Cheap Black Christmas (DVD) (Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea) (Bob Clark (III)) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Black Christmas

A Lost Horror Classic
During the Christmas season of 1978, my uncle and aunt took me to a movie theater to see a double-bill of two holiday-based horror films: John Carpenter's "Halloween" and Bob Clark's "Black Christmas." We absolutely loved "Halloween," but found "Black Christmas" to be so dull that we walked out in the middle of the picture. Twenty-two years later, I reviewed the WHOLE movie on video and now have a different impression of this film.

During the Christmas season, sorority girl Olivia Hussey is pregnant and wants to have an abortion but her boyfriend Keir Dullea doesn't want her to have the procedure. Meanwhile, Hussey and her sorority sisters(Including a pre-"Superman" Margot Kidder) are also receiving obscene phone calls from a cackling pervert. The obscene phone caller later sneaks into the attic of the sorority house and starts killing the girls one by one.

"Black Christmas" has some major weak points. The film is slow-moving and monotonous at times. The movie also lacks the thrills and suspense of Carpenter's "Halloween." John Saxon is given a thankless role as a police detective.

Nevertheless, every horror fan should sit through all of "Black Christmas" at least once. Kidder is great as Barb, a drunken and foul-mouthed sorority sister. We also develop a great concern for the characters in this film. If anything, Bob Clark's film definitely succeeds in one area where John Carpenter largely failed in "Halloween": Realism. The forever unidentified villain of "Black Christmas" is much more frightening than the Michael Myers character of "Halloween." The Michael Myers character is so superhuman that viewers know they would never actually encounter such a character in real life. The hysterically shrieking and giggling obscene phone caller in "Black Christmas," however, is VERY real. Such psychotics exist in the real world.In this respect, "Black Christmas" is far creepier than "Halloween." Today, in an era of DNA-based criminal evidence as well as Caller ID and other efficient phone number-tracing systems, this movie is probably not quite as scary, but definitely SHOULD HAVE sent a chill up the spine of any 1970s-viewer who received an obscene phone call at some point in their lives.

Despite its weaknesses, every horror fan should see "Black Christmas" in its entirety at least once. This film is a lost horror classic. Well-recommended.

---

A Horror CLASSIC in every sense of the word!
Oh man, where do I start? This film is one of my favorite horror films. It has the right mixture of horror, suspense, and comedy. It also has small amounts of gore (well, by today's standards) which is a good thing to some viewers.

The plot of the film is simple. It takes place at a sorority house/boarding school around Christmas time. A crazed killer finds his way into the attic of the house and starts making obscene phone calls from the second phone line. Then, he starts offing the inhabitants of the house one by one. Olivia Hussey stars as the film's heroine and Keir Dullea co-stars as her misunderstood love interest... but Margot Kidder steals the show as Hussey's drunken, foul mouthed friend. A very young Andrea Martin (of SCTV fame) is also in the film.

This film inspired elements of the Scream movies, When A Stranger Calls, and countless others. I recommend it to anyone who loves a good scary movie.

---

the breather wants your blood...
not the best slasher flick ever made, not the worst either.

i won't go over the plot here (it's already been covered by others) but it involves an obscene phone caller (to a serority house) doing lots of heavy breathing and making threats, etc. they could have toned down on the breathing some, etc.
flick contains a few surprises; a nice spooky, atmospheric touch here and there.
i wouldn't call it a classic, but not a bad scare flick at all. however, a director with a genuine interest in horror would have had the ability to punch up the gruesome jolts a bit (not necessarily by including more blood, either. see the first tcm, for example) and given the fans more bang for their buck.