Black Christmas – REVIEW

Olivia Hussey in Black Christmas


Figured that since today is Christmas Day, I might as well talk about a Christmas movie I recently watched for the first time. Not only that, it’s a double whammy of a Christmas movie and a horror movie. If you’re a big enough fan of both holidays, you could get two mandatory viewings out of it. Black Christmas, which follows a group of sorority sisters trying to survive a deranged serial killer during the holidays, has been on my watchlist for a while now. The thing I had always heard was that this was widely considered to be the first slasher movie, especially when John Carpenter cited this movie as the inspiration for his now-classic Halloween. It may be up to you if Black Christmas is a better movie than Halloween, but Black Christmas is much more terrifying. Everything about this is pitch perfect, especially the editing. The editing being this much of a highlight is important, especially when it comes to a scene having to do with cutting into a Christmas Carol being sung. It’s haunting to watch. I also really enjoy the choice of never seeing the killer entirely, the one thing we do see being one of the scariest moments of the whole film. Honestly, so much of this is just wonderful technical filmmaking choices. As the movie starts, it’s very loud, voices practically falling over each other, but as the movie goes on, it becomes so quiet and just adds to the atmosphere of what the killer is doing to these girls. Even something as simple as a phone ringing can be transformed into something skin-crawling. Just as a cherry on top, director Bob Clark would also end up directing the holiday classic, A Christmas Story. A complete tone shift from probably one of the scariest movies I’ve seen in recent memory. I really was expecting Black Christmas to be a campy, fun slasher, but this really is worth your time. If not next Christmas, this would be an incredible double feature with Halloween. If you’re impatient, make the time and watch it.

Ryan’s Grade: A