Black Christmas

1974 Dir. Bob Clark Bob Clark’s seminal seasonal slasher fest is often unfairly overlooked by audiences and critics of the genre. Clark essentially concocted the blueprint for the American slasher movie with Black Christmas , predating the cinematic carnage courtesy of the onslaught of slasher films post John Carpenter’s Halloween (1979) a whole five years later. In directing Black Christmas , Clark should be given credit for much of the visual grammer and codification of the slasher film. The residents of a sorority house are preparing for the Christmas holidays. Many of the other students have already dispersed leaving behind a small group overlooked by the affable and partial-to-a-wee-drink house mother, Mrs Mac (Marion Waldman). After a number of extremely unsettling obscene phone calls, someone breaks into the house and hides in the attic, killing off the girls one by one. The tale unfolds at a shuffling-through-the-snow pace, ensuring the tension builds steadily to a ge