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| Monday, December 04, 2006 |
| Black Christmas |
Black Christmas (1974)
Director: Bob Clark
Screenplay: Roy Moore
Starring: Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin
Cinematography: Reginald Morris
Original Music: Carl Zittrer
R, 98 mins.
What do Porky's, A Christmas Story, Black Christmas, and Baby Geniuses have in common? Bob Clark, apparently. I have found no official record of schizophrenia thus far.
Shot in Canada with a budget of $620,000, this is the original slasher film. It set in place many of the cliches we now take for granted, like the POV shot from a mouth breathing killer. Halloween would follow 4 years later.
Whalelegs, who may or may not still be a member of this club, asked me recently about horror movies. Specifically, what's the appeal? I love the genre. What I find interesting is that the reasons I love it have changed and adapted over the years. Adapted because I've been watching horror movies for most of my life, and frankly there's no giving them up now. No matter how moronic 99.9% of them are, I'll find a way to justify my devotion.
As a child, I was genuinely scared and fascinated by what I saw. The fear was like a drug at that point. As I became more and more desensitized, however, I developed an unhealthy (but very common) hero worship of the major villains. I recently discovered an assignment from the 3rd grade in which I said that Freddy Krueger was the one person I'd most like to meet.
By the time I hit puberty my obsession became more prurient in nature. A steady diet of horror movies also means a steady diet of naked college women in compromising situations. It wasn't just the sex, though, that I found titillating. The violence itself began to have more of a junk food appeal to me. I was so detached from the exploitative, ridiculous gore that it was just like watching professional wrestling. In this way, horror movies became a theater for my low brow impulses. In retrospect, I'm troubled by the casual manner in which sex and violence were linked in so much of what I saw growing up. I'm lucky it didn't have a more dangerous affect on me. In fact, as my sensitivity to what I saw on the screen diminished, my sensitivity to real life heightened. Real violence makes me cringe, and the sight of a naked woman arouses absolutely no desire to stab her with a pitchfork.
Now, I watch horror movies mostly for nostalgic reasons. Sure there's the occasional diamond in the rough, but for the most part I'm just checking in with an old friend. I never saw Black Christmas growing up, but the slasher genre it sired was my favorite among all horror genres. I'm fascinated by the idea of an isolated group of people, a microcosm of "normal" society, being compulsively slaughtered by someone not allowed to join in their reindeer games. Cultural norms necessarily leave outcasts in their wake, and many of these movies play out a restoration of balance by sacrificing our elected, and horny, surrogates to the God of Retribution. |
posted by Jeff @ 12/04/2006 02:51:00 PM  |
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| 9 Comments: |
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This looks decent Jeff, I'll see if my store has it.
Horror movies are still problematic for me. Whilst watching The Shining (is that a thriller? i mean, there's axes and all, and the axe does go in someone...but that's not the horror, or maybe it is) I got so scared i pretended to fall asleep so that my girlfriend at the time would turn it off.
Whilst watching Spinazio Diablo I got so scared i asked on more than one occasion for it to be turned off. I was pretty stoned at the time.
Whilst watching Descent i got so scared the first time they see a creature i had to pause it, compose myself somewhat and really ask myself if i could carry on with such fear. I decided i would, but would allow myself to fast frame forward, which i did. liberally. everytime i watch one of these i see it as one more cobweb of childhood/adolescence brushed aside.
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My first "horror film" experience was Pet Sematary. I had to ask my mom if I could watch it. She reluctantly said yes, but then warned, "If you get scared in the middle of the night, you're not coming to sleep in my bed! And you better not piss your sheets 'cause I won't be changin' them!"
Well, she didn't actually say that "pissing the sheets" part, but it adds some flava' to the story.
Anyways, I watched the movie and I wasn't scared UNTIL I saw the one scene where you see Zelda, the creepy sister...
I changed my OWN sheets the next morning.
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oh my, i had forgotten about zelda. that is definitely a horrific image from my childhood. there was a tales from the crypt episode starring tim curry that had a similar effect.
an early horror movie experience for me was 'the blob.' i'm pretty sure it was the original, but i might be wrong. in the opening scene, an old man investigates the pulsing crater in his backyard, only to have a gooey blob latch onto his hand. it eventually engulfs him entirely. i remember being extremely upset. traumatized even. i had seen nightmare on elm street and friday the 13th, but this was different. for some reason, the old man was more of an innocent victim than the horny teens in the other movies. even now, i sometimes look at old people and think of them being devoured by a giant blob. 'why is that young man giving us such a pitious look?' they probably wonder.
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i also want to add that i liked black christmas a great deal. it is refreshingly devoid of (as many) stale cliches that afflict so many horror movies. i love that it takes place in a sorority house, but the girls are all somewhat normal looking and there's no sex or nudity whatsoever. there's a remake coming out on christmas day and i'm curious if they'll go the same route. highly unlikely.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!
the ending...at first i hated it. it made me angry not to have an explanation. the more i thought about it, though, the more i love it. it's pure terror. a killer who's motives are esoteric, and who's face is anonymous. billy is the boogie man in the closet. i did wonder if we were supposed to think it was phyl's boyfriend.
as for a motive, there are some hints. this is a freudian tale if i've ever seen one. billy's got some issues with his mother and now he's killing off the sisters of this house.i think the camera even lingers on a poster once that says freud.
i also appreciate the dramatic irony of the movie, which is heightened by the close proximity of the killer to the characters (NB: this is the first horror movie to employ the 'the call is coming from INSIDE the house' device)...we just have so much more information than the girls do. for a long time no one even realizes people are being killed. moreover, no one ever discovers just how creepy billy had been in that attic....rocking his suffocated doll maniacly and all that.
the scene with the carolers/death by unicorn is brilliant. really. classic, powerful, simple filmmaking. perfect juxtaposition and montage, blah blah blah...
but the most important thing i got from this movie? i had no idea that that's how they used to trace calls. what the hell was going on there??
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old people dying in movies? love it. That old dude in piranha...one of the funniest deaths i ever did see...even though i don' think you see it. it's funny when you take into his consideration his previous speel about how the river provides him with everything he needs and how his dog is his best friend; the former is a vessel for his murderers, and the latter runs off in his time of need, and i suspect probabaly nibbled at his stump legs.
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my dvd shop doesn't have black christmas...i'm going to watch the grudge instead.
Though looking at the dvd menu i feel i'm going to be watching Family Guy fairly soon...sweet jesus.
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Although I am not typically a big fan of the slasher sub-genre of horror, I have to say I found 'Black Xmas' very enjoyable, apart from a few problematic plot points. I think that it helps that this was one of the first of the genre and very groundbreaking in some methods; it helped me to forgive some of the things I had issues with.
I loved that so much of the movie was seen thru the killer's perspective aka the 'killer-cam'. The thrills of the movie were so much more effective when all we ever see of the stalker are his hands and that one creepy eye. The best part for me was when Jess was running away from the guy and all you can really see is some blurred movement coming after her before a disembodied hand comes from offscreen and grabs her by the hair. Pretty chilling stuff really. And I absolutely agree with Jeff about the caroler death scene. What a great move to combine such an innocent Christmas song with the brutal stabbing imagery. In fact, that the entire movie took place during Xmas was bold.
This was also one of those slasher flicks where you find yourself rooting for the killer. None of the characters are all that likable, especially Margot Kidder and Ms. Mack. Even Jess the heroine was a cold-hearted bitch. That made the death scenes that much better for me, including the great kill with the swinging hook.
As usual for a slasher flick, a had a lot of issues with the police in this one. There's a murderer on the loose that has already killed a little girl that they know of, and these cops would rather sit around the station laughing about blowjobs. And isn't it normal police procedure to monitor tapped phones from the residence and not the safety of the police station!? And I liked that the killer was set up in the attic the whole time, but why in God's name did no one think to search the whole house for the first missing girl? The ending was spooky but a bit of a stretch. Why was Jess left alone on the bed when everyone else left the house?
Overall I think this movie worked because it was groundbreaking in how it treated the killer, but visually and in the story. I can understand how this would have been an intense and scary picture in the 1970s, but I doubt it would wow many audiences if it were released today.
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yeah, why DID they leave her alone at the end. i liked that main cop guy, but even he seemed a little dim.
we should do a follow up when the remake comes out. i'm very curious as to how they'll try to update the scares and characters.
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http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/15/film.blackchristmas.reut/index.html
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Founded in Athens, GA in late 2006, we are a group of movie lovers who participate in a weekly, online discussion regarding the merits, qualities, themes, histories, implications, connotations, denotations, and general appeal (or lack thereof) of a variety of selected films.
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This looks decent Jeff, I'll see if my store has it.
Horror movies are still problematic for me. Whilst watching The Shining (is that a thriller? i mean, there's axes and all, and the axe does go in someone...but that's not the horror, or maybe it is) I got so scared i pretended to fall asleep so that my girlfriend at the time would turn it off.
Whilst watching Spinazio Diablo I got so scared i asked on more than one occasion for it to be turned off. I was pretty stoned at the time.
Whilst watching Descent i got so scared the first time they see a creature i had to pause it, compose myself somewhat and really ask myself if i could carry on with such fear. I decided i would, but would allow myself to fast frame forward, which i did. liberally. everytime i watch one of these i see it as one more cobweb of childhood/adolescence brushed aside.