film has good humor, but doesn't let that throw off the scary and unsettling atmosphere surrounding the house. As it's known, Billy is lurking around at the whole time. I've kind of already touched on that a little bit, but it does bear repeating. Again, the kills are very violent, but they're very tastefully shot. That's one way to put it. Okay, so my final comment on Black Christmas. Jess is a strong female character who wants to live her life and fend off the relationship constraints. Peter is trying to force on her, while also, at the same time, physically battling a homicidal maniac. Now, what's the importance of this? Both are trying to take her life. Billy in the traditional sense of taking a life, and Peter by trying to relegate Jess to a mother and wife role against her wishes. So, if you consider this, it's really about Jess being assaulted in a way, one physically and one socio-economically, I guess. That's probably not the best term for it, but role in society-wise. So, here's a homicide killer literally trying to take her life from her, and here is Peter trying to take her life from her in a different way because she makes it very well known within the film that she wants to go on and do things. She doesn't want to have the baby, she wants an abortion because it's a mistake, and she wants to still be able to live the life that she wants to live, and if they have that baby, if they get married like he wants to, that all ends for her, and that takes her life away. So, just as Billy is trying to take her life, Peter is trying to take her life as well, and both of them are basically out of her life at the end, well, I guess we don't know for sure about Billy. At least we assume that Jess ends up leaving the house at least for a little bit, but that's where we needed that sequel. But Peter's done, we know that much. Anyway, what am I going to give this film out of five stars with half stars in play? I really, really like this film, so I'm actually between four and a half and five stars on this because I like it so much. I think it's really well done. I don't think it has all the trappings of being a perfect film in my opinion. I don't give five stars out extremely easily. I'm going to go four and a half stars on it. Yes, four and a half. I think four and a half is good. I definitely do. Now, I would love to hear other people's opinions on this. Obviously, put some comments down there. We're going to get really, really nerdy and know that if I did quarter stars, it'd be a 4.75 out of five stars, but love this. This is actually four and a half. It's like the highest I've given in a while on a movie review. Anyway, I really appreciate everyone checking this out. Do me a quick favor though. Hit that subscribe button. That is your best way to repay me. If you like this video or any video I have ever done, just know anytime someone subscribes, I get an email, I look at it, I look at who the subscriber is, and I say, thank you very much. That is an awesome person. Thank you to that person, because I'm really just trying to grow the community here. 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