BLACK CHRISTMAS 1974

BLACK CHRISTMAS 1974

Twas the middle of the Holiday Season when I stumbled across this little slasher gem on TCM. When I first saw the title "Black Christmas" dated 1974; I was like "Oooh Blaxpoitation!" I was expecting some Black Santa Claus fighting them honkies. But I was treated to a low budget Canadian slasher film, starring Lois (Margo Kidder) Lane and Andrea (SCTV) Martin and John (TV Movie of the week) Saxon.



This was simple very dated story of a sorority house filled with horny, drunk, young college girls and an alcoholic house mother. The girls are on Christmas break, partying and getting high, but when a series of obscene phone calls kept coming in on their rotary phone, the party's over. After all it was 1974, 30 years before caller ID, the idea of getting obscene calls was actually terrifying. The girls and the audience are tormented each time the phone rings, who could it be? the obscene caller or one of their boyfriends? Mom or Dad calling?





Oh wouldn't it be great if there is an invention when you can see the phone number of the incoming call....!!! Because if there had been such a device then it would have taken the police so long to find out the phone calls were actually coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!!



I felt the same kind of dark spooky feeling from another horror/slasher flicks; "Sweet Alice", "Wicked Wicked" and a little bit of "The Exorcist" . Maybe because all of these films had that winter in the early 70's look, dark, brown and depressing.

There's a lot of foul language, soft pornographic images and silly behavior. The violence is mild compared to today's standards, it's almost campy. The best character of the film was Mrs. 'Mac'Henry the alcoholic house mother played Mariam Haldman. At first I thought she was Shelly Winters, we follow Mrs. MacHenry throughout the sorority house to her secret places where she hides her liquor; the bookcase, septic tank etc...