Black Christmas (1974)

This film put Olivia Hussey centre-stage and has become something of a cult horror classic, it seems. I'd never heard of it! It's currently on Tubi (with adverts) or Amazon Prime (pay). It's a cracking little thriller, dark, comic too, but very suspenseful in places, especially towards the end. Olivia has most of the screen time and holds the story together nicely.

There is use of hand-held camera, but it's done here when appropriate (not all over the place, as in recent filmmaking). It's used to get the audience inside the head of the serial killer and when we're not there, it's not used. Much better.

Anyway, it's a kind of teen-slasher but it's classy, well-shot, well written and has sniffs of all sorts of other stuff going on, including Hitchcock's Psycho. It's about a group of girls, around xmas, living in a student house run by some sort of Housemother, who start to get nasty phone calls from someone, our serial killer, just after he bumps one of them off. Then another call follows the next bumping-off and so on! It's all very claustrophobic mostly set inside the large house with all sorts of dark corners, staircases and corridors!

Shot in 1974 there's some great glimpses of faces I knew from other films and TV like Margot Kidder (think Lois Lane), John Saxon (Enter the Dragon), Keir Dullea (2001: A Space Odyssey) and plenty more. Our Projector Room Podcasts's Gareth Myles would be all over the 70s/80s links here! It's all very 'dated' of course, in terms of fashion (though not language!), but it feels like it stands the test of time as it's so well done, gripping often, very well shot with artful use of camera and position and lighting/shadow/colour to add tension - and roving shallow-focus aplenty.

I guess it's been done, copied, nodded-to and emulated loads since, with the likes of Halloween, for example, but this holds its place firmly as it grabs the audience. The time flew whilst watching and I won't give away any further details here of plot, so you can enjoy for yourself. Olivia Hussey's performance is flawless as the central character, fighting her own problems of being pregnant, not sure what to do, under pressure from boyfriend, in amongst all the murderous mayhem.

It's not just about her though, as the other characters have been beautifully written and each have quirks of their own as the story develops and we get to know them. The pacing of the film is quite superb. Who, if anyone, will survive? Who is the killer? It's a really classy act and I recommend you watch it before it disappears from Mubi!