Session: Christmas Themed Creepiness, Week 3
Movie: Black Christmas (1974)
Directed by Bob Clark
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL
Plot:
As the residents of Pi Kappa Sigma sorority are preparing for winter break, they keep disappearing. Hilarity ensues.
Background and Reaction:
Long story short? This movie didn't really grab me. It took way too long to build up its momentum. The last half hour or so was actually pretty exciting, but by the time we got there, I had already checked out. And that's kind of a shame since I really wanted to like this, being that it was, in some ways, one of the blueprints for what would become the slasher genre.
Of course, I'm not really into the slasher horror movies, what with all the jump scares. So that may be part of it. Also, there were some plot elements that seem hackneyed. I've seen the whole "the call is coming from inside the house!" thing many times before. On the other hand, it was noted in the class discussion that this may have been the first movie to employ that particular trope. Hey, you can't blame Shakespeare for the fact that his devices became cliche.
So I came around to the end of the film with kind of mixed feelings, and was all prepared to give it a 7.5. But then the end came. The cameras were drifting back away from the sorority house, and we realized the movie was over. But the story hadn't been resolved. I felt cheated. Immediately, my rating of the film went down by three.
But at least it gave us the classic line, "Ho. Ho. Ho. Fuck."
Ratings:
Me:4.5
Christina: 8.7
Dave: 8.5
Ethan: 7
Joe: 7
Scott: 5
Sean: 3 out of 4
Sharon: 6
Bechdel:
Black Christmas passes the Bechdel test.
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