Friday, December 23, 2005

Black Christmas

Happy Holidays everyone!

To get into the holiday spirit, my s.o. and I saw "Black Christmas" before I flew home to see my family. It's so rare to discover a piece of cinema that's like hidden treasure, but that's exactly what "Black Christmas" was like for us.


Not only is it a completely overlooked horror classic from the early 70's, but a memorable Canadian movie no less, featuring a young Margot Kidder and Andrea Martin! They, along with Olivia Hussey (yes, Juliet), play sorority sisters preyed upon by an obscene caller that becomes more and more menacing... The premise sounds schlocky, but "Black Christmas" far surpassed what I expected in a generic 70's slasher flick.

Ironically, the director, Bob Clark, also directed the nostalgic 80's holiday classic, "A Christmas Story".

There's even an excellent website devoted to this one movie: http://www.itsmebilly.com/

If you haven't seen this yet, I don't recommend listening to the sound bites prior to viewing for obvious reasons. But if you're really curious, and want to make your own skin crawl, download the "1st phonecall" to get a taste of what you're getting into.

"Black Christmas" has just recently been re-released on new 35mm print, which is what we saw. So the DVD version should be coming out soon... Go find out who Billy is!