For today’s Horror Friday we went with the seasonal theme and decided to watch Black Christmas. It’s a film I’ve seen maybe once or twice before, and had mostly lumped it in the ‘Vintage Slashers’ bucket. This time, I was able to get a bit of a fresh perspective on it–possibly because I’ve watched so much horror this year, including revisits of two of the other ‘original slasher films’: Halloween and Friday the 13th.
One of the first things that struck me this time around is that Black Christmas predates both of those movies by several years, which makes it a significant precursor to the genre. As a consequence, it’s far less concerned with the trappings of the genre and able to set its own rules. It’s interesting to try and pick out where it’s playing with the tropes of 1970’s psychological thrillers, and where it’s dabbling with the groundwork that we’d eventually see repeated in dozens of future chillers.
Having enjoyed it so much this time around, it may have to become part of my standard Christmas viewing in the years to come …