Black Christmas (1974)

Bob Clark’s career has certainly gone on some interesting tangents. He started out back in the 70s with this movie, one of the first slasher horror films ever made. Later on he would make A Christmas Story and the Baby Geniuses films. So I guess he was just doing a test run with Black Christmas here. There sure are lots of different angles you can approach Christmas and youth from! This is the dark, depressing side of Christmas with characters talking about abortions.

Director: Bob Clark

Starring: Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, John Saxon

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

The film is uniquely dark and morbid. It’s just a fucked up trip all the way through, opening up with some very seedy and unsettling camera shots showing the inside of this sorority house of a bunch of college girls. Apparently, someone is stalking them, or at least living in their attic. But back in the 70s, all frat and sorority houses came with a crazy homeless stalker living in the attic. It was just the times.

The characters are all very 70s, including fat white guys with huge afros and pornstar mustaches, girls wearing bell bottom jeans and guys with mullets. One of the most entertaining has to be this house mother lady who seems to know where every hidden bottle of alcohol is in the whole house. Throughout the film, she finds bottles of alcohol in places including inside a book and inside a toilet’s pipes. Hey, that’s called resourcefulness. It’s a necessary skill.

But for the most part, these characters are good and keep the movie interesting. They have distinct personalities and they aren’t just assholes for the sake of the plot lined up to die. The film has a very personal, close-up feeling because of that, and like other 70s horror films, it’s good to actually have a real story and characters, unlike some today. Bob Clark says in one of the special features things that he wanted to create a set of characters that acted like realistic college kids. I think he succeeded. Plus, it actually passes the Bechdel Test, which is kind of cool too.

But not all is safe, as there are greater dangers afoot than having to spend the holidays alone in a sorority house - like the guy in the closet who strangles one girl with a plastic bag. She gets killed and stuffed in the attic, where - spoilers - she’s never found for the rest of the fucking movie. Meanwhile, all the girls keep getting obscene phone calls downstairs from a creepy voice that sounds like the drain pipe from a sink getting attacked with a chainsaw.

"Quiet, they're telling me I won the lottery!"

The main character is Jess, a girl who constantly is having arguments with her boyfriend about wanting an abortion, but he’s an ass who just tells her they’re getting married and she’s not having an abortion. Yeah, fuck women’s rights, right? Wrong. Right. The boyfriend, Peter is shown to be increasingly unstable, but really, it’s all a red herring - he isn’t a danger to anyone except pianos:

To be fair though, that piano did kill his whole family.

I think the added stuff about the abortion and Jess and Peter’s crumbling, obviously dysfunctional relationship adds to the movie, too. Horror movies should never just be horror and nothing else. It’s the human, real life drama that accents the horror and gives it more dimensions.

I really do like the murky, grim tone of this whole movie. It’s very opaque and tense at its darker moments. There’s a sense of horror and foreboding about it, but in a quiet, normal way - there’s nothing supernatural or schlocky going on, just a real life missing girl case and real life problems. It adds a very grounded feel, and fans of later horror movies might be a bit surprised by how “normal” everything in this movie is. Most of the movie's conflict is about the town just searching for the missing girl from the opening - that provides the framework for the rest of the story.

We do get some comedy in there, too, like the idiot cop played by Doug McGrath. One of the sorority girls tells him the new phone number for the sorority house is “fellatio,” and he believes her. Because apparently back in the 70s, nobody knew what fellatio was except for a few privileged, all-knowing individuals. It was lost in a tomb in the Mediterranean for years and unearthed by explorers in the late 1980s, far after this movie was released. I haven't seen the remake, but I do hope it at least had the characters all knowing what fellatio meant.

Unlike this palooka...

To be fair, though, that cop did have it coming - the guy is a jackass who constantly dismisses the women’s worries and fears. His initial response upon hearing that the opening kill girl is missing is to say she’s “probably just off with a boyfriend.” That is one of the film’s underlying themes. The way this guy acts, along with Peter’s domineering attitude toward Jess, points out the ways women are often not taken seriously and marginalized in these tiny ways - it's a societal attitude. So then this becomes a horror movie with something to say.

There is one guy who listens though - John Saxon playing the chief, presumably before he gets transferred to Elm Street in a few years. Saxon is a genuinely good detective who wants to help, and he does. Unfortunately, to track the calls they have to listen to more of those fucking crazy phone calls in the first place. Which, frankly, isn’t the Christmas Carols they wanted - though some would argue it’s all the same either way. I can't tell you how many times I've had carolers come to my door and start shrieking like banshees about killing babies. Ahh the holidays...

The movie just gets more and more claustrophobic, making use of the house’s dark corners and the various characters disappearing in the house’s folds as if they were just magicked away. The violence is minimal and the movie is effective for that. It would kind of ruin the dark, grim, morally grey atmosphere to have a bunch of blood splattering all over. Which is why, I guess, they just showed the killer’s eye.

I guess it’s also rude to say “the killer’s eye.” What I meant is the eye of whatever stage hand or sound effect guy they cast in shadows for those shots. I’m fairly sure they weren’t actually killers. But then again, maybe the killer just actually looks like this:

Yes, literally just a black silhouette with one eye. It's a birth deformity. He gets a lot of strange looks. He's got a face only a mother could love...

The movie creeps toward its macabre end. Jess is cornered in the basement after finding out that the calls have been coming from inside the house. Peter shows up, who she now is almost convinced is the killer. Because he seems to be acting strange, she kills him. Which really is in the spirit of Christmas, even if only because he died wearing a Christmas sweater.

Then the movie ends rather ambiguously, with Jess asleep, exhausted from all she's had to deal with, and then the phone ringing at the end like it has been all movie, signaling that they probably never actually caught the killer and Peter was innocent. The killer, it seems, is still on the loose. At least until the police look in the attic and find him and his victims! So I guess it maybe isn't such a dark ending after all. It'll be fine.

Or maybe the police just never check the attic and the killer gets away. It's open to interpretation!

The film is just a classic. I love how murky, strange and understated it is. There's no cheese or over the top gore here, and the story is always mysterious and cool. The killer is never even fucking revealed, which could probably be frustrating. Personally, though, I'll just go with what lead actress Olivia Hussey said in an interview on my Special Edition DVD: "I think today, they show too much in films. I think a lot of times, like Hitchcock - you don't really see anything, but you have the idea that you've seen. The thought of some man standing behind a door, peering at you, is a lot more frightening than watching somebody. You see the bodies once it's happened, but you don't actually see it happening. To me, that's a lot more terrifying, the thought of something."

The way it takes such a wholesome time of year and perverts it is ghoulishly fun. There's quite a bit of humor in this, but it all meshes well with the story and doesn't feel intrusive, nor does it block out the horror. It's not a horror comedy, it's just a horror movie that doesn't feel the need to eschew other basic tenets of storytelling - humor is part of our daily lives, so it makes sense to include it in a movie to humanize it a bit. More modern horror movies could learn from this - add a bit of comedy or drama into it to humanize the characters and make the audience give a shit, because comedy and drama are the building blocks for everything else, the over-arching pillars. You can't just be horror. Black Christmas knew that and was scarier for it.

The film moves slow, and fans of more modern horror movies may not "get" this. But for those who love old, gritty 70s flicks, this should be right up your alley if you don't know it already. It's just a well told story and an essential horror movie.

And personally, it's my kind of Christmas movie. I've never really been one to rewatch all the normal, happy Christmas movies over and over again. I always liked the darker, stranger and more eccentric side of the holidays, the subversive and bizarre movies that come out and say hey, fuck it, it's Christmas and we're not afraid to go dark. The holidays are such a universal and shared experience in our culture, and there isn't one single way to enjoy Christmas. Oftentimes, for all the beauty and wonderment, there's a lot of frustration, annoyance, uncertainty and insecurity around the holidays as well, and movies like this do kind of show that, in a way. That's really what this movie symbolizes for me, the dark heart and the other side of the holidays. So go see it and enjoy a devilish Christmas good time.

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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

On Sunday, August 30th, Wes Craven passed away, having lost his battle with brain cancer. As the acclaimed director of so many horror films, and the creator of one of horror’s foremost icons in Freddy Krueger, Craven’s work was certainly loved by many. He was the kind of guy who brought horror to the forefront and made it palatable for the masses - while still putting out quality stuff. In remembrance of Craven's legacy, I’m doing a special review of his original 1984 classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Director: Wes Craven

Starring: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Johnny Depp, John Saxon

IMDb

I remember seeing this when I was about 14 for the first time, and I thought it was like nothing else I’d seen. The flashy colors, the fast pace and the surreal horror of the nightmares – it was a spectacle and it grabbed me by the throat in a vicegrip. Looking back now, it really was so influential to what came later. It opened up the doors for horror to take on realms outside our own, to explore nightmares and multiple realities, and it gave us all that in such a vibrant and colorful package – taking ideas explored in other psychological films to new levels by visualizing them. We felt the terror.

We start off with our fake main character, Tina, who has been having bad dreams of a man with long fingers for knives and wakes up with her nightgown slashed to ribbons in the front. Her initial suspicion was that Wolverine from the X-Men had snuck into bed with her, but she will soon find out it’s something much worse. Her mom tells her she either has to “stop having those dreams or cut her fingernails,” and ah yes, the days when parents could be that callous about their children waking up with cut-up clothes…

The third option is stop sleeping with scissors in your bed.

She tells her friends, Nancy and Glen, about the dream the next morning, but they of course shrug it off as insanity, as something so insane as a man with knives for hands could never pose a threat to them.

Johnny Depp is looking that way because Wes Craven held up a picture of a two-headed baby off screen to see if the actors could keep their concentration. Depp failed, so he was selected to be killed off later in the movie in the most brutal way.

That’s Johnny Depp as Glen, there, in his first movie role ever, who you might have trouble recognizing in this because he isn’t wearing a shitload of makeup and his hair looks like a normal person’s.

They all have a sleepover that night because Tina is afraid of her nightmares. When they hear a noise outside, they go to check and find it’s Rod, their delinquent wannabe friend who fulfills the ‘80s leather jacket’ quota for the movie. Because every 80s movie needed one of those, ya know – just a product of the time. They get into some verbal banter outside, and Rod immediately responds by pulling out a switchblade. Uh...guys, I’m really not sure that’s the dude you want to bring to your sleepover party.

"I'M NOT OVERREACTING!!!"

Rod then has sex with Tina, which is fine until afterwards when she is brutally murdered by knives cutting her up and throwing her around in the air. Gee - that’s how you know you’ve really got to work on your fucking game. When your partner dies.

Fuck. Just, holy fuck. What a brutal scene.

But this is actually the introduction of one of horror’s most iconic characters, Freddy Krueger, who I’m pretty sure was modeling your grandma’s Christmas sweaters for a living before he got big in this film. The scene where he’s introduced is excellently done, especially because he stretches his arms out like Slinkies and scrapes the walls with those long, metal claws he has. Yes, that's the reason it's excellent. Shut up.

Goddamn, this was all so fucking whacked out and insane. In the best way possible.

But this is a great scene. The nightmareish atmosphere is furiously fast and fun, and the acting is spot on from Englund and Amanda Wyss, who played Tina. Afterward, the surviving characters even start to figure out that Freddy stalks them in their dreams. Good for them. It's good that they're smart.

As Tina has left the building, the movie convenes in an emergency session after that and elects Nancy the new main character. She’s understandably upset the next day as she is in school and falls asleep only to wake up and see this:

Ugh, SO violating the dress code.

Then she runs into the worst hall monitor in the world:

Sorry to go on a bit of tangent here, but really, what is the point of hall monitors anyway? Are you just promoting some fascistic system where kids can’t be trusted to do things by themselves? I mean, if Freddy Krueger can transform into an annoying hall monitor with a striped sweater and a bleeding nose, and nobody notices that that isn't a good hall monitor, maybe it’s worth it to get rid of the profession as a whole.

We also get scenes of her visiting Rod in jail after he is arrested. Rod tells her he didn’t kill Tina, it was an invisible man cutting her up while he was in the room. You might recognize THAT as the lame-ass defense everyone gives now when they're accused of murder, but it actually started with this movie.

Rod is then killed in his cell, which prompts Nancy's father, the sheriff, to start intervening. He's played by John Saxon, the only man in Hollywood at the time who could use such a stern voice all the time.

Suicide, or killed by nightmareish dream-demon for revenge for his parents' sins. Either way, this isn't cool.

His sternness is eternal. It will never die. It will live on even longer than he himself.

While taking a bath at home, Nancy drifts off to sleep, which allows Freddy's hand to try and attack her in the tub. An interesting note: In this scene, actor Heather Langenkamp was not acting. She was just taking a regular bath in the privacy of her own home. Craven just wanted the fear to be real, which, really, is the only way to do a horror film.

Nancy is admitted to this psychiatric clinic where they test her brain waves while she's asleep to get to the root of the problem. The reason you know they're professionals is because they have computers and are wearing white coats. Nancy begins screaming insanely and bloody scratches start appearing on her, so, job well done, scientists! She's good to go home now, and you guys can continue doing your scientist-y jobs.

The greatest scientists in the world.

At home, Nancy has a shouting match with her mother, who refuses to tell her anything meaningful about Krueger. Why? Nancy already knows about him and is saying he's the one killing everyone. Who else could be killing everyone? How would Nancy know about Krueger if he's dead and in the past like her mother tells her? Does her mother really think she's that crazy or susceptible after just hearing his name once or something? I have so many questions.

None of which her mother will answer.

We also find out the sordid backstory of how the parents in the neighborhood burned Krueger alive in his boiler room because he was a child murderer. Which is bad, don't get me wrong. But what neighborhood doesn't have a good story to tell over hamburgers and beers at a cookout? Come on.

Glen is hanging out in his room later on when his bed eats him and spews out a bloodshower enough to cover the entire room for several seconds straight. I think that's awesome.

Clearly he was healthy, considering how strong his blood is.

We then also get the greatest phone sex scene in the history of movies.

So it's really just up to Nancy, who engages in a battle with Freddy. She manages to get Freddy into the real world, which results in one of the better jump scares I've seen – she wakes up, thinking it might actually all be over, and then he pops up from behind the bed. That's kick ass. Nancy isn't impressed, though, so she just sets him on fire and calls it a day.

Her father, the master of all good timing, shows up just in time to see his wife get eaten by a bed with a Halloween smoke machine in the room. Boy, the beds in this movie sure are hungry tonight.

The awesome kind of horror special effects I wish we would see more these days.

So everything seems to be good finally. It's a sunny day and perfect weather for a sunroof and parent murder:

So that's the end – the nightmare is reality and you can't really ever tell when it's over. Craven originally wanted the film to end in a happy manner, with everything that happened in the film just being a nightmare. I have to admit that would have been interesting. But I guess I'm a dark soul, because I like the ending we got. It works because it further blurs the line between the real world and Freddy's nightmare realm, like the whole rest of the movie was doing.

However – I can still see where Craven was coming from. His ending could've been good too. That's because this is a great horror movie, and it doesn't live or die by circumstance like that. This is a story about being young, right on the edge of adulthood. It's about the feeling of your parents dismissing what you say because you're a kid – but in your mind, you're almost an adult; they should listen to you. The kids in this movie find out that a devil in their nightmares is killing them, and it's their parents' fault. The kids themselves are blameless, yet they are the ones who face the penalty for their parents' sins.

Then, not only that, but their parents foil them at every turn in this film – Glen certainly would still be alive if his dad hadn't hung up on Nancy during that scene when she tried to reach him. Nancy's mom could have told the truth halfway through this movie and saved a bunch of lives. In ANOES, the parents are the “villains” - though they have no ill intent, they don't listen to their kids, dismissing them just for being kids, which is an all-too-common thing amongst adults. There's a sense of helplessness about everything in this film, which you, the viewer, feel by proxy of the characters.

Oh, and I guess Freddy Krueger is pretty evil too. I mean c'mon. The guy is a child killer, for fuck's sake.

Through the insane visuals, the groundbreaking story blending reality with dreams, the horrific visual nightmares and the iconic Freddy Krueger, who makes the most of his seven minutes of screentime here, Wes Craven and company created a classic. This is one of horror’s greats. If you haven't seen it, I really recommend it. And if you have, well, then you know what I'm talking about.

RIP Wes Craven. You are gone, but your work on this great film will live forever.

Images copyright of their original owners; we own none of them.