Black Christmas

I've started this review multiple times, and changed my star rating a couple times too. That's because this movie is difficult to review without sounding like I'm finding fault with it for not being like movies that came in its aftermath. And that's not the case. Despite this movie being THE proto-slasher, it has flaws that have nothing to do with being the first of its kind. What makes it difficult to write about is that all the flaws are intertwined like a spider-web, so if you start somewhere, it touches on everything. I guess we'll start with this movie's weird pace. The first death in the movie comes in around the minute mark, with one of the sorority girls killed as she's packing to go home for holiday break. Coupled with a slightly nuts obscene phone call moments before, and this movie feels like it's going to be a white-knuckle affair. Nope; the brakes get SLAMMED, and we get the dad of the dead sorority girl looking for her, problems with reporting her being missing to the authorities, a side-plot with the lead girl Jess (played by Olivia Hussey) having relationship issues with her boyfriend due to her being pregnant and wanting an abortion, more obscene phone calls, the house mother being a drunk, a search party for the dead sorority girl finding a DIFFERENT dead girl in the local park ... it's a lot. A whole lot. And all the while, we're waiting for the killer to do something, anything, anything at all. There's two more murders before the final girl showdown between Jess and the killer, which ends ... with a locked door. Seriously, he goes away. And then Jess' boyfriend, who's become real possessive and demanding, comes around, and they end up fighting and he dies, and the cops think he did all the murders. Every time the movie thinks about putting its foot on the gas pedal, it chooses to park the car instead, and it is SO FRUSTRATING. Because all that semi-start-stop pacing kills any sense of tension the movie is trying to build. There's a way to do a slow, languid pace and build tension. It's not fair to compare it to a movie that came after, but I have to: Halloween. That movie is almost glacial in its pacing, but the tension never lets up, because you see Michael Myers stalk his future victims and skulk around Haddonfield. You can feel his deathly shadow over the town, even though the characters don't, which means you're waiting nervously for the axe to drop. You could also look to Psycho, which slowly builds tension the opposite way: (theoretically), you don't know Norman Bates and Mother are one in the same. But from the moment you mean Norman, you know something is a little off about him, and his reverence-slash-fear of Mother is a huge red flag. Again, the tension builds because you see the movie gives the viewer just enough to know there's sinister happenings afoot, and you're waiting for both the trigger to be pulled and the mystery to reveal itself. Black Christmas does neither of this, and that not only ruins the tension, but is unfair to its central conceit; it tries to go for a middle ground, where you know there's a killer, and you know the calls are connected to him, but the characters don't. There's no tension. There's just waiting for something to happen, and it KEEPS. REFUSING. TO HAPPEN. The joy of a movie mystery is either in knowing how everything happened and seeing the characters find the hole in the logic (like Columbo), or figuring it out WITH the characters. Again, Black Christmas walks its own path, not realizing that doing so ruins the viewing experience. People keep referencing "all that yelling", but NOBODY CHECKS ON IT. And apparently, all the yelling and throwing of furniture in the attic is completely inaudible on the first floor. It lacks logic, and it leaves you, the viewer, smarter than the characters, waiting for them to catch up to you. Worst is the red herring of the boyfriend; we know he isn't the killer. The movie is VERY clear on this, and yet, it keeps trying to have it both ways and prop him up as a suspect. Then again, most of the characters are meh anyway, so, it's asking a lot for them to be as smart as you. Jess is fairly well-defined; she's driven and has aspirations and dreams (never articulated, just hinted at), and doesn't want to marry and have a baby and give those up as her boyfriend suggests. Beyond her, though ... there's Margot Kidder, who is a drunk and a bitch. The house mother, who's a drunk. The dad of the first victim, who is the dad of the first victim. Phyl has a sort of afro and octagonal glasses. John Saxon may be playing Lt. Thompson from Nightmare On Elm Street a decade earlier. The boyfriend is a boyfriend, until he find out Jess wants an abortion, then he's all alpha male asshole. That's all you get for characterization. That's not to say this movie is without positive things. Olivia Hussey is fantastic, and Saxon doesn't play the disbelieving cop; he actually seems to care. The use of POV for the killer is very interesting, especially since you only see him in ONE shot for the entire movie. It's nice to see the boyfriend/abortion subplot go down with Jess being insistent on abortion and following her dreams, rather than the boyfriend being all "I can't be tied down with a kid!". Very progressive for 1974. It also has a low body count, making the kills feel more impactful when they do happen. And points to the ending, too. It's a bold choice to leave the killer not only alive and uncaptured, but leaving the protagonists thinking they got the guy and instead, they got the WRONG guy. But those positives could be more than roses growing in weed fields if the script was tightened, the pacing adjusted, and the mystery handled better. The acting elevates the movie, but only so far. It's worth seeing, and for being the grandfather of slashers, it's not as antiquated as one would think. It just needed a few more passes in the writers room before going to film.