Ruin Your Festive Spirit With A Timely Black Christmas Rewatch
‘Tis the season (to contemplate systemic violence).
“Silent Night” plays over the opening credits of the holiday slasher Black Christmas, a cruel punchline for a film in which a group of sorority sisters are plagued by the repeated shrill ringing of a landline — phone calls from an unknown pervert — and any silence is eventually shattered by their screams.
Directed by Bob Clark, who would make the feel-good holiday comedy A Christmas Story nine years later, Black Christmas is widely considered one of the first slasher films, a genre definer that influenced horror classics like John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). Released 50 years ago, it arrived the same year as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but while Tobe Hooper’s film followed a group of young friends fatally venturing into unfamiliar territory, Black Christmas brought the horror home to familiar bedrooms, inducing a claustrophobic terror from which there was no escape.
There’s little holiday spirit in Black Christmas, which opens with a shot of a sorority house. Outside, bright fairy lights are strung up. Inside, darkness lurks. The smooth Steadicam is gradually replaced by the jerky movements of an intruder lurching forward. The killer’s silhouette steadily obscures the camera lens, while Christmas carols give way to heavy breathing. The camera adopts the killer’s viewpoint as he spies on the girls at an uncomfortably close distance.
The film deploys a variety of now-common horror movie techniques, like focusing on a woman’s reflection as she brushes her teeth, then panning away, cueing up anticipatory dread for what we might see in the mirror when the camera returns. Another scene repeatedly cuts to the concealed killer’s view as a sorority sister walks right into his hiding space — her closet — drawing out the scene and rendering the tension unbearable.
What sparks the most fear in Black Christmas, however, is its canny depiction of the terrors of pervasive misogyny and violence towards women. A sorority house should be a safe space for women to drink, be sexually active, and make crude jokes, all freedoms frowned upon by a man whose daughter, Clare (Lynne Griffin), has recently gone missing. The police don’t take the case seriously, saying she’s probably “shacked up” with her boyfriend, a subtle dismissal that begrudges women their sexual freedom. It’s only when Clare’s boyfriend (Art Hindle) makes a scene at the police station that they begin doing their jobs.
Don’t expect much festive cheer.
The killer not only invades the women’s physical space, but also torments them mentally, calling the house so frequently that the girls have a nickname for him: the Moaner. He spews obscenities and death threats, which Barb responds to with sharp, witty retorts. Even her humor has a darkness to it; we learn she’s had a lifetime of practice dealing with such creeps. The police assume the calls are from one of the women’s boyfriends playing a prank, and despite the horrific threats, their instinct is to minimize the situation.
Our heroines aren’t even safe in their own bodies. Immaculate, The First Omen, Alien: Romulus, and Apartment 7A, all released this year, feature harrowing forced birth scenes that reflect the anxieties of a post-Roe v. Wade world. Released a year after that historic ruling established a constitutional right to abortion, Black Christmas depicts a reality in which women’s bodies are under constant attack. Fifty years on, it has an unfortunate enduring timelessness.
When sorority sister Jessica (Olivia Hussey) says she wants an abortion, her pianist boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea) is furious, asking, “Don’t you ever consider anyone but yourself?” He berates her for making the decision independently, and later, the same hands that flew over the piano keys smash the piano to pieces in rage. “I’m quitting the conservatory, and we’re getting married,” he tells Jessica; not a proposal, but a statement of finality.
Both a statement on male entitlement and a warning against dating musicians.
When she speaks of her dreams, leaving unsaid how a pregnancy would prevent her from achieving them, he calls her a “selfish bitch.” His tone when he tells her she’ll regret going through with an abortion is one of cold intimidation. Black Christmas evokes terror to encapsulate a tragic truth: even a man you love can suddenly turn violent when he doesn’t get his way. The film frames Peter and the killer watching the house in similar ways, causing viewers to subconsciously associate the two as men who both believe they have a right to women’s bodies.
Despite Jessica killing Peter on the assumption that he’s the Moaner, her ordeal is far from over. The police continue to fail women right until the end, leaving Jessica sedated, asleep, and alone. The phone begins to ring once more, proving the killer is still present. Male-perpetuated violence is a nightmare from which women can’t wake up.
