Black Christmas is the type of horror film that I truly love the most. The film begins with a shot of the sorority house, and then we are taken immediately into the mind of the killer. A main reason why I like this film so much is the element of suspense. The killer was shot in fragments in the film, which added mystery to his character and revealed his fragmented mind. In some films, the suspense dies down because you learn the identity of the killer too early in the plot. Black Christmas did not reveal the identity of the killer, and it is still unknown in the end. I have to agree with most in that I thought the killer was Jess’s boyfriend. He seemed to be artistic, unstable, and very upset about the fact that Jess wanted to abort their unborn child.
Another thing I found interesting about the film was the element of feminism. Most of the female characters in the film were seeking more freedom and power. The fact that Jessica wanted an abortion and did not even plan on telling her boyfriend about it demonstrated her strong and confident mindset. She did not want to have a baby get in the way of her dreams and aspirations. Her boyfriend, Peter, was furious about her decision. This is why I thought that he was the killer. He was also in the house most of the time during the prank calls.
I have to agree with this movie being one of my favorite horror films as well. I watched this in the comfort of my room on netflix, and I have to admit that it actually creeped me out a little bit because of the suspense. The suspense is what made it great though since you never really knew what the killer might do next. I feel like the phone call horror is a little over done nowadays, but for back then- this was probably perfect. I thought Jess's boyfriend was the killer too but I was a little upset that we never truly found out who the killer was. I hate not knowing all the facts of things, kinda like how I hate when murder mysteries go unsolved. The final scene where she is sleeping in her bed and the camera pans around the house was probably the scariest for me. With the lights off in my room watching the movie, I totally thought the killer might creep out of the corner and try to kill her. But the fact that we see the final shot of the older woman and Claire(?) in the rocking chair with the plastic over her face was the ultimate creep out moment for. I really really enjoyed this movie though and it's probably the best scary movie I've seen in the class.
ReplyDeleteI also found this to be one of the more suspenseful films I have watched in a long time, meaning that I was actually shrieking and covering my eyes because the music and camera movement created such an intense feeling. And I was relieved in the end when the killer was revealed to still be alive, because I feel like that kind of punchline is key to any good scary story and so many popular scary movies tend to have some kind of resolution- instead, this one just left you with the bone-chilling knowledge that a psycho is still in the house and a sorority sister is innocently asleep! I also agree that this film had an interesting under-the-radar type of comment on feminism. While I do think most of the women were still unnecessarily and unrealistically whiny and often stupid, it was probably a big step to put abortion in the storyline like that and to have the woman "win" the argument so to speak, since she ends up supposedly living to make the choice herself. The film's stance on abortion, however, might still be wishywashy since they didn't hesitate to make the male role so aggressively anti-abortion.
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