Live Review: Black Christmas (1974)

I just got my free month of Shudder, and what do I do? Watch some classic horror. I decided to watch the original Black Christmas. Here are my thoughts going on as I watch it.

***SPOILER ALERT***

First impression: Wow, Margot Kidder's character is kind of a bitch.

Also, the first kill... Not that scary, even by 70's standards.

Is this house mother just a total drunkard or what? I mean... Stashing a bottle in the toilet tank?! Um, yeah, that's a NOPE from me. But at least she's a slight comedic relief.

Clare Harrison, the first victim, is missing, as her father comes to meet her. Mrs. MacHenry, the housemother, tells Mr. Harrison that she hasn't seen Clare but that Clare is a good girl. It is obvious that Clare wouldn't simply disappear. (Duh, she's in the attic, her head in a plastic bag!)

Mrs. MacHenryoes searc Claude, who was last seen in Clare's room, just before she was killed. I swear, if anything happened to the cat... I cannot stand movies where animals get killed.

Meanwhile, Jess tells her musician boyfriend Peter that she's pregnant and wants to get an abortion. Peter is a self-centered fart-bag who insists Jess keeps the baby. Also, Barb is getting a little boy hammered at a Christmas party with a foul-mouthed Santa. Jess gets a call from the same creep who called Clare; he harasses Jess about the baby.

Mr. Harrison, Barb, and Phyllis try to report Clare missing to the police, who blow them off. Jess tells Mrs. MacHenry she got a harassing phone call, and MacHenry tells Jess that no one has seen Clare in a while. (Because she's fucking dead in the attic! Why wouldn't you check the whole house before reporting her missing?! MORONS.)

A 13-year-old girl is reported missing as Jess and Chris - Clare's boyfriend - go to the police station and demand they do something about finding Clare.

Back at the sorority house, Barb is smashed and tells Mr. Harrison about how she watched animals at the zoo having sex. Barb is clearly an imbecile. Barb also thinks everyone thinks she drove Clare away. So Barb takes it out on everyone in the house before retiring to her room.

Peter is busy having a meltdown, smashing a piano to pieces because he isn't getting his way with Jess. Jess and Chris confront Mr. Harrison at the sorority house. Phyllis goes with them, and Mrs. MacHenry stays home with Barb. The police spearhead a search for the missing girl, Janis. Phyllis, Jess, Chris, and Mr. Harrison join the search.

Mrs. MacHenry is packing her stuff and getting wasted while Claude is sitting on Clare's corpse. MacHenry goes in search of him and hears sounds coming from the attic. She climbs up there. Yep, she's gonna die. She sees Clare's body and gets a hook to the face.

Janis' corpse is found in the park. The phone rings back at the house, and Jess answers as she walks in the door. It's the creep calling her. Peter comes down the stairs and surprises her. Peter says he is leaving the conservatory. He says he is marrying Jess. Doesn't even ask her, just tells her. Jess still wants to do things with her life and tells him she cannot marry him. She doesn't want to marry him.

The police are starting to believe that something is going on at the sorority house. The other detectives laugh at Sgt. Nash's stupidity for not getting Barb's 'fellatio' phone number to the sorority house. They all have a good chuckle at him.

Peter calls Jess a "selfish bitch" and insists she won't get an abortion, saying she'll "be very sorry." Lt. Fuller and Bill Graham want to tap the phone in the house. Jess tells him about the harassing phone calls and that she was the last person to see Clare alive the night before. No one saw her in the morning.

The phone is tapped, and a cop is stationed outside the house. Peter lurks in the dark. Phyllis tells Jess she has a feeling Clare is dead and breaks down in Jess' arms. Phyllis has a cold and wants to go to bed, taking pills that will knock her out.

The killer rocks Clare's body, on which he has put a creepy old doll. Then, he goes into Barb's room. Jess hears Barb gasping for air and runs to her, giving Barb her inhaler. Barb thinks she had a nightmare that someone was in her room. Jess leaves. A group of kids carol in front of the house, so Jess goes out to see them. The killer goes up to Barb's room again. He takes one of her glass unicorns and stabs her. Barb dies off-screen as we only see her bloody.

The phone rings. The killer is moaning into the phone and tells Jess her abortion will be "just like having a wart removed." Lt. Fuller calls and says to keep the killer on the line longer and asks how many voices the killer uses. He also asks about Peter. A police officer and fiesty old gun-owner come in; the man had shot the cop in the ass for trespassing on his property.

Phyllis and Jess talk as the killer hides, watching them. Phyllis sees the cop still sitting outside. Peter calls, clearly broken up over Jess wanting an abortion. Peter hangs up. Lt. Fuller calls and asks Jess about Peter's call. Jess confesses and says Peter is high-strung. Jess tells Fuller that it couldn't be Peter harassing them since he was there with them once when it happened.

The cops have covered the entire campus by this point and begin going house-to-house in the town. Two guys with the search party come by, and Phyllis lies that their dog died the previous night so as to keep them from coming in. And still, no one has checked the attic for Clare...

Phyllis goes to check on Barb, and the door slams closed with her and the killer inside. Bye, Phyllis. Nice knowin' ya. You got to face the killer after all.

Jess looks for Phyllis then gets another call from the killer. Graham tells Fuller the calls are coming from inside the house. Dun dun DUNNNN.

Fuller radios Jennings (the cop sitting outside the house), but Jennings is definitely dead. Nash calls the house as Fuller rushes to get there. Nash tells Jess to hang up and walk outside of the house. He says the calls are coming from inside the house and insists Jess not go upstairs. Of course, she doesn't listen and leaves the phone off the hook. Genius move.

At least she thinks to grab the fire poker before she wisely goes upstairs. She finds Phyllis' and Barb's mangled bodies and sees the killer hiding. She runs back downstairs but is grabbed. She runs for the basement and locks herself in. She sees someone lurking outside. It is Peter. He kicks in the window and enters the basement. He sees her and asks her what she is doing down there. The cops arrive and find Jess holding Peter's mangled body. She's still alive and is taken to bed, clearly in shock. Clare's dad also goes into shock, so Fuller and Chris take him out. The cops leave Jess alone in bed. So they take the shocked father but not the clearly traumatized pregnant woman to the hospital?!

Yeah, the killer is definitely still in the house with an unconscious Jess.Y'all are making Sgt. Nash look like a rocket scientist right about now... And nobody even looked in the attic even though Clare's corpse is RIGHT THERE AT THE WINDOW.

And the phone rings. Roll credits.

Well, this was kind of a waste. Even by 70's horror movie standards, there is nothing that terrifying about Black Christmas. It has several moments where the cinematography is unexpectedly cool (like with Barb's hand), but it leaves so many characters looking like flaming idiots when, in real life, some of them probably wouldn't be.

It seems like the makers are trying to make a statement about abortion and feminism, but it gets lost in the stupidity of basically everyone in the film. The only smart one is the cat, Claude, and they left his fate unknown. Is he still in the attic? He better be alive. That killer better be feeding him some freakin' Fancy Feast and treating him like a god.

Yes, I will watch the sequel. Yes, I know it will probably be even dumber. Yes, I will probably lose a few brain cells in the process. I just don't understand how Black Christmas made it into the 70's & 80's horror canon alongside Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Friday the 13th. I get that the audience back then might have been unsettled by a killer calling from inside the house, but Carol Kane did a much better job of conveying that horror in 1979's When a Stranger Calls. As far as home invasion horror goes, Black Christmas falls short of instilling true fear, even though it keeps its killer forever hidden in the shadows (at least until the sequel, from what I gather).

Home is where you are supposed to feel safe. When it becomes unsafe, that kind of terror is absolutely chilling. Or it should be. But this movie is far from creepy.

2/5 stars. I give it 2 because some of the shots are actually kind of creative. And there are a few funny moments in the first half.

But seriously, is Claude okay?