LogFAQs > #946383330

DAY 27: Black Christmas (1974)
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This movie is about as good as you can get for what is regarded as the original modern day slasher movie (something I knew going in actually!).

Black Christmas is about a deranged psycho hiding in the attic of a sorority house who begins murdering people inside. Oh and it's Christmas time.

This is a very effective movie at what it sets out to do. It's a disturbing, creepy portrayal of an unhinged murderer hiding right above a group of people he's systematically killing. He makes phonecalls, shrieking and yelling obscene things. The killer, named Billy, is freaking terrifying.

I think this can only be compared to Halloween only to an extent. I think they are such different movies, despite both being slashers and despite Halloween being inspired by a lot of Black Christmas. For one, Michael Myers is just a silent murderer. He's the polar opposite of Billy in every way. He doesn't hide unless he's making a kill. He's undeterred. He's an imposing threat in front of your eyes. Billy, on the other hand, is a raving, spitting psychopath. You never really see him, and he's more or less faceless, but he's just not really Michael Myers at all.

I also feel, as a film, Black Christmas feels more like a modern day popcorn slashers, cracking jobs and being more comedic at times while Halloween doesn't really go out of its way to be funny. They want you to feel a lightened load for Black Christmas before digging in the dagger deep. And we're meant to be terrified of this unseeable threat from Billy, whereas in Halloween we see Michael Myers directly and see the absolute monster he is.

But that's enough about comparing, because I feel like I'm negatively portraying Black Christmas. But it's an excellent movie and I loved watching it. I recall seeing only part of this before, but it's a hell of a movie and a classic for good reason. They create tension and fear extremely well and throw in the comedy to keep you at ease before it ratchets up everything.

My only criticisms is that anything that didn't really involve the killer didn't draw me in very much, and I felt like it wasn't as tightly wound as I would have liked.

Aside from that, it's a satisfying, twisted movie with a good ending. Yeah, I recommend it bigly. Especially if you want to see where a ton of slasher movies drew their inspiration from.

Rating: 8.5/10

Side-rant: This makes Black Christmas 2019 so much more confounding. They replace Billy with a misogyny cult, throw magic BS in there, and that was supposed to be a not-so-subtle allegory for misogyny as opposed to Billy just very clearly being an embodiment of it? I really liked the director's New Year, New Me movie too, but I have no idea why she felt this movie would be good with this concept. I haven't seen it yet, but I haven't heard a single person say anything positive about it which is pretty telling.

I won't even discuss the 2006 version since that one just outright sucks because it sucks everything good out of this one.

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