Note: This review was originally posted on Myspace. I am reposting it here for archival purposes. It has been backdated to the date of its original posting.
Black Christmas is the classic slasher that preceded the more well-known Halloween and Friday The 13th. The remake was just released a couple days ago on Christmas, and I couldn't pass up the chance to see a horror movie about Christmas, on Christmas. But I wanted to see the original first, so I bought the DVD. There's not much to say about the remake, but the original version of the movie is great. It's not just creepy, but kind of funny too, in a very natural way.
Plot: a deranged killer sneaks into a sorority house at Christmas time and hides in the attic, making obscene phone calls to scare the girls in the house before killing them off one by one. A simple formula, but this movie is just very classic in every way. My favorite character was Clare, so I was really pissed when (early spoiler) she was the first to be killed.
Slasher movies today are a dime a dozen, and as evidenced by the remake of this movie, are good for little more than a quick gross-out, but if you want to experience what the slasher genre was capable of before we were all way too overexposed to gore and deranged psychopaths, do yourself a favor and give this classic movie a watch.
