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Black Christmas (Review)

I haven’t been quite dreaming of one of these, but it is kind of like the ones I used to know. And still do.

With everyone talking about Krampus this year, I stayed focused on something less threatening: An unknown killer in the 1970s. Taking place in a sorority house during the holidays, the girls of the house are enjoying a Christmas party and not hearing the sound of a stranger lurking in the house. They can however hear the phone and get a bizarre call from a creep who says slurred utterances and gives death threats. The girls think nothing of it, but things are about to get ominous as one girl named Clare (Lynne Harrison) gets attacked in the bathroom via plastic wrap and disposed of (not entirely) properly in the attic.

With Clare missing, the other girls get worried after a while and try to get the police involved, even forming a search party (only to find a dead little girl instead of Clare). Other deaths include Mrs. Mac the housemother (Marian Waldman), and sorority girls Barb (Margot Kidder), and Phyl (Andrea Martin). In a subplot, one sorority girl named Jess discovers she is pregnant and plans to abort the baby against the wishes of her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea) who is a pianist.

I have to say I wish I knew about this before, it’s so scary yet so impressive. The characters did have stereotypical traits, but the killer’s POV shots were, well… killer. The lighting and the scenery was well placed, and the murder scenes actually worked out very well. It may have not been very seasonal but it was great to watch.

(Photo: Katja S. Verhoeven)

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