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Here’s that little, neglected low rent video that’s actually a nasty pleaser, despite the lack of crowd pleasin’ gore. Because that’s what the Sewer is here for. You know those movies, sitting on the shelf all along since you first started rentin’ almost 20 years ago. Video Sewer is dedicated (sometimes) to actually renting those videos, so you can know whether you should take the plunge. I rent and rate for you. But since it’s Video Sewer, you know I’m always gonna find a reason, or you will… Black Christmas, 1974, Canada. This one is actually good. Though its bag of tropes had been brewing in other horrors for a few years already, Black Christmas nevertheless sets the bar pretty high for two different genres. Stalk and slash flicks like Halloween followed and likely borrowed from Black Christmas. He Knows You’re Alone also borrows from it. Both films eclipsed Black Christmas in success and memory. However you should still seek out this slimy backwash from the free-love era for a ‘taste of the real’. Here’s the upshot, a whacked out psycho sneaks into a sorority house during Christmas break and starts slaughtering coeds. A few of you readers are probably heading to the video merchant right now, but some may still need convincing. Stars Margot Kidder and Andrea Martin (SCTV) fall victim to all manner of physical and intense psychological punishment at the hands of the nastiest villain in the last 30 years. Forget Jason and Michael, this guy makes terrifying obscene phone calls in about 5 different voices, snorting, giggling, and howling. It makes the caller in Scream look like a z100 dj. Then he kills everyone. Kidder’s frighteningly alcoholic character livens things up for a while, until the calls start happening. One of the coeds goes up to her room…alone. Soon slow motion hell breaks loose while realistic and topical subplots develop, engendering a sense of connection with the sacrificial characters. When’s the last time you saw that in a horror movie? Eternal sequences with no sound, where characters creep around, sometimes inches from the killer without knowing it, evoke dread even in jaded hacks like me. Black Christmas is a movie that understands that less is more when it comes to music. Often music designed to create tension in these movies just alerts the viewer to be on guard. Not here, boy. Suffice it to say, things go poorly for all involved in this lump of coal for your stocking. If you’re in the mood for vile, unrelieved evil, check out Black Christmas.
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