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Quick Links Jess Bradford Is the Anti-Laurie Strode Final Girl 'Black Christmas' Makes a Feminist Statement with Jess's Pregnancy Jess's Fate Is Left Uncertain in 'Black Christmas'

Olivia Hussey was 16 when she gained international stardom with her exciting performance as Juliet in the 1968 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. However, Hussey, who died on December 27, 2024, is undoubtedly best remembered by audiences for her groundbreaking performance in the classic 1974 slasher film Black Christmas, in which she plays Jess Bradford, one of a group of sorority sisters who are stalked by a serial killer during the Christmas season.

Just as Black Christmas was one of the progenitors of the slasher genre, Jess became one of horror cinema’s first final-girl heroines, more than a decade before the term was invented in reference to the last surviving female character in a horror film. As the lone survivor of Black Christmas, Jess attained final...

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.

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Christmas is just around the corner, and it’s time to see brilliant classic movies, but if you are not in the mood to see Home Alone or Jingle All the Way for a millionth and want to see some adult movies. We at CinemaBlind have prepared a list of 11 best R-rated Christmas movies you can check out.

Violent Night (Starz & Rent on Prime Video) Credit – Universal Pictures

Violent Night is a Christmas action comedy film directed by Tommy Wirkola from a screenplay co-written by Pat Casey and Josh Miller. The 2022 film follows Santa Claus as he comes across a wealthy family’s compound, where an elite team of mercenaries has kidnapped the family on Christmas Eve. Violent Night stars David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Alex Hassell, Alexis Louder, and Beverly D’Angelo.

Die Hard Credit – 20th Century Fox

Die Hard...

One of the most popular Christmas horror movies among genre fans is the 1974 classic Black Christmas (watch it Here) – and this December, some of the movie’s fans are going to have the chance to catch it on the big screen! Variety reports that the American Genre Film Archive is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Black Christmas by bringing a 4K restoration to theatres across North America from December 7th through 22nd!

Directed by Bob Clark, the same filmmaker who brought us the family friendly classic A Christmas Story, from a screenplay by A. Roy Moore, Black Christmas has the following synopsis: As winter break begins, a group of sorority sisters, including Jess and the often inebriated Barb, begin to receive anonymous, lascivious phone calls. Initially, Barb eggs the caller on, but stops when he responds threateningly. Soon, Barb’s friend Claire goes missing from the sorority house, and a local adolescent girl is murdered,...

In celebration of its 50th anniversary, the American Genre Film Archive is releasing a 4K restoration of Bob Clark’s holiday horror classic “Black Christmas” in theaters.

Teaming up with the Agfa, Texas-based collectible company Mutant has created an 18″ by 24″ “Black Christmas” poster that will be available exclusively at select 50th anniversary screenings. The five-color screen print, produced by Night Swim in an edition of 285, features brand-new artwork by Phantom City Creative. Additional white and red variants of the poster will be released on Mutant’s website Nov. 29 — Black Friday.

“I am so honoured that the American genre Film Archive and Mutant are presenting the 50th Anniversary of ‘Black Christmas’ in movie theaters this year, star Olivia Hussey said of the rerelease. “The film world is lucky to have the Agfa, which continues to show the meaningful impact of going to the movies through screenings like this one. I’m...

Director Bob Clark’s seminal slasher Black Christmas is now 50 years old – and its conversation about reproductive rights is as relevant today as ever.

A bold slasher that has carved its path to become a festive favourite, Black Christmas – released 50 years ago today – is also an unwitting pro-choice manifesto.

Five decades after the Canadian movie first graced the big screen, and as we witness reproductive rights being eroded, its abortion storyline rings as a chilling, powerful reminder of what’s at stake in the 21st century.

Premiered on the 11th October 1974, Canadian director Bob Clark’s holiday-themed film is perhaps best known as one of the original slasher horrors, inspired by a real-life murder spree in Montreal. Following in the footsteps of cult thrillers such as Peeping Tom and Psycho, the film lays the groundwork for future mainstream blood-fests – most obviously John Carpenter’s seminal Halloween in 1978.

Received with mixed reviews at the time,...

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Speak No Evil (2024)

Horror remakes are known for changing the tone or cinematography style, but some movies, like Speak No Evil, alter the originals more significantly. The announcement for the Hollywood version of Speak No Evil was surprising because the news broke one year after the release of the original 2022 Danish thriller. The original movie was quickly lauded as one of the best horror movies of the last five years, setting an extremely high bar for the 2024 version starring James McAvoy.

Surprisingly, the 2024 version of the film thrived against all expectations because the creative team chose to diverge from the original in many ways most notably, the ending of Hollywood's Speak No Evil. This movie isn't the first remake to completely change the source material. Many remakes have set themselves apart from the originals in theme, narrative style, plot, and characters, with varying levels of success.

Merry Creepmas, you filthy animals. The final day of Bloody Disgusting’s 12 Days of Creepmas is here, and it feels only fitting to celebrate with the reigning champion of holiday horror: Bob Clark’s Black Christmas.

In case you missed any of the holiday festivities, you can keep track of the 12 Days of Creepmas here.

Released in 1974, Black Christmas has a simple setup on paper; over Christmas break, the residents of a sorority house are stalked and preyed upon by an unseen foe. Thanks to director Bob Clark and screenwriter Roy Moore, the plot isn’t quite so simple as it sounds thanks to a wonderfully complex cast of characters and character-driven moments that enhance the horror.

Scene-stealer Barb (Margot Kidder) is foul-mouthed and unapologetic, and her pranks or drunken quips ensure this sorority house is full of life. Barb is the precise type of handful that likely wears on housemother Mrs.

It’s hard to believe that Bob Clark, the director of the modern classic A Christmas Story, first cut his teeth on a much darker holiday film. Hitting theaters in 1974, Black Christmas is often considered to be the first true North American slasher film. Shockingly enough, it actually came out the same year as the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with both films creating a fascinating blueprint for horror films to come.

Set during Christmastime in Toronto, the film employs a popular urban legend known as “The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs.” Allegedly based on a real 1950 murder, this legend was the source material for many later horror films such as When a Stranger Calls and The Sitter, and originated the idea of “the call coming from inside the house.”

As an entirely Canadian production, the film was first released in the Great White North, where it became a huge hit.

There are several Christmas horror movies to turn to throughout the month of December – in fact, you can see a list of 12 of them at This Link. One of the most popular Christmas horror movies among genre fans is the 1974 classic Black Christmas (watch it Here) – and that happens to be the movie we’re covering in the latest episode of the Real Slashers video series! To find out all about Black Christmas, take a look at the video embedded above.

Directed by Bob Clark, the same filmmaker who brought us the family friendly classic A Christmas Story, from a screenplay by A. Roy Moore, Black Christmas has the following synopsis: As winter break begins, a group of sorority sisters, including Jess and the often inebriated Barb, begin to receive anonymous, lascivious phone calls. Initially, Barb eggs the caller on, but stops when he responds threateningly. Soon, Barb’s friend...

Black Christmas is an inherently feminist franchise. Released in 1974, Bob Clark’s original film follows a group of sorority sisters who are stalked and dispatched by a mysterious killer over the holiday break between semesters. During a busy Christmas party in the full sorority house, the girls receive a call from someone they refer to as the Moaner. They gather around the receiver and listen to a tirade of obscene gibberish that culminates in the deadpan threat, “I’m going to kill you.” True to his promise, the caller who will come to be known as Billy (Albert J. Dunk in an uncredited role) murders the sisters one by one while calling to harrass them from a phone line in their own attic. Clark’s film is a masterclass in atmospheric dread, perfectly blending the trimings of the holiday season with the terror of an unknown killer hiding in the shadows.

"They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door." When Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) gave her famous critique of slasher movies in Wes Craven's "Scream," she summed up everything that had become so corny and predictable about the genre in the '80s. Of course, Craven's own Freddy Krueger was partially to blame, going from an inescapable monster haunting his victims' nightmares to a bogeyman with a penchant for novelty killings and gnarly one-liners. Hell, he even ended up rapping with the Fat Boys in the video for "Are You Ready For Freddy."

While there are many classic slasher movies out there, the genre often gets a bad rap for hackery and gimmickry, which, thanks to endless sequels, reboots, and remakes, is deserved to some extent. That is why...

It's 1974. Canada and the United States are challenging old ideas about women's bodily autonomy, a year removed from the Supreme Court's landmark Roe V. Wade decision legalizing abortion. Chaka Khan croons for her lover to "Tell Me Something Good" over the radio airwaves as Isabel Perón is sworn in as Argentina's first female president, weeks before Richard Nixon would resign from his presidential post amid the Watergate scandal. It's a time of shake-ups and seismic cultural shifts, reflected in the films people would flock to. Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" and Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Conversation" would tap into distrust of governments and institutions, and in horror, Tobe Hooper would disrupt the genre formula with his grim and influential screamfest "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." Bob Clark's "Black Christmas" would be one of the first horror movies to center around a holiday both in title and plot, but...

The 1984 classic Silent Night, Deadly Night (watch it Here) and the 1974 classic Black Christmas (watch that one Here) are two horror films that many genre fans make sure to watch every holiday season – so the folks at Gutter Garbs have very wisely put imagery promoting both films together for their “Holidays of Horror Double Feature” collection. A T-shirt, a hoodie, and a poster showing Silent Night, Deadly Night and Black Christmas double feature artwork can be purchased at This Link – and you can take a look at those items at the bottom of this article.

Directed by Charles E. Sellier Jr. from a screenplay by Michael Hickey (working from a story by Paul Caimi), Silent Night, Deadly Night has the following synopsis:

Bearing the emotional scars of a young boy who has seen his mother and father brutally murdered by a savage killer in a Santa Claus costume, 18-year-old Billy...

There is no definitive answer as to what the first slasher movie really is. Many point to Michael Powell's Peeping Tom or even Psycho as the film that launched the genre. Others suggest it's Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood (aka Twitch of the Death Nerve) that invented the slasher tropes. Some still say it's John Carpenter's original Halloween, a movie that, even if it is not the first slasher movie ever made, can still be called the most influential. It (and Bava’s Bay of Blood) is the movie that producer Sean Cunningham was ripping off when he made the original Friday the 13th, the copycat that launched a thousand more copycats. There has been a push in the last 10–15 years, though, to recognize Bob Clark's 1974 film Black Christmas (aka Silent Night, Evil Night) as the first “real” slasher, as a clear line can be drawn...

Donald Trump vs. Starbucks' War on Christmas. The War on Christmas: The movies that come to mind We're still in November, but the War on Christmas – according to online buzz, a second cousin once removed of the War on Cops – has begun. Weeping and gritting of teeth has seized certain population segments in the U.S.A. (and perhaps other countries as well) after Fox News, that beacon of intellectual freedom at the end of the cable news tunnel, announced that … Starbucks' holiday season cups are a) red b) devoid of Christmas decorations. Could it be a satanic conspiracy disguised as politically correct inclusiveness? The result of a communist takeover at the Seattle-headquartered company? Cruel and unusual Christian persecution in the form of paper cups? Your guess is as good as mine. Far-right Republican icon, U.S. presidential candidate, and 2015 political circus ringmaster Donald Trump seems to think that Starbucks...

As horror fans, we make it our business to know the most obscure details about our favorite films. We watch the bonus features on the Special Edition releases of our favorite DVDs; we read retrospectives and interviews in support of our most beloved titles. But even the most diligent fan is bound to miss something along the way. So, to help you get the lowdown, we're launching a new segment that rounds up some lesser-known trivia from your favorite horror films.

For this installment, we're setting our sights on the classic slasher film Black Christmas. There are plenty of well-known talking points regarding Black Christmas but we have rounded up some slightly more obscure facts that may even enlighten even the super fan.

Now, we present to you: twelve things you may not have known about Bob Clark’s Black Christmas.

During the filming of the infamous phone call sequences,...

And now for something (almost) completely different for Everyone's A Critic- our very first, end of the year top ten list! This little gem was compiled by one of our frightfully fang-tastic featured reviewers from this past year, the monstrously maniacal Mister Matt Molgaard! The floor is all yours, so take it away, Matt...

You could place 1000 obsessive horror hounds in one giant room, ask what the scariest film of all time is, and get 1001 different answers… at least. It’s an age-old debate that in all honesty cannot be answered, as viewers rate films based on different criteria. What is scary to one person may be slapstick to another. So while I may personally prefer psychological horror, you may prefer a wealth of carnage and stomach churning gore. Whose criteria is the stronger foundation to judge what is, and what isn’t, scary?

Conundrums.

Can we honestly pinpoint the scariest film of all time?...