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Black Christmas is a 1974 Canadian horror film, directed by Bob Clark. Black Christmas stars Olivia Hussey as a young college student who must deal with a deranged killer lurking in her sorority house. It also features Margot Kidder and Andrea Martin, before either had gained fame in the United States, John Saxon and Keir Dullea round out the cast. The film makes use of dark corners, off-kilter camera angles, and sparingly uses a score by Carl Zittrer to create suspense. It is also marketed with the tagline "If this movie doesn't make your skin crawl... It's on too tight!" Image File history File links Black_christmas_movie_poster. ...
Benjamin Bob Clark (August 5, 1941[1] – April 4, 2007) was an American director known for the 1982 hit film Porkys and its sequel Porkys II: The Next Day. ...
For the baseball player, see Roy Moore (baseball). ...
Olivia Hussey (born Olivia Osuna on April 17, 1951 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is an Anglo-Argentine actress perhaps best known for her role as Juliet in Franco Zeffirellis 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet. ...
Margot Kidder (born October 17, 1948) is a Canadian-American film and television actress who achieved fame playing Lois Lane in the Superman movies of the 1970s and 1980s. ...
Andrea Martin (born January 15, 1947) is a Tony Award-winning American actor and comedienne. ...
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Keir Dullea (born May 30, 1936) is an actor best remembered for his role as astronaut David Bowman in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and in 1984s 2010: The Year We Make Contact. ...
Reggie Morris (25 June 1886 – 16 February 1928), was an American actor, director and screenwriter of the silent era. ...
“WB†redirects here. ...
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is the 284th day of the year (285th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. ...
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is the 354th day of the year (355th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. ...
The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...
See also: 1973 in film 1974 1975 in film 1970s in film years in film film // Events February 7 - Blazing Saddles is released in USA May 1 - George Lucas creates the first draft of what would eventually become Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. ...
“Horror Movie†redirects here. ...
Benjamin Bob Clark (August 5, 1941[1] – April 4, 2007) was an American director known for the 1982 hit film Porkys and its sequel Porkys II: The Next Day. ...
Olivia Hussey (born Olivia Osuna on April 17, 1951 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is an Anglo-Argentine actress perhaps best known for her role as Juliet in Franco Zeffirellis 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet. ...
The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at Lafayette College. ...
Margot Kidder (born October 17, 1948) is a Canadian-American film and television actress who achieved fame playing Lois Lane in the Superman movies of the 1970s and 1980s. ...
Andrea Martin (born January 15, 1947) is a Tony Award-winning American actor and comedienne. ...
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Keir Dullea (born May 30, 1936) is an actor best remembered for his role as astronaut David Bowman in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and in 1984s 2010: The Year We Make Contact. ...
Plot summary
Olivia Hussey as Jess listens to an obscene phone call from "The Moaner". The film opens at night with a small party occurring in a sorority house for a private school. A man is shown entering the house through the open attic window. We are introduced to all of the girls in the sorority house, the main ones being Jessica Bradford (Olivia Hussey), the heroine of the film, Barbara Coard (Margot Kidder), a drunken loud mouth, and Phyllis Carlson (Andrea Martin), Jessica's friend and the peace keeper of the group. The girls have been receiving mysterious phonecalls from someone they call "The Moaner". The calls start out sexual in nature, but they gradually grow more macabre, with the man on the other end saying strange things in different voices. Image File history File links Vlcsnap-680047. ...
Image File history File links Vlcsnap-680047. ...
Olivia Hussey (born Olivia Osuna on April 17, 1951 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is an Anglo-Argentine actress perhaps best known for her role as Juliet in Franco Zeffirellis 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet. ...
This article is about motion pictures. ...
The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at Lafayette College. ...
For the film of this title, see Private School (film). ...
This article is about the area generally found above a house. ...
The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at Lafayette College. ...
Olivia Hussey (born Olivia Osuna on April 17, 1951 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is an Anglo-Argentine actress perhaps best known for her role as Juliet in Franco Zeffirellis 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet. ...
This article is about motion pictures. ...
Margot Kidder (born October 17, 1948) is a Canadian-American film and television actress who achieved fame playing Lois Lane in the Superman movies of the 1970s and 1980s. ...
Andrea Martin (born January 15, 1947) is a Tony Award-winning American actor and comedienne. ...
For other uses, see Macabre (disambiguation). ...
The shyest sorority girl, Clare Harrison (Lynne Griffin), goes upstairs to pack, and when she goes into the closet, the man dives out and wraps a plastic bag around her head, asphyxiating her. He then drags her into the attic, and puts her in a rocking chair by the window. The next day, Clare's father (James Edmond) comes to pick her up, but nobody knows where she is. It becomes a mystery as the police search for the missing Clare. Meanwhile, Mrs. MacHenry (Marian Waldman), the house mother, stumbles upon the killer while searching for her cat in the attic and gets a crane hook in the face. Lynne Griffin is a Canadian actress. ...
Suffocation redirects here, for the band, see Suffocation (band). ...
This article is about the area generally found above a house. ...
Lady on a rocking chair by Victor Borisov-Musatov, 1897 A rocking chair or rocker is a chair with two curved bands of wood (also know as rockers) attached to the bottom of the legs (one on the left two legs and one on the right two legs). ...
A lifting hook with a safety latch. ...
Meanwhile, Jessica admits to her boyfriend Peter Smythe (Keir Dullea) that she is pregnant, but she's having an abortion. He begins to act strange, and shows off some anger problems. As Barbara and Phyllis are murdered by the killer, Jessica gets another call. The police trace the call and realize that they are coming from in the house (the telephone in Mrs. MacHenry's room) and warn Jessica to leave the house immediately and wait for them outside. Instead of going out, Jessica goes upstairs with a fireplace poker and discovers Barb's and Phyllis's bodies both lying on Barb's bed. Then, Jessica is chased by the killer. She manages to escape and hide the basement. There she runs into Peter, who she now believes is the killer. He approaches her to talk, but Jessica kills him with the poker. Keir Dullea (born May 30, 1936) is an actor best remembered for his role as astronaut David Bowman in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and in 1984s 2010: The Year We Make Contact. ...
Freshly forged iron fireplace pokers. ...
The police arrive and feel the case is closed, and leave the house, leaving Jessica alone to sleep off the excitement. Then as the camera shows the house we get to see the attic one last time and see that the two dead bodies of Mrs. Mac and Claire have not been discovered. We hear a man say, "Agnes, it's me, Billy." As the credits begin to roll, we hear the phone ring once again.
Production and history Working from a budget of $620,000 and an eight week shooting schedule, the film was shot in 35mm format utilizing Panavision cameras and lenses in and around Toronto during the winter of 1974. Annesley Hall National Historic Site was used for some scenes. When originally released in the United States, Warner Bros., fearing that audiences might confuse it for a blaxploitation movie, changed the title to Silent Night, Evil Night. It performed poorly until its title was changed back to Black Christmas. It was later retitled Stranger in the House for television broadcast. Annesley Hall Annesley Hall is the all-female residence at Victoria College, University of Toronto campus. ...
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Shaft (1971) Blaxploitation is a film genre that emerged in the United States in the early 1970s when many exploitation films were made that targeted the urban black audience; the word itself is a portmanteau of the words “black†and “exploitation. ...
Though John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) is generally credited with popularizing the main motifs of the contemporary slasher film genre, many genre aficionados contend that Black Christmas invented many of them four years earlier. For example, the film features shots from the perspective of the killer, replete with muffled breathing noises. Also, like Halloween, it is centered around a holiday. For other persons named John Carpenter, see John Carpenter (disambiguation). ...
Halloween (film) redirects here. ...
// Events February 1 - Bob Dylans film Renaldo and Clara, a documentary of the Rolling Thunder Revue tour premieres in Los Angeles, California March 1 - Charlie Chaplins coffin is stolen from a Swiss cemetery 3 months after burial March - Leigh Brackett completes the first draft for Star Wars Episode...
The original 1974 Black Christmas is considered the first authentic slasher. ...
Upon its original release, the film did well in comparison to its budget, grossing $4,053,000 in the USA alone. Critic's reviews were mixed, for example, Variety felt the film was heavily cliched and that "Black Christmas, a bloody, senseless kill-for-kicks feature, exploits unnecessary violence in a university sorority house operated by an implausibly alcoholic ex-hoofer. Its slow-paced, murky tale involves an obscene telephone caller who apparently delights in killing the girls off one by one, even the hapless house-mother."[1] Variety is a daily newspaper for the entertainment industry. ...
Cast Olivia Hussey (born Olivia Osuna on April 17, 1951 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is an Anglo-Argentine actress perhaps best known for her role as Juliet in Franco Zeffirellis 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet. ...
Margot Kidder (born October 17, 1948) is a Canadian-American film and television actress who achieved fame playing Lois Lane in the Superman movies of the 1970s and 1980s. ...
Keir Dullea (born May 30, 1936) is an actor best remembered for his role as astronaut David Bowman in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and in 1984s 2010: The Year We Make Contact. ...
Andrea Martin (born January 15, 1947) is a Tony Award-winning American actor and comedienne. ...
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Lynne Griffin is a Canadian actress. ...
Doug McGrath is a Canadian actor whose most notable role was of Peter in the acclaimed Canadian film Going Down The Road. ...
Art Hindle (Born July 21, 1948 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) is a Canadian actor and director. ...
DVD Releases Eclectic DVD has released two editions of Black Christmas. The first was a bare-bones release that hit shelves on November 6, 2001. This was then followed by a collector's edition released on December 3, 2002, that featured a making-of documentary and two commentary tracks (some of the commentary material was obviously taken from interviews for the documentary), among other features. On December 5, 2006, Critical Mass released a new "special edition" disc that offers a featurette titled "The Twelve Days of Black Christmas" and two deleted sound scenes, in addition to interviews with Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder and clips from a Q&A sessions at a midnight screening with the makers of Black Christmas.
Trivia - First horror film to use the "the calls are coming from inside the house" plotline. Later used in When a Stranger Calls.
- John Saxon's scenes were filmed separately from the leads, yet they appear to be in the same room.
- Edmund O'Brien was originally supposed to play the character that Saxon played. According to the documentary feature On Screen (produced for the Canadian cable network Space), O'Brien was removed from the picture when he began showing signs of Alzheimer's disease; Saxon filmed his first scenes only two hours after arriving in Toronto.
- Originally scripted as The Babysitter, the title was changed to Stop Me, and eventually produced as Black Christmas.
- The original script was written by Canadian Roy Moore who had read about a similar story happening in major cities around the world in a 12 month period. This was never proven. Apparently the Westmount section of Montreal was the closest story to home.
- Director Bob Clark, in the On Screen documentary, claims that he came up with the basic idea of Halloween (including its title) as a hypothetical sequel to Black Christmas; he later gave the idea to John Carpenter.
- An episode of Men in Black: The Series, season 2's "The Black Christmas Syndrome", was named after the film.
- This film was #87 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for the scene with a dead girl sitting by a window.
- Contrary to previous information, Timothey Bond did not take part in the writing of the original script for The Babysitter.
- Though Halloween is often hailed as the first slasher film, Black Christmas was released four years before Halloween was, making Black Christmas the first slasher film.
- Black Christmas was also released under the titles: Silent Night, Evil Night and Stranger in the House.
- According to director Bob Clark, screen icon Bette Davis was offered the role of Mrs. Mac, the alcoholic, comic relief housemother (played in the film by veteran Canadian actress Marian Waldman).
- Actress Andrea Martin (who plays Phyliss) plays the Mrs. Mac housemother role in the 2006 remake of "Black Christmas".
- NBC was actually forced to pull BLACK CHRISTMAS during a prime time showing due to viewers calling in and complaining that it was "too scary."
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OBrien in D.O.A. Edmond OBrien (September 10, 1915 – May 9, 1985) was an American film actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A.. Born in New York, New York, OBrien made his film debut in 1938, and gradually built...
This article is about the U.S. cable network. ...
The 100 Scariest Movie Moments was a TV mini series first shown in late October of 2004 on Bravo TV. It was a countdown for the 100 most shocking moments in the history of movies, with interviews from horror experts or other celebrities who experienced the films on the list. ...
Halloween (film) redirects here. ...
The original 1974 Black Christmas is considered the first authentic slasher. ...
Benjamin Bob Clark (August 5, 1941[1] – April 4, 2007) was an American director known for the 1982 hit film Porkys and its sequel Porkys II: The Next Day. ...
For the singer, see Betty Davis, for the meteorologist, see Betty Davis (meteorologist). ...
Andrea Martin (born January 15, 1947) is a Tony Award-winning American actor and comedienne. ...
References - ^ [1] - Review in Variety magazine, 1974.
Jim Harper; "Legacy of Blood"
External links - Canadian Film Encyclopedia [A publication of The Film Reference Library/a division of the Toronto International Film Festival Group]
- Black Christmas at the Internet Movie Database
- Black Christmas at All Movie Guide
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