Black Christmas (1974) / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Billy is subject to this since we know so little about him. His ranting during the phone calls indicates that he had a very negative experience with someone named Agnes, but nothing is known beyond this. There's also the question of just how insane he actually is (several times he acts in such a way that indicates that he knows what he's doing and is acting with premeditation) and whether or not the phone calls are just an act to intimidate his victims or if he really is just that crazy. There's also the question of how he's able to change his voice so often.
- Billy could arguably be a supernatural figure, since he always seems to be in the right place to attack one of the girls unseen — and no one catches him creeping around or hears this person at all (though it is a big house). He coincidentally knows exactly what to say to get Jess to believe it's Peter, and the multiple voices would be very tricky for a normal person to do. There's also the possibility there were multiple killers and Peter was one of them.
- Jess insisting that she knows Peter wouldn't be the type to harass the girls or hurt them. Does she genuinely believe that? It's implied Peter destroying the piano is an isolated incident and he could just be exceptionally high strung from his stressful week (he also says he's barely slept for days in preparing for the performance) and the fact that he's not the killer. However, Jess doesn't want to marry him and is very quick to announce she'll abort his baby. Does this mean it's not the only time he's displayed abusive tendencies, and Jess has just been in denial beforehand?
- Peter quits the conservatory after his botched recital, tries to badger Jess into marrying him, and again tries to shame her out of getting an abortion. When Jess refuses, he tells her she'll be sorry and leaves angrily, but is later seen skulking around outside the house after the police leave. He then breaks into the house again through the basement window, which is when Jess kills him, believing him to be the killer. In light of his abusive nature towards her and his threats, it's not hard to believe that while Jess was mistaken about him being the killer the police are looking for, Peter might have been breaking back into the house specifically to kill Jess.
- It's left open whether the murder of Janice Quaife was done by Billy, although the film leans more towards yes. Was it random, like all the sorority murders seem to be? Or was it more calculated — putting the body in the park to convince the girls they'd be safer in the house, and therefore making it easier for him to surprise them? The film opens with Billy climbing back into the house, and Janice has been missing for a day, so maybe he had just come back from committing that murder.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The scene where a cop comes into the police station after being Shot in the Ass serves no purpose to the plot aside from giving Lt. Fuller an excuse to need to make Jess wait on Billy's next call. It's never mentioned again afterwards.
Creepy Cute: The children singing Christmas carols. They're perfectly normal children, but their singing being juxtaposed with Barb being murdered only makes them creepier.
Crosses the Line Twice:
- While Mr Harris is worried about his daughter's disappearance and there's talk of another young girl who's missing — Barb out of nowhere starts talking about turtles that can "screw for three days without stopping". The sheer Mood Whiplash is fantastic.
- There's also a gag where Barb is seen giving a child a sip of beer from her glass — which for someone like her is perfectly in character. It's funnier to fans from the UK and Ireland, where underage drinking is considerably less taboo than America.
Cult Classic: Considered one of the grandfathers of the slasher genre. Its cult status even gained it two remakes. Olivia Hussey once had a moment where she met Steve Martin, who told her she was in one of his favorite films. She assumed he meant her most famous role Romeo and Juliet (1968), but he meant this!
Draco in Leather Pants: Billy has a fanbase online who finds his obsessive stalking and feral personality attractive.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Barb pretty much disappears during the second act when she goes upstairs to take a nap, and only reappears to be killed off. Due to Margot Kidder's fun performance, and the character having more than just being the aggressive Jerkass, she's a fondly remembered part of the movie.
First Installment Wins: This is considered a granddaddy of the Slasher Movie, and has a strong following among horror fans. Both remakes were poorly received and failed to make the same impact.
Fridge Horror: Some real-life mundane horror in what leads to Mrs Mac's death. She hears Claude in the attic just as she's about to leave for the holidays. Most of the other girls have gone home already, and the remaining three are planning to go on a ski trip, leaving the house empty for a while. She must have been thinking that there was no guarantee of the cat being able to find his way out of the attic again (and indeed he might have only got in there because Billy left the trapdoor open) and he may starve over the holidays with no one to watch him. So in doing the sensible thing, it led to her going into the attic and getting killed.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- Barb's status as the Hard-Drinking Party Girl — most of which is Played for Laughs — becomes harsher once you know that Margot Kidder later died of an alcohol overdose.
- Jess also has to deal with an abusive boyfriend. Olivia Hussey detailed such a relationship in her autobiography, with Christopher Jones who at one point raped her. Jess also chooses to abort the baby the abusive boyfriend gives her, and Olivia's book revealed that the rape left her pregnant and she aborted it. And of course her marriage to Dean Paul Martin had fallen apart right before filming. As a result, she was likely channeling some very real emotions.
- The 1974 film's very premise, which is about a serial killer stalking and killing young women at a sorority house, becomes much harder to watch with the knowledge that it was precisely in 1974 when Serial Killer Ted Bundy turned to regularly killing female students, and four years after he would break into a sorority house at night and kill two girls. Thankfully, three of the sorority members survived but it's still pretty horrifying.
Heartwarming Moments:
- Despite it soon leading to Barb's death at Billy's hands, Jess is so distressed over the night's events that she goes outside to listen to a group of children singing Christmas carols. She momentarily gets a break from the horror of the night, and sincerely applauds when they're done. She also donates money to them afterwards.
- We also get a moment of levity when Jess and Phyllis get briefly spooked by members of the search party and then collapse giggling as soon as they're gone.
- When Jess is informed that the calls are coming from inside the house, she calls out for Phyllis and Barb, who she doesn't realize are already dead. She runs upstairs, showing that she won't leave her friends alone in the house with a psycho.
- In the climax when Mr Harrison faints from shock, Chris immediately helps him and can be heard trying to reassure him. You get the sense he's really looking out for his girlfriend's father.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The fact that Bob Clark, who directed this slasher film set in Christmas, later went on to make A Christmas Story, one of the most classic American Christmas movies.
- John Saxon would later play a police lieutenant in another classic slasher film — A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
- Children performing Christmas carols for Jess is amusing if you know that Olivia Hussey played the Virgin Mary four years later in Jesus of Nazareth.
- The film was given the American title Silent Night, Evil Night. Another horror film set at Christmas would come along a few years later titled Silent Night, Deadly Night. And the killer in that is called Billy too!
- The House on Sorority Row would likewise revolve around a sorority house being terrorized by a killer who normally hides in the attic. And the 2006 remake would borrow elements from that slasher in Billy's backstory.
- Olivia Hussey playing a character who decides she's not ready to be a mother, considering she'd infamously play Norma Bates — the queen of abusive mothers — in Psycho IV: The Beginning.
Jerkass Woobie:
- Peter wasn't a nice guy by any means, but he certainly wasn't a killer. Too bad Jess didn't realize that. The scene where he phones Jess and begs her not to abort their child and starts sobbing is actually quite heartbreaking and considering how everything else in his life is falling apart, you just kinda want to give the poor guy a hug.
- Mr. Harrison is a Downplayed Trope as he's nowhere near as controlling or threatening as Peter. At most, he expresses disapproval of the Hard-Drinking Party Girl lifestyle of his daughter's sorority as well as being obtrusive in their lives. However, his daughter is missing and he actively participates in both for the search of her as well as other victims. In the end, he's just a worried father and a bit stuffy.
- If you pay attention to the phone conversation at the beginning, Barb's mother has decided to take off for Christmas with a new boyfriend to leave her daughter alone. That certainly explains why she may be fond of drinking or acting ridiculous — not to mention she's also later feeling guilty for her Parting-Words Regret with Clare.
- One could argue that Billy himself is somewhere between this and a full blown Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. He does throughout the movie show signs of being a Reluctant Psycho and when he does kill it doesn’t seem to bring him any joy in fact it only seems to send him even further down the rabbit hole! Whatever his background is it’s clear that he’s a deeply disturbed individual who’s in dire need of help that he’s not getting! The 2006 remake is a lot more straightforward about this…
Moe: Clare seems so sweet, especially when she finds Claude in her room and just immediately cuddles and baby talks to him. Then she has to go and get herself killed.
Once Original, Now Common: It was, more or less, one of the first slashers — so the plot points of a killer picking off young women one by one, harrassing them over the phone and an obvious Final Girl can feel a bit formulaic. Despite all of those things becoming staples of the genre, various examples of Unbuilt Trope work in its favour, retaining some of its originaity.
One-Scene Wonder: Lynne Griffin does a lot with her small part as Clare, making her feel like a likable and compelling character — and that makes her sudden death all the more striking. Additionally, she holds her breath and convincingly plays a corpse for several long takes (even having to do so with a cat crawling all over her).
Paranoia Fuel:
- Any odd disturbances or noises you hear around the house? Somebody couldn't have broken in... could they?
- Clare's body is never found, and is still up in the attic by the movie's end. The smell will eventually alert someone, who will be witnessed to a decaying, mangled corpse of a young adult.
- Mrs Mac likewise is murdered just as she's about to leave. The police don't even know to search for her, and everyone think she's just gone away for the holidays.
Retroactive Recognition: Billy is voiced by a young (and uncredited) Nick Mancuso, while Phyllis is played by a pre-SCTV Andrea Martin.
Signature Line: "The Calls Are Coming from Inside the House!" — what was originally a shocking twist, is now one of the most remembered parts.
Signature Scene: Jess getting a glimpse of the killer's eye. It's so remembered because it's the only time we ever see 'Billy' in the whole movie, and it's even on some of the posters.
Tear Jerker:
- At one point, Phyllis just bursts into tears in Jess's arms; knowing Clare is probably dead and openly weeping for what her father must be going through.
- There's also the shot of Claude crawling on Clare's corpse and licking her face. Bob Clark later said how that scene still stuck with him; that the cat was trying in vain to revive his owner.
- Mrs Quaife reporting her daughter missing, specifically when she says that they were supposed to go shopping for a present for her father. You can tell she's already believing she'll never see her daughter again.
- In the ending, Mr Harrison goes into shock and literally faints in his chair at the news that everyone in the house is dead. And Clare's body is still unaccounted for.
- Behind the scenes, there's the story of the original choice for Lt Fuller — Academy Award winning actor Edmond O'Brien. He signed on and flew in, ready to start filming. Upon collecting him, they discovered he had begun suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Word of God is that he would have "taken a chance" had there not been scenes requiring him to film outdoors in the freezing cold (the first scene to be filmed was the search party assembling in the park). Co-producer Gerry Arbeid sadly recalls having to break the news to this acclaimed veteran actor that he wouldn't be able to do the part — to which he started crying — and later called it a traumatic experience. What's more is that they had to drop him without any guarantee of a replacement. Had John Saxon not come on board two days before shooting, the film would have been cancelled completely.
Testosterone Brigade: Olivia Hussey, who had become something of a sex symbol for Romeo and Juliet (1968), at the height of her beauty — with her iconic long hair on display in most scenes — attracted quite the brigade of admirers.
Values Dissonance: A Downplayed Trope example with Mr. Harrison casually inserting himself into the lives of the sorority house girls, up to and including having dinner with them. He often acts judgmental and like he's in charge of their lives just because he's an older man in their home. This despite having no relationship to any of them other than his daughter. The downplayed element is the fact his daughter is missing and he's working with them to find her.
Values Resonance: This article by Aja Romano views the film as having arguably more resonance in the 2010s than it did in 1974. To wit: the killer, who harasses the girls over the phone before he comes to kill them, is basically a woman-hating internet troll before the internet. This harassment isn't taken seriously until it's too late, the film not-so-subtly blaming the community for allowing it to reach that point and fester within their midst (the famous line "the calls are coming from inside the house" can just as easily be seen as metaphorical). Finally, its portrayal of its sorority sister protagonists is quite sex-positive, especially by the standards of the time and the genre, including having the Final Girl not only be sexually active, but planning to get an abortion despite the wishes of her boyfriend.
Vindicated by History: While it was a modest success when it was released, it didn't do too well with American critics when it was distributed there — and there were complaints of such a dark film being themed around Christmas. Over the years however, it acquired a strong cult fan base and by the 2000s Margot Kidder joked that she got more fans asking her to autograph Black Christmas related merch than Superman. These days, it's considered a quintessential Slasher Movie. The tepid reception to both the remakes has only increased respect and acclaim for the original.
The Woobie:
- Jess goes through hell. Not only does she have to deal with the usual Final Girl trauma of watching her friends cut down one by one as well as being stalked by an abusive psychopath but she also has to deal with the fact she's pregnant with an unwanted child by a boyfriend who becomes increasingly erratic throughout the period. In the end, she kills the wrong man and is left drugged and alone in a house with a murderous killer.
- If you don't buy him as a Jerkass Woobie, Mr. Harrison has come to check up on his daughter and is left with an increasing certainty that his daughter is dead despite all his attempts to look out for her. The fact he's a somewhat patriarchal authority figure doesn't change the fact he clearly is worried sick about her.
- Good lord, Mrs Quaife. She experiences the ultimate horror of her thirteen-year-old daughter not coming home from band practice — and her husband is out of town, so she's implied to have spent the day worrying and alone. Then her poor little girl is found killed in the park.

YMMV / Black Christmas (1974)

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