Black Christmas (1974)

This watch has been a long time coming. I’m not sure how I missed it last year, because I knocked out a lot of holiday movies last December. But I made sure to make it one of the first of this Christmas season. Which is funny, considering Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, and I start off watching a slasher film. You can certainly see the mark its made on the slasher genre, and just horror films in general. My immediate thought after watching it was, “There’s no way this didn’t influence John Carpenter’s when he made Halloween.” I was right after I looked it up. Like I said, major influence on slashers. The story itself is very simple and Scream-esque. But it’s easy to follow along, and it’s nice seeing a slasher film where there are enough kills, but they aren’t necessarily as graphic as they could’ve been. The film relies more on suspense and insecurity rather than jumpscares or gore. There were definitely a few flaws in the writing, mostly with character decisions, but I ignored them and had fun. The acting was about what you’d expect (considering it’s a 70s horror film), but it was cool to see Hussey, Kidder, and Saxon. No character was super memorable, but I will say this: the decision with the killer's reveal was FANTASTIC. I think it's one of the best decisions in horror history. I can’t say what for spoilers, but doing what they did was genius and left me in disbelief and surprise. But the best disbelief and surprise ever. Overall, this film helped pave the way for slasher films, and has established itself in my personal Christmas horror trilogy (it’s next to ‘Krampus’ and ‘Terrifier 3’). I would recommend this to all horror fans, especially if you like ‘Halloween’. This film is officially Berry Approved, so go watch it now!