Black Christmas is a 1974 Canadian slasher film produced and directed by Bob Clark, and written by Roy Moore. It stars Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, and John Saxon. The story follows a group of sorority sisters who receive threatening phone calls and are eventually stalked and murdered by a killer during the Christmas season.
Inspired by the urban legend "the babysitter and the man upstairs" and a series of murders that took place in the Westmount neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, Moore wrote the screenplay under the title Stop Me. The filmmakers made numerous alterations to the script, primarily the shifting to a university setting with young adult characters. It was shot in Toronto in 1974 on an estimated budget of $686,000.
The film was released in Canada by Ambassador Film Distributors on October 11, 1974. Warner Bros. released the film in the United States in May 1975 under the alternate title Silent Night, Evil Night, though this title was retracted and the film was reissued under its original title beginning August 6, 1975. The film went on to gross $4,053,000 worldwide.Kerswell, J.A. (2012). The Slasher Movie Book. Chicago, Ill.: Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1556520105. OCLC 761851819
Upon its release, Black Christmas received mixed reviews, but it has since received critical re-appraisal, with film historians noting it for being one of the earliest slasher films. It is also praised for its influence on John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). Aside from it earning a cult following since its release, a novelization written by Lee Hays was published in 1976. It is the first film in the Black Christmas series, being followed by two remakes in 2006 and 2019.
Plot An unseen man climbs the exterior of a sorority house during a Christmas party and enters the attic. The house phone rings, and sorority sister Jess Bradford answers, discovering an obscene call from a previously known caller nicknamed "The Moaner". The caller rants in strange voices about someone named "Billy" and speaks vulgarities before threatening to kill them. Upset, a younger student, Clare Harrison, goes upstairs to pack, where she is attacked and asphyxiated by the intruder.
The next morning, Clare's father, Mr. Harrison, arrives, concerned she missed a train. Housemother Mrs. MacHenry offers to help search for her. Jess tells her boyfriend Peter Smythe she is pregnant and plans to have an abortion, angering him. Meanwhile, Mr. Harrison and sorority sisters Barb Coard and Phyl Carlson try to report Clare's disappearance to Sergeant Nash, who brushes them off until Clare's boyfriend, Chris Hayden, storms in and demands action.
That night, a search party gathers to find Clare as well as Janice, a young girl who has gone missing nearby. Volunteers locate Janice's dead body in a nearby park. Meanwhile, Mrs. MacHenry discovers Clare's body in the attic but is killed by the intruder with a crane hook. Jess receives another obscene call and decides to involve the police. Lieutenant Fuller arrives with a lineman to trace the call.
After Fuller leaves, an inebriated Barb suffers an asthma attack and retires for the night. Christmas carolers distract Jess while the killer enters Barb's room and murders her with a glass unicorn figurine. Another call from the intruder echoes parts of Jess's argument with Peter. Fuller reports the trace failed, and suspicion briefly falls on Peter. Jess and Phyl lock the house, but Phyl is killed after finding Barb's body.
A subsequent call is successfully traced, and Nash instructs Jess to leave immediately, realizing the calls are originating from within the house. Jess finds Barb and Phyl dead and glimpses the killer through a door crack. She flees to the basement and locks herself in. Peter breaks in, and in a panic, Jess kills him with a fire poker. Police arrive to find her barely conscious beside his body, assuming he was the killer.
Believing the danger over, police leave Jess sleeping in her bedroom with an officer outside. From the attic, the killer's voice is heard, and the hatch opens, while Clare and Mrs. MacHenry's bodies remain undiscovered. The house phone rings once more.
Cast
Production Development Black Christmas was initially developed by Canadian screenwriter Roy Moore, who wrote the screenplay under the title Stop Me. Inspirations for the film came from the urban legend known as "the babysitter and the man upstairs", which had become widespread during the 1970s. Moore claimed to have been inspired by a series of murders that occurred during the holiday season in the Westmount area of Montreal.
As noted in an article for The Telegraph, the murders, which occurred in 1943, were perpetrated by a fourteen-year-old boy who bludgeoned several of his family members to death. Film producers Harvey Sherman and Richard Schouten had Timothy Bond rewrite the script to give it a university setting. Director and producer Bob Clark, who had felt the original script was too much of a straightforward slasher film, made several alterations in dialogue, and also incorporated humorous elements into the film, particularly the drunkenness of Barb, and Mrs. Mac, the latter of whom Clark based on his aunt.
Clark felt that college and high school students had not been depicted with "any sense of reality" in American film, and that he intended to capture the "astuteness" of young adults: "College students — even in 1974 — are astute people. They're not fools. It's not all 'bikinis, beach blankets, [and] bingo'".
Casting Olivia Hussey, who had previously garnered international fame for her role as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (1968), signed on to appear in the film after being told by a psychic that she would "make a film in Canada that would earn a great deal of money". Clark had also considered Jessica Harper and Cassandra Peterson for the role. Clark sought Keir Dullea to play the role of Peter based on his performance as Dave Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The role of Mrs. Mac was offered to Bette Davis, who declined the part. Margot Kidder was cast in the role of Barb, and said she had been attracted to the character "because she was wild and out of control", and not a "conventional leading" part. For the role of Clare Harrison, whose murder jump-starts the film's plot, Toronto native Lynne Griffin was cast after her mother, who was also her casting agent at the time, got her an audition. Griffin would later go on to star in Curtains (1983), and in the acclaimed television series Wind at My Back (1996–2001).
Gilda Radner was offered the role of Phyllis Carlson. She accepted the part, but dropped out one month before filming began owing to Saturday Night Live commitments, and was replaced by fellow Second City comedy troupe performer Andrea Martin. The role of Lieutenant Fuller was originally given to Edmond O'Brien. Upon his arrival to the set, however, the producers realized he would be unable to fulfill the duties required of the part due to his failing health (stemming from Alzheimer's disease). John Saxon, who had read the script prior, was called by the producers who offered him the role. He accepted, and had to arrive in Toronto from New York City within two days to begin shooting. Saxon had previously appeared in the first giallo film, The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963). Clark always intended to cast Saxon from the beginning as he was his first choice for the role, but miscommunications between Clark and Saxon's agent resulted in O’Brien being cast before Saxon officially came aboard the film.
For the role of the film's antagonist, Italian-Canadian actor Nick Mancuso was cast as one of the main voices in the phone call sequences. When auditioning for the role, director Clark had Mancuso sit in a chair facing away from him, so as not to see the actor's face. Clark then had Mancuso experiment with different voices in order to come up with one that was right for the character, with Clark later offering him the part.
Filming
The film was shot from March 25 to May 11, 1974, at a cost of $686,000 (), with $200,000 coming from the Canadian Film Development Corporation. The 20-room house featured in the film (located at 6 Clarendon Crescent in South Hill) had been discovered by Clark while scouting for locations, and its owners agreed to lease the home for the production. Additional photography was completed on the University of Toronto campus. According to John Saxon, Clark had meticulously drawn out storyboards with key shots, which he brought to the film set each day: "I could understand exactly what I thought he needed, and the scene needed".
Scenes in the film involving POV shots of Billy scaling the house were accomplished through the use of a rig designed by camera operator Bert Dunk, which was attached to Dunk's head as he climbed up the side of the house. Griffin's death scene, which was shot with a handheld camera in a real closet, was accomplished in only a couple of takes. According to Griffin, her character's surprise as the killer lunges from the closet was genuine as the actress later recalled: "It was a total shock because I didn't really know when to expect him to jump out!" Shots of Clare's corpse in the rocking chair required the actress to wear an actual plastic bag over her head for extended periods of time. Griffin would also state that these scenes came relatively easy for her: "I was actually, and still am, a fairly good swimmer so I could hold my breath for a long time. And I could also keep my eyes open for a long time without blinking".
Kidder remembered shooting the film as being "fun. I really bonded with Andrea Martin, filming in Toronto and Ontario. Olivia Hussey was a bit of an odd one. She was obsessed with the idea of falling in love with Paul McCartney through her psychic. We were a little hard on her for things like that".
Post-production The composer of the film's score, Carl Zittrer, stated in an interview that he created the film's mysterious music by tying forks, combs, and knives onto the strings of the piano to warp the sound of the keys. Zittrer also stated that he would distort the sound further by recording its sound onto an audiotape and make the sound slower. The audio for the disturbing phone calls was performed by multiple actors including Mancuso and director Bob Clark. Mancuso stated in an interview that he stood on his head during the recording sessions to compress his thorax and make his voice sound more demented. Mancuso spent only three days recording dialogue for the character, later recalling the experience as being very "avant-garde", with Clark encouraging him to improvise with the character's voice.
During preparation in 1975 for the film's American release, Warner Bros. studio executives asked Clark to change the concluding scene to show Clare's boyfriend, Chris, appear in front of Jess and say, "Agnes, don't tell them what we did" before killing her. However, Clark insisted on keeping the ending ambiguous. The original title of the film was initially planned to be Stop Me. Clark has stated in an interview that he came up with the film's official title, saying that he enjoyed the irony of a dark event occurring during a festive holiday. According to Clark as well, Warner Bros. changed the title to Silent Night, Evil Night for the United States theatrical release.
Release Theatrical run
Black Christmas was distributed in Canada by Ambassador Film Distributors and released in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area on October 11, 1974. It opened in Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary on November 22, 1974, and in Montreal on December 26, 1974.