The Best Films I Saw in 2011 keeps going with an entry that is appropriate for this time of year. Slasher movies based on holidays are so commonplace that they have become cliched. Thankskilling, April Fool's Day, Halloween, Leprechaun, Uncle Sam, and My Bloody Valentine are some of the big examples. All we need are movies for Yom Kippur and Colombus Day. Heck, some can make a Kwanzaa horror movie for the blaxploitation crowd. But, this entry looks at the film that pretty much started it all.
The Best I Saw in 2011: Bob Clark's Black Christmas
A Christmas party is being held at a sorority house. We look through the eyes of an unknown man climbing up into the attic of the house. During the party, the house receives bizarre, perverse phone calls. The girls in the house become uneasy after the voice over the phone threatens to kill them. One of the girls decides to head upstairs to pack for her trip on Christmas break. She is attacked in the room, her screams muffled by the plastic wrap the killer uses to suffocate her. Her body is taken up into the attic.
After first reporting the disappearance to police, the girls are dismissed by an indifferent police officer. After coming back with more people concerned over her disappearance, Lt. Fuller (John Saxon) takes on the case for himself. Meanwhile, more girls are killed, including the alcoholic housemother, Mrs. MacHenry (Marian Waldman). It all leads to paranoia and survival instinct with the remaining girls Jess (Olivia Hussey), Barb (Margot Kidder), and Phyllis (Andrea Martin).
Much like with When A Stranger Calls, this film is heavily based on the urban legend of the babysitter who receives phone calls from a killer inside the house. Clark makes a few liberties with the legend and creates an intriguing mystery. This film makes for an interesting double feature for holiday viewing with A Christmas Story, which was also directed by Clark.
Hussey, Kidder, and Martin plays their roles well, despite not having a lot of depth to their characters. This is typical of any slasher film, but its here where the cliché was initiated. John Saxon brings a stern spirit to any role he plays and his performance as Fuller is no different. Here, its easy to see why Wes Craven would cast Saxon as the role of Lt. Don Thompson in Nightmare on Elm Street.
While the set-up and execution of the murders is by-the-numbers, there are moments that are genuinely creepy. There is a murder where the killer uses a glass unicorn ornament. The scene where Jess meets the killer and all we see is light showing the crazed, red eyes of the killer through a crevice in the open door, is one of the scariest images in any horror film. That first kill with the plastic wrap is a striking image and made for standout movie poster fodder.
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