When it comes to horror movies, Black Christmas (1974) jingles its way into horror history as a trailblazer that dared to wrap the slasher formula in tinsel before Halloween ever picked up a butcher knife. It’s also one of the earliest Christmas-themed horror movies. But beneath the hype and accolades, does this snow-dusted slasher deliver, or is it just a lump of coal in the genre’s stocking?
Is Black Christmas Scary?
The simple answer to that is no, not scary by modern standards, anyway. Black Christmas crashes the sleigh and leaves us with a lot of disappointment. This so-called slasher pioneer fails to sharpen its blades, serving up scares as bland as a regifted fruitcake. It lacks the energy to truly provoke or grip the audience, seeming content just to exist as a Christmas-themed horror.
It’s Christmas break, and the sorority sisters, with Olivia Hussey in the lead as Jess Bradford, are busy preparing to leave for the holidays. Outside, a stalker watches from the shadows, peering through the windows before scaling the house and quietly slipping into the attic. Inside, the mood shifts when the phone rings. The girls answer, only to be met by a deranged caller making pig-like squeals and crude sexual taunts, all topped off with a merry little threat: “I’m going to kill you.”
Where It All Falls Apart
Dangling a juicy setup, a killer in the attic, creepy calls on the line, only to trip over its own feet and stall. Those creepy calls, initially somewhat intriguing, soon become a repetitive one-note song, droning on with piggish grunts and vulgar nonsense like a drunk dialer who simply refuses to hang up.
Between the endless prank calls and long stretches of buildup, we’re practically begging the stalker to crawl out of the attic and do something, anything, to justify our time. When he finally bolts in to the picture and swings, the camera plays hide-and-seek, using evasive angles to dodge the action, then going AWOL before he strikes again in the same disappointingly lackluster fashion.
There’s so little to get genuinely excited about here. Even the tension the atmosphere is supposed to create is lost and unraveled every time that phone rings with more incoherent drivel. Despite our scream queen Hussey's best efforts, it’s hard to point out any real standout characters that make the movie more enjoyable. The sorority girls feel more like sorority shadows, merely filling space and blending into the background, leaving us with very little emotional investment in the outcome.
Filler Subplots and Obvious Oversights
Jess and her boyfriend Pete (Keir Dullea) are at the center of the movie’s lovers’ quarrel. Their strained relationship forms one of the subplots, but it’s hardly compelling, mostly serving to pad the runtime while the main story about a missing sorority girl, whom we’ve already seen murdered in the house within the first ten minutes, struggles to gain any real momentum.
When the missing sorority sister’s dad, Mr. Harrison (James Edmond) and pals sound the alarm, you’d think someone would peek in the attic while doing a house sweep, where the body’s rotting. But no, the search party and police stumble past the obvious, missing what's right under their noses. Left grasping for leads, the police turn their attention to the disturbing phone calls, with Jess and Lieutenant Ken (John Saxon) in a desperate bid for answers.
However, it’s just a continuation of pig squeals and gibberish, ultimately proving it’s more about answering phone calls than anything else.
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