I Do Movies Badly: Black Christmas

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2 Responses

  1. FictionIsntReal says:

    I don’t really think of Black Christmas as a slasher either. For one thing, the method of killing isn’t slashing. Slashers are known for their distinctive villains, typically masked (as in a number of their giallo inspirations, although slashers usually drop the mystery aspect), and Black Christmas is uninterested in showing theirs clearly or letting us know basically anything about him. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is not really a slasher either, but seems more clearly a proto-slasher, even if the titular chainsaw isn’t always Leatherface’s weapon of choice. Psycho also gave us a famous slashing scene which helped set the template for what came after. Both of those end with a young woman escaping the slasher after being attacked, but Black Christmas seriously averts the usual trope by having the person who should be the “final girl” in greater peril at the very end than she was in during the fakeout climax.

  2. FictionIsntReal says:

    It should also be noted that across the pond there’s a tradition of Christmas ghost stories. “A Christmas Carol” would be the most well known example here (although we rarely think of it as a “ghost story”). Another author in that tradition is M. R. James, who had a number of works adapted in the BBC series “A Ghost Story for Christmas” starting in 1971.

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