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The Criterion Channel Presents: Black Christmas (1974)


There aren’t a lot of Christmas titles on the Criterion Channel. So it doesn’t leave me with much of a pool for seasonal representation in a recommendation. But then, as someone who enjoys holiday movies for their warmth and sentimentality, perhaps I’m in need of something transgressive for a change. And you can’t get much more transgressive than a slasher movie that just happens to be set during the most wonderful time of the year.
Black Christmas in fact predates most of what we would define as the slasher genre, though its’ origin seems to grow more nebulous depending on who you talk to. Maybe it’s John Carpenter’s Halloween, maybe it’s Black Christmas or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, both from 1974 –maybe even Hitchcock’s Psycho can be defined as the first slasher, it hardly matters. But it is true that Black Christmas foreshadows a number of the genre’s staples, and to my mind plays them better than a lot of its successors.
Director Bob Clark (who went on to make another holiday classic, A Christmas Story) and writer Roy Moore were inspired by the popular urban legend of “the babysitter and the man upstairs” as well as a murder spree that happened in Montreal in the 1940s. The film in fact was shot in Toronto and despite the occasional U.S. flag denoting it some Northeast American city, it is not at all convincing, and feels thoroughly Canadian. Aside from the distinctness of its’ Toronto suburbs and its’ weather, the largely Canadian cast contributes to this, including Margot Kidder (who I didn’t think I’d be talking about here twice in two months), and Andrea Martin (who is technically American, but we consider her one of our own).
Kidder and Martin are great, and they give their characters a little more dimension than you’d expect for obvious slasher victims. The lead of the film and final girl is Olivia Hussey, and of course the most compelling facet of her character has little to do with her performance. Jess is a college student who recently found out she is pregnant and is looking to get an abortion against the wishes of her partner Peter (Keir Dullea). This was just a year after Roe v. Wade, so it was fresh subject matter, yet still incredibly bold, especially in the decision to show a young woman so vehemently asserting her right to choice. And the movie aptly illustrates the pressure she’s under and the societal stigma; from her boyfriend, her friends, the police. Peter’s controlling nature over this is noteworthy too, his extreme language and rhetoric (“killing their baby” and other nonsense), amplified by Dullea’s obvious age discrepancy to Hussey and his characteristic menacing appearance.
That’s the kind of stuff that makes the movie surprisingly relevant, but it also ages well for how scary it is. Black Christmas isn’t a very bloody movie but each kill is memorable, whether through being shot from the killers’ POV or the creative visual choices applied (such as one where a glass figurine is used as a weapon). The obscene calls are still unnerving and despite it not being a twist, the “calls are coming from inside the house” reveal is pretty chilling. The killer himself is almost a refutation of over-exposed slasher villains, the most we see of him is a hand, a terrifying eye. The movie offers snippets of a backstory but refuses to elaborate, content to keep him almost completely ambiguous.
The ending might be the best I’ve seen from a slasher movie, from the way it depicts the repercussions of earlier behaviour through to the final few minutes drenched in an eerie mood, frightful cinematography, and at least one truly freaky image that’ll be with me for a bit. Happy Holidays! Bolt your attics shut.
 
Criterion Recommendation: The Apartment (1960)
Sometimes considered a holiday movie (it takes place primarily during the week between Christmas and New Years), Billy Wilder’s The Apartment is one of the all-time great romantic comedies. Jack Lemmon plays an office drone who rents out his apartment to managers for their affairs as a way of getting ahead, while Shirley MacLaine plays a depressed, emotionally vulnerable elevator girl in love with the company boss (Fred MacMurray). Lemmon and MacLaine are amazing, the latter giving one of her most powerful performances, and the film sits nicely at an intersection of classic and modern movies. The apartment itself looks like a real apartment, the whole movie gives off a very working class aura unique to Hollywood at the time. It feels like a movie about ordinary people, and lonely ordinary people at that -perhaps one of the reasons I relate to it so much. Such a sweet and lovely film for a sweet and lovely time of year and I hope that in time Criterion gives it the attention it deserves. I certainly want a nicer edition.

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