Black Christmas decorates traditional festivities with blood, suffocation and disturbing phone calls. Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas! And have a slashin’ good time! The slasher sub-genre was most proficient during the mid-to-late 70s, with ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, ‘Halloween’ and a plethora of spicy Argento features to add a worldly aesthetic. However, one film that innovated the tropes and traits commonly found in the aforementioned titles, was Bob Clark’s Black Christmas. A horror “slasher” (if you can classify it as that...) where an anonymous serial killer remains secluded in a sorority house, gradually picking off the girls one by one. Just in time for Santa to come down that warmly lit chimney and deliver them coffins wrapped up in cute little bows.
To say that Black Christmas was revolutionary and a blooded sprout for the blossoming sub-genre to come, would be an understatement. A nameless unknown killer that exhumes mental instability? Check. An expendable cast of characters that stupidly investigate ominous sounds by themselves? Check. Excruciating tension with every camera movement? Absolutely! Surprisingly, now that I’ve witnessed various films during the conception of a horror movement, it’s incredibly easy to see how influential Black Christmas is. Not for its innovative concept, as other simpler thrillers utilise slashing techniques with efficiency (‘Psycho’), but rather for its technical proficiency.
Clark’s direction, whilst unpolished, is solid throughout. Taut camera pans to explore the darkened hallways of the sorority house. Minimal sound editing to heighten the suspense. Excellent use of shadows to illustrate the antagonist’s anonymity. Sublime POV perspective to place the viewer in the shoes of the killer. And a ramped up conclusive act that will have anyone watching perched on the edge of their seats eagerly anticipating to unwrap the plot twist, even if that narrative turn was predictable from the offset. The camera can be visible on specific occasions, mostly through reflections in picture frames as it glides through hallways. Emphasising that unrefined quality of Clark’s novice-like direction. It does give the feature some flavour, perhaps not the jolly festivities one was yearning for. More egg nog than champagne.
Yet what really injected some holiday spirit into the story, were the characters. Uniquely all acquiring a distinguishable personality that made them different and relatable. The shady drunk friend or the intellectual gal who has all the common sense (that is until she goes wandering by herself...!). The point is, they were all memorable, and that’s a rare achievement in slashers. The second act, where the campus police become involved, does stagnate the overall pace with minimal storytelling momentum. Fortunately the third act immediately picks it back up for an explosive bauble of...slashing.
So despite the lack of actual slashing, overall unrefined quality and inconsistent pacing, it’s an extremely enjoyable horror flick that takes a gentle holiday season and turns it into a crazy murder-sesh. Perhaps my new annual Christmas film? We’ll see...! I am sadistic after all!
