Black Christmas is a pleasant little Canadian slasher from the mid-70’s.  While certainly not a great film, it does have its charms.  The most interesting thing to me, though, were the similarities it has with John Carpenter’s Halloween, which is fairly unanimously considered a classic of the genre.

The two biggest similarities between the two movies are the fact that they are both set around a holiday (I’ll leave you to guess which ones…) and they both have opening scenes that include point-of-view shots from the killer’s perspective.  Halloween has been praised for it’s originality and is often credited with kick-starting the whole “slasher” sub-genre.  However, Black Christmas is seldom discussed in those same conversations which is funny when you consider that it came out 4 years earlier!

In fact, I had never really heard much about this movie before the remake which came out a few years ago, and I consider myself something of a connoisseur of the horror genre and trash-film in general.  And while it’s certainly not as great of a film as Halloween or any other more famous example of the slasher film, I still think it is worthwhile to watch it if just for its historical value.

That’s not to imply that the movie is no good.  It had quite a few memorable murders and the overall pacing was good.  However, it did suffer from overachiever’s acting syndrome–especially from an exceptionally vile Margot Kidder and a cartoonishly drunk house mother.  I’m still confused by the ending, which has a forced twist that seemingly negates the entirety of the third act.  I don’t mind movies tricking me, but only when it’s plausible and I’m still scratching my head over this one (or maybe it’s just lice).

Anyway, I guess my point is that this movie should be included in any and all discussions you have about slashers.  And if you want to be that exceptionally annoying movie geek, make sure to say that John Carpenter had obviously watched this film a few times before directing Halloween.

PS, I also found it interesting that the protagonist and survivor is a pregnant woman. As everyone knows, the standard slasher convention is that only the virgins survive. Of course, this movie predates any such canonization of the rules…