Black Christmas [Silent Night, Evil Night] **** (1974, Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, Art Hindle, Andre Martin, John Saxon) – Classic Movie Review 3708

Black Christmas (1974): A group of sorority sisters gather to celebrate Christmas break, but there is something terrifying in their sorority house attic.

Producer/ director Bob Clark’s 1974 Canadian shock suspense thriller is gorily gruesome and very gripping, in its now classic holiday horror story in which a university’s sorority girls are under siege from an evil strangler killer on the loose in their house over the Christmas holidays. For better or for worse, it is notable as one of the earliest slasher films.

It took awhile, but Black Christmas has gained a cult following and now has a reputation as one of the greatest horror films. It inspired other slasher films, notably John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), which was apparently sparked off by Clark suggesting what a Black Christmas sequel would be like. It has had two remakes (in 2006 and 2019).

There’s a good star cast in Keir Dullea (formerly Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey [1968]), Margot Kidder (Lois Lane in the 1978 film Superman), Art Hindle, Andrea Martin and John Saxon, while Olivia Hussey (formerly Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film Romeo and Juliet), does well as the star student Jess, whose ex-boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea) may be the killer.

It all starts with an unseen man climbing the exterior of a sorority house, where the sorority sisters’ Christmas party is being held, and the man entering the sorority house attic. That is followed by anonymous obscene and threatening phone calls to the sisters, and then one of their number, Clare (Lynne Griffin), disappears. While Jess, Mr Harrison, Chris and Phyl are searching for the missing girl, the housemother Mrs MacHenry (Marian Waldman) discovers Clare’s body. The sorority sisters are then stalked and murdered by a deranged killer.

The mystery plot is effectively set up and well unravelled by screen-writer A Roy Moore, who wrote the screenplay as Stop Me, inspired by the urban legend of the babysitter and the man upstairs and a series of murders in the Westmount neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec. His screenplay was changed to the university setting with young adult characters.

Full credit must go to director Clark, who handles the movie tautly and tensely.

Also in the cast are James Edmond, Marian Waldman, Michael Rapport, Les Carlson, Martha Gibson, John Rutter, Robert Warner and Doug McGrath [Douglas McGrath].

It was shot in Toronto in 1974 on an estimated budget of $620,000, and was a nice little earner, taking in $4.1 million.

It was released in Canada on 11 October 1974, and distributed by Ambassador Film Distributors in Canada and Warner Bros in the US and international markets. Warner Bros released the film in the US for the Christmas season on 20 December 1974, changing the title to Silent Night, Evil Night in case Black Christmas would mislead audiences into thinking it was a blaxploitation movie. Later they restore the original title.

It was remade in 2006 as Black Christmas with Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Lacey Chabert, with Andrea Martin back again, this time as Ms ‘Mac’ MacHenry.

And it was remade again in 2019 as Black Christmas with Imogen Poots and Cary Elwes. It was directed and co-written by Sophia Takal for by Blumhouse Productions.

Olivia Hussey said that when she first met Steve Martin he told her that she starred in one of his favourite films of all time. She thought he meant Romeo and Juliet and was surprised when he said it was Black Christmas, which he had seen 27 times.

Two weeks before its US network TV premiere as Stranger in the House on 28 January 1978, the Chi Omega Sorority House on the Florida State University campus in Tallahassee was the scene of a double murder in which two Chi Omega sisters, asleep in their beds, were bludgeoned to death. The killer then went to a nearby room in the sorority house and attacked two more sleeping co-eds, who survived. The killer was later identified as Ted Bundy.

The cast are Olivia Hussey as Jess, Keir Dullea as Peter, Margot Kidder as Barb, John Saxon as Lt. Fuller, Marian Waldman as Mrs MacHenry [Mrs Mac], Andrea Martin as Phyl, James Edmond as Mr Harrison, Doug McGrath [Douglas McGrath] as Sergeant Nash, Art Hindle [Arthur Hindle] as Chris, Lynne Griffin as Clare, Michael Rapport as Patrick, Leslie Carlson [Les Carlson] as Bill, Martha Gibson as Mrs Quaife, John Rutter as Laughing Detective, David Clement [Dave Clement] as Cogan, Julian Reed as Officer Jennings, and Nick Mancuso as Billy / Phone Voice.

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