1428 Elm
Fansided

Black Christmas: When It’s Not Safe At College [Video]

By Tim Redinger

facebooktwitterreddit

For college students, Christmas time means an extended time away from school, and for students who have the luxury of being far from home for college, it means getting back to seeing the family.  Despite the campus being shut down and largely vacated around the holidays, some students decide they want to stay with their friends for the holidays instead of returning to the drama of home, and then disaster usually ends up striking, like in the 1974 horror film Black Christmas.  

Our 25 Days of Christmas horror movie marathon continues with Black Christmas.  Now with new movies coming out along the same lines, it is important to look at the ones that came first.  Black Christmas is loosely one of the first in a long line of trapped girls being targetted, similar to the new movie Girlhouse.

Black Christmas might just be the standard for the slasher flick, or at least one of the first.  It was remade in 2006, but our focus here is going to be on the original.

Black Christmas Plot

The plot on this one is simple.  Girls in a sorority house, prank phone call, someone provokes the caller, and then the threatening message starts it all.

I’m going to kill you.

Claire is our first victim, who doesn’t heed the warning on the plastic bag that comes with every child’s toy.  The killer kills her by putting a plastic bag over her head.  He then takes her to the attic where he props her up and gives her a baby doll (isn’t that considerate, who says Christmas isn’t the time for giving?)

With the body count up to two, the police, who aren’t really interested in helping after the first girl goes missing, place a bug in the phone, and stage a police car outside.  Thinking that will calm the sorority house down as people continue to plan for the trip home for the holidays, another call comes in, long enough for police to trace the call.  The police tell our heroine to get out of the house.  She tries to comply, but finds two more dead bodies shortly after.  Jess gets attacked (Jess being our heroine) – and she runs to the cellar and locks herself in.  Come on – let’s be original here, locked in the cellar?  Our boyfriend shows up to save the day, but Jess suspects him of being the killer, so she proceeds to bludgeon him to death.

The cops show up, assume everything is going to be ok now, so they sedate Jess, put her to bed, and wrap up the investigation.  We then see the killer descending the attic stairs, and hear the phone ring in the house as the credits begin to roll.

So – we have a few things going on here.  Supposedly, the screenplay was written about a series of real life murders in Quebec around Christmas time, but there are some that believe it is made up  and based on the good old legend of the Babysitter and the Man Upstairs.

Black Christmas Cast

The 1974 production was a Canadian independent film, and the cast represents that.  You can hear the Canadian accents throughout.  Of course since it is supposed to be about a series of murders in Canada, true to form.  Your cast lineup from the Wiki page:

Uncredited[edit]

I find it hard to give any movie a perfect five, especially one that basically has the same plot line as so many other movies.  This film however is one that every horror fan should have – as it seems to be the one that started it all.  1428 Elm gives this one four out of five bloody Christmas trees.

If you have seen other similar slashers, definitely check this one out this Christmas season.

Home/Horror Movies