Black Christmas (1974 film)

Black Christmas
File:Black christmas movie poster.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Bob Clark
Written by	A. Roy Moore
Produced by	Bob Clark
Starring	Olivia Hussey Keir Dullea Margot Kidder John Saxon
Cinematography	Reginald H. Morris
Edited by	Stan Cole
Music by	Carl Zittrer
Production company	Film Funding Limited of Canada
Distributed by	Ambassador Film Distributors (Canada) Warner Bros. (U.S.)
Release dates	December 20, 1974 (1974-12-20) (United States) October 11, 1974 (1974-10-11) (Canada)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	Canada
Language	English
Budget	$620,000
Box office	$4,053,000

Black Christmas is a 1974 Canadian slasher film directed by Bob Clark and written by A. Roy Moore, and largely based on a series of murders that took place in Quebec, Canada around Christmas time. The film's score is by Carl Zittrer. It was distributed by Ambassador Film Distributors in Canada and Warner Bros. in the United States. It follows a group of college students who must face a deranged serial killer lurking in their sorority house. It stars Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, John Saxon, Margot Kidder, and Andrea Martin. A remake of the same name directed by Glen Morgan was released on December 25, 2006.

Plot

A sorority house is hosting a Christmas party, while outside we see a figure climb up the housing trellis and into the open attic window. During the party, sorority sister Jess Bradford (Olivia Hussey) receives an obscene phone call from a recurrent caller the house has deemed "the moaner." His phone calls include random moans, whines, erotic language and absurd impersonations. After Barb provokes the caller, he replies, "I'm going to kill you," then hangs up. Clare Harrison (Lynne Griffin) becomes frightened and goes upstairs to pack up her belongings to leave in the morning, but she is asphyxiated and killed with plastic sheeting by the intruder, who has entered the top floor via the attic. He takes her body to the attic and places her on a rocking chair by the window.

Clare's father, Mr. Harrison (James Edmond Jr.), arrives the following morning to take her home for the holidays as scheduled, but cannot find her. Meanwhile, Jess visits her boyfriend Peter Smythe (Keir Dullea), a serious, but tightly-wound student aspiring to become a professional pianist. She informs him that she is pregnant and plans to have an abortion. Peter becomes upset and orders her not to have the abortion and they will discuss the situation later, after his recital. Mr. Harrison and sorority sisters, Barbara 'Barb' Coard (Margot Kidder) and Phyllis 'Phyll' Carlson (Andrea Martin) arrive at the police station to report Clare's disappearance, however, Sgt. Nash dismisses the report and claims that Clare is possibly hiding with her lover. After Jess informs Clare's boyfriend Chris about the disappearance, they rush to the police station and discuss the situation with Lt. Kenneth Fuller (John Saxon).

Following Clare's disappearance, a mother reports that her daughter, Janice, appears to missing after not returning home from her band practice. Later that evening, Mr. Harrison, Chris and the sorority sisters help the police with the search party in an attempt to find Janice. Meanwhile, the housemother, Mrs. MacHenry (Mariam Haldman) overhears a noise in the attic and investigates. After discovering Clare's body in the attic, she is killed when the killer launches impales her with a crane hook.

File:BILLY!.png

The killer, seemingly Billy, says his infamous line, "Agnes, it's me Billy," before stabbing Barb to death.

The search party eventually find Janice's dead body nearby the park that night. Jess returns home and receives another obscene phone call, this time more disturbing that before. As Jess attempts to contact the police, Peter sneaks up behind her and the two continue to argue over her decision to have an abortion. Peter informs Jess that he wants to give up his dreams and marry her, however, Jess disagrees. Peter becomes frustrated and leaves after Lt. Fuller arrives to discuss the obscene phone calls with Jess. A technician places a trace onto the sorority house phone to discover the whereabouts of each phone call. After Barb is heads upstairs to bed for being "too drunk", she is stabbed to death with a glass unicorn by the killer, her screams covered up by Christmas carolers at the front door.

Jess and Phyll receive another obscene phone call that quotes part of the argument between Peter and Jess, and they suspect it is Peter. However, they remember that Peter was inside the house during one of the calls. Phyll arrives upstairs to check on Barb and the door closes behind her as we hear the whispering voice of the killer.

After Jess receives another obscene phone call, the technician traces the calls and informs Lt. Fuller that the calls are coming from inside the house (possibly from Mrs. MacHenry's separate phone line). Sgt. Nash lets this bit of information slip as he pleads with Jess to leave the house. However, she arms herself with a fireplace poker and heads upstairs to check on Phyll and Barb. After breaking open Barb's bedroom door, she discovers the dead bodies of Phyll and Barb. The killer's eye suddenly appears between the door crack and he tries to grab Jess, but she slams the door on his hand. The killer chases her through the house, but Jess manages to lock herself in the basement. The killer screams and yells as he beats the door savagely. The attack ends abruptly and we hear footsteps walking away, then a door closing. As Jess continues to hide, Peter show up at the window, sees Jess and breaks into the basement. Jess now believes that Peter is the killer. He slowly approaches, asking if she is ok while she grips the fireplace poker. Outside, he police arrive and we hear a woman scream from the basement. When they enter the basement, Jess is seen alive with a bloodied Peter laying against her. Jess has killed Peter with the fireplace poker.

Jess is sedated and left alone in a bed upstairs. The police, confident the Killer was Peter, leave the house as Claire's father faints from the enormity of the situation (and the fact that Claire has still not been found). As Jess sleeps alone, the camera pans slowly down the hall and upstairs to the trapdoor of the attic, where we see it open slightly. Inside the attic, from the killer's POV we see the bodies of Ms. MacHenry and Clare, undiscovered. The killer speaks his final line, "Agnes, it's me, Billy." Cut to the outside of the house, where a lone police officer stands guard on the front porch. As the credits roll, the phone begins to ring.

Cast

• Olivia Hussey as Jess Bradford
• Keir Dullea as Peter Smythe
• Margot Kidder as Barbara 'Barb' Coard
• John Saxon as Lt. Kenneth Fuller
• Marian Waldman as Mrs. 'Mac' MacHenry
• Andrea Martin as Phyllis 'Phyl' Carlson
• James Edmond Jr. as Mr. Harrison
• Doug McGrath as Sgt. Nash
• Art Hindle as Chris Hayden
• Lynne Griffin as Clare Harrison
• Michael Rapport as Patrick Cornell
• Bob Clark (uncredited) as Prowler Shadow / Phone Voice
• Nick Mancuso (uncredited) as The Prowler / Phone Voice

Co-producer Gerry Arbeid cameos in the film as the cab driver who arrives to pick up Mrs. Mac.

Production

Filming of Black Christmas began in early 1974 over an 8-week time schedule in Toronto, Canada, and several scenes were shot around Annesley Hall National Historic Site. The house that the film was shot in is located in 6 Clarendon Crescent. The films budget of $620,000 was shot in 35mm format by utilizing Panavision cameras. Cameraman, Albert J. Dunk, would apparently formed the POV camera by posting a camera onto his back and creep around the house. He crawled up the housing trellis in the beginning of the film as well. According to Bob Clark, due to the surprisingly light snowfall, most of the snow scenes outside of the sorority house were made of foam material provided by a local fire department.

During preparation in 1975 for the films American release, Warner Bros. studio executives asked Clark to change the concluding scene to show Clare's boyfriend, Chris, appear in front of Jess and say, "Agnes, don't tell them what we did," before killing her, however, Clark insisted on keeping the ending ambiguous. The original title of the film was initially planned to be Stop Me. Clark has stated in an interview that he came up with the film's official title, saying that he enjoyed the irony of a dark event occurring during a festive holiday. According to Clark as well, Warner Bros. wanted to change the title to Silent Night, Evil Night, however, Clark decided to keep it as Black Christmas. During later television broadcasting, the film's title was changed to Stranger in the House, however, it was cancelled due to broadcasters deeming it "too scary" for television broadcast.

The composer of the film's score, Carl Zittrer, claimed in an interview that he created the film's mysterious music by tying forks, combs, and knives onto the strings of the piano in order to warp the sound of the keys. Zittrer also stated that he would distort the sound further by recording its sound onto an audio tape and make the sound slower.

Release

Black Christmas was officially released on October 11, 1974, in Canada through Ambassador Film Distributors, and in the United States on December 20, 1974, through Warner Bros., where it grossed $4,053,000. It was released in October 1975 in New York City and Chicago, and previously played under the title Silent Night, Evil Night in Virginia, in July 1975. and grossed over $4,053,00 internationally, managing to earn more than the film's budget of $620,000. The British release removed the word "cunt", and several other crude and sexual references during the obscene phone call scenes by the BBFC.

Home media release

Two editions of the DVD release of the film have been specially designed. A bare-bones release was released on November 6, 2001. The release was followed by a collector's edition that was released on December 3, 2002, containing a making-of documentary, behind-the-scenes footage, and several more bonus content. Critical Mass and Alliance Atlantis released a special edition on December 5, 2006, before the theatrical release of the remake of the film on Christmas day, containing extra and similar bonus content to the previous collector's edition. A Blu-ray edition of the film was released on November 11, 2008.

Critical reception

The film received generally mixed reviews from contemporary critics. According to the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film ranked a score of 59% "fresh" of 13 positive reviews out of 22.

Bill Chambers of Film Freak Festival awarded the film a perfect score of 4 out of 4 stars, calling it a "one of a kind" film. Clint Morris of Moviehole also gave a positive review, calling it "the horror film that started it all," referring to the film's notability as being one of the first slasher films today. Heidi Martinuzzi of Film Threat praised the film's leading actresses, Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder. Keith H. Brown of Eye for Film gave the film a positive review, stating that, "Like Carpenter, Clark avoids graphic gore, focussing instead on suggestion and using careful mise-en-scene, editing and use of music to build suspense." Rob Gonsalves of eFilmCritic gave the film a generally mixed review, saying that, "Frightening in 1974, it really doesn't hold up today unless you can forget the 12,000 films exactly like it, which is difficult." Ryan Cracknell of Movie Reviews gave a generally mixed review as well, saying, "Black Christmas does have some tension, but not as much as you might expect from a thriller. As much as anything else, it's likely do to age and moderately low production values."

The only professional reviews of the film were by The New York Times, who highly criticized the film and awarded a 1 out of 5, calling it "a whodunit that begs the question of why it was made." Variety also gave the film a negative review, stating that the film was heavily clichéd and that "Black Christmas, a bloody, senseless kill-for-kicks feature, exploits unnecessary violence in a university sorority house operated by an implausibly alcoholic ex-hoofer. Its slow-paced, murky tale involves an obscene telephone caller who apparently delights in killing the girls off one by one, even the hapless house-mother." However, Variety's only praise of the film was Mariam Waldman's role as the secretly alcoholic sorority house mother, saying that, "Only Marian Waldman as the house-mother comes across with any life."

Awards and nominations

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films

• 1976: Nominated, "Best Horror Film"

Canadian Film Awards

• 1975: Won, "Best Sound Editing in a Feature" - Kenneth Heeley-Ray
• 1975: Won, "Best Performance by a Lead Actress" - Margot Kidder

Edgar Allan Poe Awards

• 1976: Nominated, "Best Motion Picture" - A. Roy Moore

Cult status

The film gained a fairly decent cult following over the years of its release, and has been praised by fans of the slasher film genre internationally. The Black Christmas fan site has considerably increased the film's popularity over the years. The film ranked #87 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for Lynne Griffin's infamous plastic sheeting scene. During an interview regarding the film, Olivia Hussey met Steve Martin at an industry event and he brought up the fact that she starred in one of his favorite movies of all time. Hussey thought he might have referred to her work in Romeo & Juliet, but was surprised to hear from Martin that it was Black Christmas, which he claimed to have seen 25 times.

Remake

A remake of the film was released on December 25, 2006, and was directed by Glen Morgan (director of the Final Destination series) and produced by James Wong. The film is loosely similar to the original film, containing more graphic scenes, renamed characters, and a focus into the past of Billy, which remained a mystery within the original film. The only cast member of the original film to appear in the film is Andrea Martin, who plays the sorority house mother Barbara 'Mac'Henry, and Bob Clark served as an executive producer.

External links

• Black Christmas at IMDb
• Template:Amg movie
• Black Christmas at Rotten Tomatoes