The Canadian cult-classic horror film that defined a genre

By: Federico S. Gutierrez

Don’t let the title mislead you, Black Christmas is not a merry movie. Quite the contrary. Here’s the disturbing tale of a psychotic killer hiding in the attic of a sorority house, tormenting the lives of the young women living there. It’s not ironic, then, that Black Christmas is the perfect movie to watch during the Halloween season. With a hefty balance of shock and drama, this small independent horror movie is a landmark of Canadian cinema, defining a genre that would go on to scare every generation to come.

Released in 1974, Black Christmas was welcomed with unfavourable reviews from critics, yet this small-budget Canadian production would go on to inspire countless horror classics such as Halloween and Friday the 13th, earning a place in the history of cinema as the movie that jump-started the slasher genre that dominated the film landscape of the 1980s. Ironically, though, Black Christmas received its Canadian premiere in October 1974, whilst being held back until December in the United States in hopes that its title would take audiences by surprise.

The only connection this movie offers to Christmas is the season in which the story takes place, adding an extra layer of false security to an already chilling atmosphere. Set in the middle of a snowy winter around the campus of the University of Toronto, the movie starts from the point of view of the stalker assessing the sorority house where his future victims live. The figure climbs up the side of the house and enters through the attic, where he stops to listen to the women’s conversation. The phone rings, and insults blurt out at the woman who answers it: “kill the baby” the voice says, raising the woman’s — and the audience’s — fight or flight instincts. In just the opening scene, Black Christmas astutely sets up a strange mood of discomfort for both the audience and the characters. The protagonist is Jess, a quiet yet clever young woman struggling to accept and disclose her own pregnancy to her selfish, quick-to-anger boyfriend Peter.  

Any horror movie can only be as good as its cast. Black Christmas boasts of an interesting cast of actors that, even though their names may not be remembered, their faces have been immortalized in other classics. Olivia Hussey plays Jess with the same purity and grace that she used to play Juliet in the 1968 adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, which most consider to be the seminal translation of the play to the screen. Legend says that Hussey agreed to appear in this movie only after a psychic told her that “she would star in a Canadian movie that will make a lot of money.” Jess’ enigmatic boyfriend Peter is played by Keir Dullea, who appeared as the lonely astronaut David Bowman in Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both Hussey and Dullea lend the movie very subdued performances that amplify the quiet psychological issues each of their characters are experiencing without having to explain themselves to the audience.

The most special element of Black Christmas is how it manages to shock you through implied violence. The levels of gore are very minimal, nevertheless, the deaths feel painful and riveting thanks to its use of editing. Some death scenes intercut between images of the killer’s point-of-view and a knife getting to its victim. The effect, indeed, is not to make you jump out of your seat, instead it successfully manages to put you into the mindset of the characters to emulate the confusion and paranoia they are experiencing. Contrast this to the mainstream array of so-called horror movies, such as the latest Halloween Kills, that attempt to horrify an audience with lots of blood splashing on the screen, but only succeed in overshadowing their characters. 

As it would occur, Olivia Hussey’s psychic wasn’t at all mistaken. Although Black Christmas opened up to disappointing reviews, the movie grossed an outstanding $4.1 million on a budget of merely $620,000, thus making it one of the most successful Canadian movies of all time. With time Black Christmas has gathered a devout cult following that continues to praise its innovative shock techniques and profound characters, a balance very rare to find even in modern movies.