Black Christmas (1974 film)

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Black Christmas
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Bob Clark
Produced by	Bob Clark
Written by	A. Roy Moore
Starring	Olivia Hussey Keir Dullea Margot Kidder John Saxon Marian Waldman Andrea Martin
Music by	Carl Zittrer
Cinematography	Reginald H. Morris
Editing by	Stan Cole
Studio	Film Funding Limited of Canada
Distributed by	Ambassador Film Distributors Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	December 20, 1974[citation needed] October 11, 1974 December 25, 1975
Running time	98 min.
Country	Canada
Language	English
Budget	$620,000
Gross revenue	$4,053,000

Black Christmas is a 1974 Canadian horror film, directed by Bob Clark, which has a very large cult following. It was written by A. Roy Moore, and based largely on a series of real-life murders in Montreal, Quebec, around Christmas time. Black Christmas stars Olivia Hussey as a young college student who must deal with a deranged killer lurking in her sorority house. Taking only 40 days to shoot, it also features Margot Kidder and Andrea Martin, before either had gained fame in the United States, John Saxon and Keir Dullea round out the cast. The film's score is by Carl Zittrer.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast and Casting 3 Production 3.1 Filming 3.2 Direction 3.3 Music 3.4 Title 4 Release 4.1 Canadian and U.S. releases 4.2 International releases 4.3 Critical reaction 4.4 Network television broadcast 4.5 Cult status 5 Awards and nominations 6 DVD and Blu-ray Releases 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Plot

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this section if you can. (December 2009)

The film opens at a sorority house during a Christmas party, as an unknown man walks towards the house, and climbs up and through the open attic window. We are introduced to the sorority girls, the main ones being Jess Bradford (Olivia Hussey), Barb Coard (Margot Kidder) and Phyllis Carlson (Andrea Martin). The prowler heads outside of the attic into the house and creeps through upstairs. The girls get a phone call from someone they call "The Moaner". The call starts out sexual in nature, but it grows more macabre, with the man on the other end saying strange things in different voices. The shyest sorority girl, Clare Harrison (Lynne Griffin), goes upstairs to pack up; as she does she hears something in her closet. Going in to investigate, the Killer dives out and wraps a plastic bag around her head, asphyxiating her. The sorority girls downstairs give their present to Mrs. Mac, the house mother. With all of the commotion no one hears Clare screaming. Later that night, Jess knocks on Clare's door, and nobody answers. The now-dead Clare is seen in the attic on a rocking chair with the plastic bag wrapped around her head, while the Killer is singing.

The next day, Clare's father arrives to pick her up, but she isn't there. Nobody has seen her since the night before. Jess talks to her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea). Jess is pregnant and they discuss whether or not they should become parents. Peter suggests they get married, but Jess tells him she doesn't want to marry him, or have the baby. Jess, at the house, gets another obscene phone call from the Killer. The sorority girls are at the police station to report that Clare is nowhere to be found. Peter, obviously distraught from his earlier conversation with Jess, fails at playing an important piano recital before judges. Later he is shown in the room smashing the piano.

Back at the house, Mrs. MacHenry gets ready to leave, but hears the cat Claude meowing from somewhere in the attic. Mrs. Mac peers into the attic and sees Clare dead and the Killer holding a crane hook directly in front of her. The hook hits her in the face, killing her, and pulls her up into the attic. The sorority girls, still outside, help look for Clare. Jess, returning to the house, gets another obscene phone call from the Killer. After the call, she meets Peter who wants to talk to her about the baby. She tells him she has decided to get an abortion. Peter begins to behave strangely and becomes emotionally distraught. A police officer is outside keeping an eye on the house, and Peter stays outside behind a tree looking at the house.

Barb, having drunk far too much, heads to bed and the Killer leaves the attic. As Jess and Phyllis listen to carolers outside, the Killer grabs a glass unicorn and stabs Barb repeatedly, with her screams being drowned out by the carolers' singing. Phyllis checks on Barb and, as she enters the room, the killer closes the door and murders her.

Jess gets another obscene phone call. After that, the police call her and tell her that the calls are coming from the inside of the house and to get out. She arms herself with a fireplace poker and goes upstairs to get Barb and Phyllis. Upstairs she opens the door to Barb's room and sees their dead bodies. She sees the Killer's eye behind the door, closes it on him and runs to the front door of the house which is locked. She gets chased by the Killer with a notable shot of the Killer grabbing Jess' hair. She manages to escape and hides in the basement. She then sees Peter who breaks through the basement window. Jess now believes that Peter is the killer. He slowly approaches, asking if she is okay while she grips the fireplace poker. Outside, the police arrive and hear a loud scream. When they enter the basement, Jess is seen alive and stunned with a bloodied Peter laying against her. Jess has killed Peter with the fireplace poker.

Jess is sedated and left in a bed upstairs. The police, confident the Killer was Peter, leave the house as Clare's father faints from the enormity of the situation (and the fact that Clare 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 and someone turns on a torch. Inside the attic, the two bodies of Mrs. Mac and Clare remain undiscovered. We discover the Killer is still alive, and is not Peter, and says "Agnes, it's me, Billy." There is an abrupt cut to the outside of the house, where a lone police officer stands guard on the front porch. The camera pans back and we see Clare, whose face is covered in plastic, sitting in a rocking chair right in front of the attic window. The sound of the trapdoor opening and footsteps down the attic ladder are heard. As the credits roll, the phone begins to ring insinuating that one final murder has taken place. It's unknown if Jess lived or not.

[edit] Cast and Casting

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

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

[edit] Production

[edit] Filming

Working from a budget of $620,000 and an 8-week shooting schedule, the film was shot in 35mm format utilizing Panavision cameras and lenses in and around Toronto during the winter of 1974. Annesley Hall National Historic Site was used for some scenes.

Director Bob Clark has stated that the original script for the film featured more graphic murder scenes. Clark and writer Roy Moore agreed that the film would be more effective with less gore.

Due to surprisingly light snowfall, the snow seen outside of the sorority house was actually made from a foam material that was provided by the local fire department. Shooting the search party scenes in the park proved to be quite difficult, as the temperature was well below freezing that night.

Keir Dullea worked only for a week on this film, never meeting Margot Kidder and barely meeting John Saxon, but the film is edited in such a way that he appears to be present throughout.

According to director Bob Clark, about five people were responsible for voicing the frightening phone calls, including Clark, actor Nick Mancuso and an unnamed actress. The audio for the demented phones calls was edited into the film during post-production. While shooting the footage for the phone call scenes, the actresses were actually reacting to threatening dialog being spoken from Clark from off-camera.

Actress Lynne Griffin revealed that, for the scenes where she's wrapped in the plastic bag, she would rip a hole in the bag, stuffing the opening into her open mouth so she could breathe during filming. Clark stated in a Q&A session that no shots of Griffin in the plastic bag were filmed for longer than one minute.

Clark stated in an interview that he couldn't recall whose eye was used for that infamous shock scene where Jess sees "Billy" staring at her from behind the door.

[edit] Direction

Cameraman Albert J. Dunk created Billy's POV shots by rigging up a camera harness that would mount the camera on his shoulder as he walked around in the house. Dunk climbed the trellis and the attic ladder himself.

Upon preparation in 1975 for its U.S. release, Warner Bros. studio executives asked Bob Clark to change the ending. The proposed idea was to have the cops leaving Jess alone with Chris, Clare's boyfriend. Jess wakes up and Chris says, "Agnes, don't tell them what we did," before killing her. However, Clark refused, insisting that the ending be ambiguous.

[edit] Music

Composer Carl Zittrer said in an interview that he created the bizarre music score for the film by tying forks, combs, and knives to the strings of his piano so the sound would warp as he struck the keys. Zittrer also said he would distort the sound further by recording audio tape while putting pressure on the reels of the machine to make it turn slower.

[edit] Title

The original title of the films script was Stop Me. It was director Clark who came up with the title Black Christmas, saying that he liked the irony of something dark occurring during such a festive holiday. When originally released in the United States, Warner Bros., fearing that audiences might confuse it for a blaxploitation movie, changed the title to Silent Night, Evil Night. It performed poorly until its title was changed back to Black Christmas. The film was later retitled Stranger in the House for television broadcast.

[edit] Release

[edit] Canadian and U.S. releases

Black Christmas was initially released in Canada on 11 October 1974.

The film was released on 20 December 1974 in the U.S.,^{[citation needed]} where it grossed $4,053,000. It was released in October 1975 in New York City and Chicago,^[1][2] and previously played under the title Silent Night, Evil Night in Virginia, in July 1975.^[3]

[edit] International releases

The British cinema version was cut by the BBFC to remove all instances of the word 'cunt' from the obscene phone calls, along with some of the other crude sexual references during the same initial phone call scene.

[edit] Critical reaction

Critics' reviews were mixed; for example, Variety felt 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."^[4] The film has a 64% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.^[5]

[edit] Network television broadcast

When NBC showed the film (as Stranger in the House) during prime time, it was deemed "too scary" for network television and was pulled off the air.

[edit] Cult status

The film gained a fairly decent cult following over the years after its original release. After popularization stemming from the Black Christmas website - Itsmebilly.com and word of mouth, increasing home video availability, Black Christmas is now considered by some fans to be the inventor of the modern slasher movie and receives high praise by much of the horror community. The Terror Trap website cites it among their 10 greatest horror pictures ever. The film is at #87 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. The Top 13 pop culture list website ranked it as the best slasher film of all time.^[6]

[edit] 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

[edit] DVD and Blu-ray Releases

Eclectic DVD has released two editions of Black Christmas. The first was a bare-bones release that hit shelves on November 6, 2001. This was then followed by a collector's edition released on December 3, 2002, which featured a making-of documentary and two commentary tracks, among other special features. On December 5, 2006, Critical Mass and Alliance Atlantis released a new "special edition" disc that offers a featurette titled "The Twelve Days of Black Christmas" and two deleted sound scenes, in addition to interviews with Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder and clips from a Q&A sessions at a midnight screening with the makers of Black Christmas. A Blu-ray edition of Black Christmas was released on November 11, 2008.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• ITSMEBILLY.COM The OFFICIAL website of Black Christmas.
• Black Christmas at the Internet Movie Database
• Black Christmas at Allmovie

v • d • e Films directed by Bob Clark The Emperor's New Clothes (1966) · She-Man (1967) · Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972) · Deathdream (1974) · Black Christmas (1974) · Breaking Point (1976) · Murder by Decree (1979) · Tribute (1980) · Porky's (1982) · Porky's II: The Next Day (1983) · A Christmas Story (1983) · Rhinestone (1984) · Turk 182 (1985) · From the Hip (1987) · Loose Cannons (1990) · My Summer Story (1994) · I'll Remember April (1999) · Baby Geniuses (1999) · Now & Forever (2002) · The Karate Dog (2004) · SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004)