The girls at the Pi Kappa Sigma sorority house are having a little Christmas party before everyone goes home for the holidays. After the party the phone rings. Jess Bradford (Olivia Hussey) answers. On the other end is an obscene phone caller. This is not the first time this has happened. Barb (Margo Kidder) takes the receiver and cusses out the caller. Clare Harrison (Lynne Griffin) is heading home the next day, so she goes upstairs to pack. A man who has been hiding in the attic of the house sneaks into Clare’s closet. He grabs her and suffocates her. He then drags her up into the attic.
The next day Clare’s father (James Edmond) shows up looking for his daughter. Barb and another sorority sister, Phyl (Andrea Martin) go with Mr. Harrison to the police station to report Clare missing. The desk Sergeant, Sgt. Nash (Doug McGrath) isn’t very sympathetic to their concerns. Chris Hayden (Art Hindle) shows up and demands that something be done to find the girl. In the next room Lt. Ken Fuller (John Saxon) hears the commotion and comes to find out what is going on. A search party is assembled.
At the sorority, the house mother, Mrs. Mac (Marian Waldman), goes looking for her cat, but finds Clare’s body. She is the next to die. The girls get another obscene call. Fuller puts a tap on the phone hoping to be able to trace where the calls are coming from. More calls come in and the bodies start piling up. Eventually the caller is kept on the line long enough to trace the call. The caller, and the killer, are in the house.
“Black Christmas” AKA “Silent Night, Evil Night” AKA “Stranger in the House” was released in 1974 and was directed by Bob Clark. It is a Canadian psychological horror and early slasher film. Remakes of the film were done in 2006 and 2019.
The film has the honor of being credited as the first holiday themed slasher film. It is also one of the better slasher movies. What sets this film apart from many slasher films is that, although most of the dead are women, they are not sexualized and there is no nudity in the film. Even the blood is toned down. What keeps the movie fascinating is the buildup of suspense, good acting and the way the story is told. Not to mention are really cool and creepy house.
The movie was written by Roy Moore. Reportedly, the film was based on a series of actual murders that took place in Montreal between October 1969 and January 1970 by serial killer Wayne Boden. Boden killed three women in the Westmount area of Montreal and a fourth in Calgary, Alberta in 1971. Boden was referred to as the “Vampire Rapist”. The film also takes from the urban legend where the babysitter is stalked by and receives crank phone calls from a killer who is in the house. The legend is commonly referred to as “The Babysitter and the man upstairs”.
The film takes place in the fictional town of Bedford. Bob Clark used the name as a nod to the town Bedford Falls in the film “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Filming locations include Trinity College in Toronto. The house used as the sorority house is a private residence on Clarendon Crescent in Toronto.
The voice of the mysterious killer, Billy, was done by Nick Mancuso.