☆ ☆ ☆
Black Christmas (1974) – B. Clark
Forerunner to what became a veritable tidal wave of
slasher films in the 1980s, Bob Clark was the first to unleash a psychopathic
killer in a sorority house (but with little gore and no t&a). Is this the
first outing for the POV tracking camera shot, sneaking up behind the girls or
watching them from closets or behind railings? (Perhaps some of the Italian giallo
films were there first, with their art-directed setpieces?). Margot Kidder (fresh
from De Palma’s Sisters) steals all of her scenes as the foul-mouthed drunken
party girl who teases the police who are investigating the disappearance of
another girl. But Olivia Hussey is the real heroine, helping Detective John
Saxon to tap the telephone that the killer uses to make obscene calls (“the
call is coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE”), even as we come to suspect her
classical pianist boyfriend (Keir Dullea) who isn’t happy that she plans to
have an abortion. Other reviewers found the film terrifying but perhaps I’m now
too jaded – it lands as a dated low budget but generally well-acted artefact.
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