The Horror Hoser presents “Noir Noelle: Black Christmas, 47 Years Later”

Noir Noelle: Black Christmas, 47 Years Later

In 1974, one of the most important films in Canadian Horror, and the slasher sub-genre at large, was released. Black Christmas (1974) is regarded as one of the seminal films of the slasher genre, and while much has already been written about whether or not this film is the first slasher, a proto-slasher, or some other classification, I want to look at the legacy of Black Christmas, almost half a century later. 

Some of the main elements that Black Christmas helped solidify into the slasher sub-genre include the extensive use of the killer-POV shots, where we see what the killer sees, later used in both Halloween and Friday the 13th. Being in the killer’s head in Black Christmas somehow feels dirtier than in those later films. Where seeing through Mrs. Voorhees’ eyes as she stalks camp counsellors is more titillating, seeing through Billy’s eyes in Black Christmas evokes true fear for his victims. 

Black Christmas also employs the Agatha Christie who-done-it model, where we aren’t automatically assuming that the killer is some supernatural entity, but rather, could be someone the characters know. This seems to get lost after the first Friday the 13th film, but picks up again with the 90s horror cycle in films like Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Urban Legend. 

In Black Christmas, we also get the model for most slasher films, where there are a number of characters, usually female, who are picked off one-by-one until we’re left with the “final girl”. In later iterations of the slasher, these characters are often high schoolers, to make them seem more vulnerable. Or, if they’re older, they’re constantly having sex or finding reasons to get naked, minus the virgin, who is allowed to survive the film. In Black Christmas, however, the main characters are all very normal college women. They talk about sex, as people their age do, and our final girl, Jess, is dealing with an unwanted pregnancy. These characters have depth and personality, far greater (I would argue) than in a movie like Halloween, where the characters are all fairly one-dimensional. 

Haven’t seen this classic yet? Check it out on Shudder or for free on Tubi.

Rating: 5 lewd phone calls out of 5

By Ian A. Bain

Twitter: @bainwrites