On The 10th Day Of Christmas... Black Christmas

(1974)
Director: Bob Clark
Writer: Roy Moore

It's Christmas break at sorority house Pi Kappa Sigma and some of the girls have plans to go skiing, but when one of the sisters goes missing the girls begin to suspect that something awful may have happened.

I know that's a pretty vague description, but I really don't want to spoil this movie for anyone that hasn't seen it. Black Christmas is by far my favorite Christmas horror film and possibly my favorite horror film of all time. That's a bold statement and one that I don't make lightly. Every time I watch Black Christmas, once the credits begin rolling I get chills. I feel like I've just played witness to a series of terrible events and paranoia sets in. This is the sensation that a successfully frightening horror film should give you. Black Christmas hits all the right notes by giving the viewer just enough information to follow the plot and leaving the rest for the terrifying depths of the spectator's mind to imagine. It's also good to keep in mind that this was more or less the first slasher film. Black Christmas predates Halloween by four years and since directors Bob Clark and John Carpenter worked together for a short time, it's speculated that Halloween originated as a sequel to Black Christmas. Ironically, nine years later Bob Clark would also give us the family holiday classic A Christmas Story. And thirty years later he would curse us all with Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, but don't let let that dissuade you. The cast of Black Christmas also knocks it out of the park. Olivia Hussey, John Saxon, Margot Kidder, and even SCTV's Andrea Martin and 2001: A Space Odyssey's Keir Dullea all play prominent parts in the film, Kidder's brash, drunken sorority girl being my personal favorite. If you haven't seen Black Christmas, do yourself a favor. Make a little nest in front of the TV, get some hot chocolate, turn out all the lights, and experience the slow-burning terror by yourself. To quote the tagline, "If this movie doesn't make your skin crawl... it's on too tight." Black Christmas gets a coveted first and probably only perfect 6 beers.