You may never have heard of Black Christmas, a neglected gem from 1974, but you've probably seen one of its many imitators. Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder star as two residents of a sorority house that is emptying out as Christmas approaches. The atmosphere is jolly and carefree, except for an ongoing series of menacing telephone calls, and, oh yes, we've just seen someone climb into the attic with apparent ill intent. Kidder does some scene-stealing as the bad girl, Hussey illustrates one of the downsides to having beautiful long 70s hair and Keir Dullea does a nice... turn as the creepy boyfriend. Director Robert Clark knows that the unseen is far scarier than what can be seen and he ratchets up the tension beautifully, making good use of ominous shadows, and putting in nice touches such as replacing the sound of a distraught woman's scream with the piercing ring of yet another ominous phone call. This is a terrific, well-made little movie that is genuinely sleep-with-the-lights-on scary. Don't miss it. --Ali Davis [show more]
Billed as the original stalk and slasher movie, and considered truly ground breaking by critics it surely has to be a hit, doesn't it? Well actually no, not in my opinion as throughout the film I had a battle to keep awake and see the end. The film started off promisingly enough with some very sexually disturbing phone calls made to the house that were disturbing to say the least, but very quickly went downhill from then on.
The problem for me was the characters were either so over the top or droll, that I couldn't have cared less what happened to them. The main character Jessica, who should have been the most believable and warranted sympathy, was written so poorly that even she failed to light up the screen.
The tension wasn't built up nearly as much as it could have been, and you could easily predict what was going to happen at every stage.
For me the ending couldn't have come soon, and even that was rushed without giving the slightest explanation to the events that took place.
Some people may find the sexually explicit language used by the killer quite disturbing, and while it did make me a little uncomfortable I never felt it was there just for shock value like in some films.
The film stars Olivia Hussey (Romeo and Juliet) as Jessica and Margot Kidder (Superman) as Barbie, plus some other unfamiliar stars to me. While none of them put in a poor performance, I couldn"t say any of them blew me away with their acting skills in this one.
To be fair like I said the script was hardly a master piece, so in reflection one could say the actors did they best they could with what they were given.
In summing up I would recommend that you either catch this on the television, or if you really must pay to see it then rent it out. I was expecting to see a well thought out plot that would have me on tender hooks, and what I got was a useful aid to help me sleep instead.
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