Editorials
Horror Education of the Week: ‘Black Christmas’
“Agnes, it’s me, Billy…”
Director Bob Clark is best known for the classic A Christmas Story. Some may also know that he directed another holiday film years before. Black Christmas.
After unknowingly being stalked during a Christmas party, a house full of sorority girls receive a series of harassing phone calls. Major creepiness ensues and the girls are picked off one by one. While the killer is never given a clear motive for his actions, there is one theme that threads the entire movie together.
Starring Olivia Hussey as Jess, Margot Kidder as Barb and Andrea Martin as Phyl, Black Christmas was shot in Toronto and first released in October of 1974. The title was changed multiple times including Stranger In The House and Silent Night, Evil Night. Black Christmas also predated most slasher flicks and the use of point of view shots as the killer.
Black Christmas is said to be based on real murders that occurred in Quebec around Christmas time, however a search for these murders leads to little detail.
The movie is more than likely solely based on the Babysitter and the Man Upstairs urban legend.This urban legend originated in the early 1960s. The concept behind it being the idea of girls transitioning to womanhood and the responsibilities of taking care of children. Babysitting is like a dress rehearsal for motherhood and the idea of being too self absorbed can lead to failing. This is played out in the urban legend as the killer, who is usually hiding upstairs and calling from within the house, consistently asks “Have you checked the children?” The girl has not, as she believes they are simply prank calls, and fails in her duty, later discovering the children dead. Though the legend varies, the girl normally falls victim herself.
While Black Christmas does not revolve around babysitting, the aspects of motherhood are seen throughout. The concept of the failure of this dress rehearsal and growing up to be proper women is definitely easy to point out.
Our first victim, Clare, is going against her father’s wishes and running around with her boyfriend. An adult make believe that would lead her to womanhood. The fact that she is suffocated can also be seen as a metaphor as her father is always on her tail, trying to see what her every move is. Clare is placed in a rocking chair by the window and a doll is placed in her lap – a very maternal display.
Mrs. Mac, the sorority house mother, is a drunk, neglecting her children at every turn she can have a drink. She is also careless with her cat, Claude, who wanders through the house and happens upon Clare’s dead body in the attic.
Barb herself is a drinker and also implies through her words and actions that she’s promiscuous and loose. She blatantly propositions a cop who simply is unaware of the word ‘fellatio’. Her own mother is unreliable. Barb is reckless and perhaps this is why she, too, falls victim.
Jess is the last victim, or so it seems as the credits roll, and is the easiest to see in terms of failure in motherhood. Jess is pregnant and wants to have an abortion. She is harassed by the killer, who refers to himself as Billy, on the phone where he speaks in ramblings. Yet Billy makes an obvious point to Jess with one of his statements, insinuating that her aborting the baby seems to be as simple as removing a wart.
Billy is not free from this concept, either. He is stalking women and refers to ‘Agnes’. Either it is the simple ramblings of a lunatic or perhaps Billy once upon a time had a hardship with Agnes. Who Agnes is exactly – and who Billy is – is never explained. There is something, however, the two have done that Billy insists cannot be discovered. He is also overly concerned about a baby, which again leads right back to the concept of motherhood throughout the film – and the failure to take the role seriously. He is also very angry with the ladies in the house and is vile and crude in reference to their lady parts.
Side Note: The name Billy, from William, means ‘protection’ while Agnes means ‘pure and holy’.
The last part of this puzzle could be overlooked yet it is right there in your face. The film is set at Christmas. The birth of Christ can be seen in parallel to Billy’s rampage. Both are meant to give a sense of redemption. Billy is ridding the world of sinners, just like Christ absolving sin. Yet the major part of Black Christmas being set when it is ties directly back to motherhood. Christmas and Jesus Christ’s birth was a simple transition for his mother Mary – who is said to be very young in the Bible when giving birth – from a child to a mother.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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