1974 was a big year for horror. Just months after William Friedkin’s juggernaut The Exorcist shocked audiences around the world, two films electrified the genre and sent it careening in a new direction. While Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre remains one of the most viscerally terrifying films of all time, it’s sister proto-slasher Black Christmas has arguably become more relevant. The film follows Jess (Olivia Hussey) and her friends as they’re targeted by a mysterious man known as Billy (Albert J. Dunk) who hides in the attic of their sorority house. In addition to sparking the slasher revolution, Bob Clark’s film is important for another reason.

Released just one year after the historic Roe v. Wade decision granted US women the right to safe and legal abortion, Black Christmas features a main character who makes the choice to terminate her pregnancy despite her boyfriend’s strenuous—and threatening—objections. Coupled with a shadowy male killer who objectifies and murders unsuspecting young women, Clark’s harrowing story reflects the hidden horrors of a patriarchal world. Fifty years after hitting theaters, Jess and her sorority sisters have become darlings of progressive horror analysis and shining examples of complex female protagonists who stand together to battle toxic masculinity. 

Author Armando Muñoz explores this powerful legacy with a new novelization that bridges the gap between second and fourth-wave feminism. Leaning into the sociopolitical elements of the story, Muñoz expands Jess’s own activism while describing Billy through the lens of modern incel culture. We’re also treated to new details about beloved characters and given ringside seats for each grisly murder. We learn about the vaudeville roots of booze-soaked housemother Mrs. Mac (Marian Waldman), and meet Mugsey, a sorority sister with a killer recipe for peanut brittle. We witness the brave loyalty of Claude the cat and find out why the house’s front door is perpetually stuck.

Muñoz pulls no punches and draws us into scenes previously left to our imagination. We witness the disturbing details of Janice Quaife’s death and join the doomed sisters in the last moments of their lives. But through it all, Muñoz maintains his focus on Clark’s powerful depiction of male predation. By telling this classic story through a modern lens, he argues that the Billys of the world are still alive and well, aided by a system that dehumanizes women.

A House That Doesn’t Need Men

Clark’s film begins and ends with a picturesque sorority house decked out for Christmas. A shadowy figure watches from the yard while a party rages inside. Shown only in first person POV, the man who will come to be known as Billy climbs a trellis and steals into the attic before placing a series of vulgar phone calls to the stunned residents. Though characters do venture outside its walls, Clark’s film revolves around this sorority house and the disparate young women who call it home. Muñoz goes a step further, allowing multiple characters to express their love for the domicile while exploring the dangers of welcoming in men.

Mrs. Mac has worked hard to cultivate this cocoon of female empowerment and worries that male intrusion will jeopardize their fragile peace. Except during parties, the front door remains locked and she’s vigilant about who she allows to cross its threshold, calling the building “a house that doesn’t need men.” Her attitude filters down to younger residents who work together to maintain this safe haven. When Jess becomes increasingly wary of her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea) and requests he be banned from the premises, her sister declares the house a “No Peter Zone.” This logical descriptor serves as a euphemism for a place in which women can thrive without the threat of male shame and recrimination.

Inside the Phi Kappa Sigma house, Jess and her sisters are free to be themselves, but must constantly guard the door against invading men who target them specifically for this liberation.

Barb

This refuge becomes particularly important for one member of the sorority. Over the years, Barb (Margot Kidder) has enchanted horror fans with her acerbic wit and iconic fashion sense, though the burgeoning alcoholic has a tendency to push her humor a bit too far. Her quip, “darling, you can’t rape a townie,” has become a fly in the ointment of an otherwise perfect film and evidence that women are just as capable of misogyny. But Muñoz adds pathos to Barb’s casual cruelty and presents a tragic explanation for her overindulgence.

We learn that the beloved sister was sexually assaulted at a fraternity party last New Years Eve. After escaping the Greek house, Barb reported the assault only to meet with further victimization. One of the officers had ties to the fraternity and the men charged with upholding the law and protecting her from sadistic rapists became co-conspirators in a brutal attack. Barb was subjected to a humiliating strip search and hours-long interrogation, then threatened with prosecution should she report the crime again. She now drinks to cope with the resulting PTSD and has developed a dry and biting wit. After all, she thinks, “it’s better to laugh than to scream.”

This horrific treatment also gives heartbreaking context to the practical joke she plays on Sergeant Nash (Doug McGrath). Why should she be honest with police and give them the details of her private exchange when they have done nothing but further her pain? Barb warns her sisters about reporting Billy’s calls, explaining that police, “never believe the women,” a sad aphorism that turns out to be true.

Billy

While Clark’s film is known for directly inspiring John Carpenter’s Halloween and planting the seeds for slashers to come, Black Christmas remains a uniquely terrifying outlier for one simple reason: we never get a clear look at the killer’s face. A silhouette and a glimpse of one wide and bulging eye is the most we ever see of this mysterious predator. Scenes in which Billy stalks his victims play out in unsettling first person POV, allowing the audience to feel the brutality of his objectification. Muñoz honors this remarkable restraint while giving us a disturbing peek into Billy’s jumbled mind. The author does not uncover the psychopath’s troubled origins—noting that his mind has become so fractured he’s lost track of his own history—but we do learn more about his violent past and disgusting motivations. 

Muñoz’s Billy has been living in the sorority house for weeks by the time he attacks Clare (Lynne Griffin). He’s watched the girls as they sleep, read each of their diaries, and grown to hate them for their solidarity and independence. While Clark’s antagonist would go on to inspire some of the genre’s most famous monsters, Muñoz’s Billy feels like a proto-incel. This angry young man harbors a deep hatred for women and views them as nothing more than toys designed for his amusement. After murdering Clare—targeted specifically for her virginal innocence—the impotent man keeps her body in the attic, planning to dress and make her up before acting out his sick fantasies with a life-sized “doll.” By the time he climbs through the attic window, he’s already a prolific murderer, remembering dozens of attacks on innocent girls. This is merely the latest stop in a life dedicated to punishing women for his own insecurities.

Peter

Though he is the film’s central antagonist, Billy is not the only creep lurking around the Phi Kappa Sigma house. While Jess deals with his disturbing calls, she must also defend against her controlling boyfriend. Peter is a classical pianist consumed with studying for a recital that will hopefully launch a prestigious career. But on the day of his performance, Jess informs him that she’s pregnant and does not plan to keep the baby. Clark’s Peter becomes enraged by Jess’s choice, alternately threatening her and proposing marriage in a desperate attempt to prevent the abortion. This culminates in a deadly altercation between the former lovers that leads Jess to kill the intense young man in self defense. Like earlier death scenes, Clark leaves much of this interaction to the audience’s imagination, showing a silver-tongued Peter approaching Jess then immediately cutting to his dead body. Muñoz fully reveals this climactic sequence, elevating Peter from a shady boyfriend with murky motives to a villain on par with Billy himself. 

We learn that Peter’s father is an ultra-conservative politician who’s been targeting Jess for her outspoken views on reproductive rights. What’s more, the outwardly sensitive musician is still licking his wounds from a previous relationship that ended with an abortion. Peter has been lying about his condom use and intentionally impregnated Jess, likely hoping to trap the independent young woman. His destruction of the conservatory’s piano is a precursor to the violence he has planned for his willful girlfriend if she will not agree to mother his child. In the basement, Jess finds herself trapped between Billy, a killer determined to end her life then manipulate her dead body for his own sick pleasure, and Peter, an insidious predator whose violation is designed to seize control of her body from the inside. By positioning these two violent men as potential co-conspirators, Muñoz shows that both types of assault are equally devastating. 

Jess

Jess may survive this dual attack in the house’s dark basement, but Clark leaves her fate up in the air. Convinced that Peter has been the perpetrator all along, Lt. Fuller (John Saxon) believes the crisis has passed and abandons Jess in the seemingly empty sorority house. However, an eerie pan down the hall reveals that Billy is alive and well, still tending to victims in the attic. The ominous ringing of a telephone implies that Jess’s nightmare is far from over. Muñoz delivers this same haunting conclusion, but adds intention to the ambiguity. Injured by Jess, Billy abdicates responsibility for her fate. He will call her on the phone one more time and determine his next course of action by how she responds. In addition to this perilous game, Jess has once again been invalidated by police. Muñoz’s heroine has not simply fallen asleep, but been sedated against her will. Jess clearly tells police that Peter and Billy are two separate attackers, but they dismiss her claims as trauma-induced hysteria. Barb’s warning that “they never believe the woman,” proves devastatingly true and the people changed with protecting Jess have put her in danger once again. 

Over the years, Jess has become a treasured figure in feminist horror for partially inspiring the final girl archetype and her empowering rejection of Peter’s proposal. She’s determined to achieve her dreams no matter what the men in her life command. Muñoz adds aspiration to this phenomenal character by telling us exactly what those dreams are. Inspired by her beloved aunt’s botched abortion, Muñoz’s Jess gives a speech on reproductive rights that garners national attention. Wearing her iconic black and white sweater for the event, the garment has become a symbol of bodily autonomy and resistance to patriarchal control. Munoz dubs it the “Hands Off” sweater implying the threat of vague forces constantly trying to steal womens’ rights. Explaining the importance of Jess’s grass-roots activism, Muñoz compares this brave character to real feminist leaders Shirley Chisholm and Betty Friedan. 

Jess may be fictional, but she has become a hero to millions of horror fans who now find that they have fewer rights than when Black Christmas first debuted. Clark’s horrific yet inspirational film envisions a world in which women fight back against systemic patriarchal oppression while exploring the dangers of predatory men. With his equally chilling novelization, Muñoz clearly shows that this fifty-year-old story is now more important than ever before. The Billys of the world may be alive and well, but they work alongside men like Peter who are becoming more emboldened by the day. With the legal right to abortion once again in jeopardy, it’s only by listening to women and speaking out that we can find the strength to fight our way free. 

Black Christmas: The Novel is now available from Stop the Killer.