Black Christmas (1974 film)

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
Music by	Carl Zittrer
Cinematography	Reginald H. Morris
Editing by	Stan Cole
Studio	Film Funding Limited of Canada
Distributed by	Ambassador Film Distributors (Canada) Warner Bros. (U.S.)
Release date(s)	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, Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin, Marian Waldman, and John Saxon. A remake of the same name directed by Glen Morgan was released on December 25, 2006. The movie was inspired by an urban legend called "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs."

Plot

A sorority house is hosting a Christmas party late into the night. A seemingly disoriented man climbs up the house's trellis and through an open attic window. During the party, sorority sister Jess Bradford (Olivia Hussey) receives an obscene phone call from a recurrent caller the house has named "the moaner". After Barbara "Barb" Coard (Margot Kidder) jokingly provokes the caller, he replies, "I'm going to kill you," then hangs up. Soon after, Clare Harrison (Lynne Griffin) is offended by Barb and goes upstairs to finish packing for her trip home. In her room, she finds Claude the cat on the bed. She tells him to move as she's got some things to do. While she's packing, she hears the cat's cries and goes to investigate. Clare is attacked by the disoriented man and asphyxiated with plastic sheeting over her head. He carries her dead body to the attic and places it in a rocking chair next to the attic window and puts a doll in her lap.

The next day, Mr. Harrison (James Edmond Jr.), Clare's father, arrives to take Clare home for the holidays. When Clare is not at their agreed-upon meeting place, he goes to the sorority house. Meanwhile, Jess meets her boyfriend, Peter Smythe (Keir Dullea), a neurotic aspiring pianist, and informs him that she is pregnant and wants to have an abortion. Peter is upset by her decision and orders her to discuss the situation with him later. Mr. Harrison and sorority sisters Barb and Phyllis "Phyl" Carlson (Andrea Martin) arrive at the police station to report Clare's disappearance. Sgt. Nash dismisses the report and says that Clare is probably "hiding with a lover". After Jess informs Clare's boyfriend, Chris (Art Hindle), about Clare's disappearance and Sgt. Nash's dismissive attitude, they rush back to the police station to discuss the disappearance with Lt. Kenneth Fuller (John Saxon). A local mother reports that her daughter, Janice, is missing as well.

That evening, Mr. Harrison, Chris, and the sorority sisters join a search party aiming to find Janice or Clare. Back at the house, Mrs. MacHenry (Marian Waldman), the sorority's housemother, hears Claude's meows in the attic and investigates. She discovers Clare's body, but the killer launches a crane hook into Mrs. MacHenry's head and hangs her. After the search party finds Janice's dead body near the park, Jess returns home and receives another obscene phone call. Jess phones the police about the caller. Later, Peter arrives and argues with Jess about her decision to have an abortion. Peter becomes frustrated and leaves after Lt. Fuller arrives to discuss the phone calls with Jess. A technician places a tap "bug tracer" onto the sorority house phone to trace the phone calls. An officer is also stationed outside the house.

After Barb is sent to bed for being "too drunk", the killer appears in her room and stabs her to death with a unicorn ornament. Door-to-door Christmas carolers drown out the noise of the attack. Jess receives another obscene phone call that quotes a part of the argument she had with Peter. Jess suspects Peter of being the caller, but she and Phyl decided that it cannot be him, since Peter was present during one of the earlier calls. Phyl goes upstairs to bed, but decides to check on Barb first. As Phyl goes into the room to check on Barb, the door suddenly shuts.

The calls continue to come in. Jess manages to keep the caller on the phone for a minute, allowing the police to trace the location of the call to inside the house (from Mrs. MacHenry's separate phone line). Jess is ordered to leave the house immediately, but she puts down the phone and yells up to Barb and Phyl. Lt. Fuller is informed of the situation and leaves for the house. Jess arms herself with a fireplace poker and ventures upstairs, finding both Barb and Phyl's bloodied dead bodies. The unseen caller attacks her and chases her through the house, resulting in Jess locking herself in the basement. As she hides in the basement, Peter appears outside one of the windows, telling her he heard screaming. He breaks the glass and enters the room as Jess, believing him to be the attacker as she backs into a corner as he approaches her. Lt. Fuller and the police arrive at the house and find the officer stationed outside dead in his car with his throat slashed. Jess's screams and is heard from the house, and they find her in the basement with Peter dead, having been bludgeoned to death by Jess's fireplace poker in self-defense. Later, Jess is asleep in her bed as Fuller and the officers discuss how Peter must have been the killer all along. They also discuss the fact that Clare's body still hasn't been found, revealing that they neglected to look in the attic. The officers leave Jess to sleep in her bed, stating that a man will be right outside the front door. Once the house is quiet, the phone starts to ring. The audience is shown the attic, with Clare and Mrs. MacHenry's bodies still undisturbed as the killer whispers, "Agnes? it's me, Billy." The camera pulls back on the outside of the house, as the telephone starts 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. 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 and Nick Mancuso as Billy

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 films budget of $620,000 was shot in 35mm format by utilizing Panavision cameras. Cameraman, Albert J. Dunk, created the POV camera shot by mounting a camera onto his back and creeping 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.

The role of Mrs. Mac was offered to Bette Davis. The role of Peter was originally offered to Malcolm McDowell, but he turned it down. The role of Lieutenant Fuller was originally supposed to be played by Edmond O'Brien, but due to failing health he had to be replaced. John Saxon was brought in at the last minute. Gilda Radner was offered the role of Phyllis Carlson. She was attached, but dropped out one month before filming began owing to Saturday Night Live commitments.

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. changed the title to Silent Night, Evil Night, for the U.S. theatrical release. 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. When released in the UK, the BBFC had the word "cunt" removed, as well as several other crude and sexual references during the obscene phone call scenes.

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

Upon its release, the film garnered mixed to negative reception from contemporary critics. A write for The New York Times scored the film 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 Marian Waldman's role as the secretly alcoholic sorority house mother, saying that, "Only Marian Waldman as the house-mother comes across with any life."

The film has since received generally positive from modern critics. According to the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 63% "fresh" score based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2 out of 10. 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, focusing 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 due to age and moderately low production values."

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 throughout the years after its release. The Black Christmas fan site considerably increased the film's modern popularity. The film is notable for being one of the first slasher films and inspiring films such as Friday the 13th and John Carpenter's Halloween. The film ranked #87 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Steve Martin met Olivia Hussey at the premier of his movie Roxanne and he said she was in one of his favourite movies of all time. Hussey initially thought he was referring to Romeo and Juliet, but was surprised when Martin said it was Black Christmas, and that he had seen the film 27 times.

Remake

A remake of the film directed by Glen Morgan was released on December 25, 2006. The film is loosely based on the original film, containing more graphic content and a focus into the past of Billy. Andrea Martin was the only original cast member to appear in the film. Bob Clark served as an executive producer.

External links

• Black Christmas at the Internet Movie Database
• Black Christmas at AllRovi
• Black Christmas at Rotten Tomatoes