Black Christmas

Black Christmas (originally titled Silent Night, Evil Night in the United States and retitled Stranger in the House on television screenings) is a 1974 Canadian slasher film produced and directed by Bob Clark, and written by A. Roy Moore. It stars Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin, Lynne Griffin and John Saxon. The story follows a group of sorority sisters who receive threatening phone calls and are eventually stalked and murdered by a deranged killer during the Christmas season. Inspired by the urban legend "the babysitter and the man upstairs" and a series of murders that took place in the Westmount neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, Moore wrote the screenplay under the title Stop Me. The filmmakers made numerous alterations to the script, primarily the shifting to a university setting with young adult characters. It was shot in Toronto in 1974 on an estimated budget of $686,000, and was distributed by Warner Bros. in North America. Upon its release, Black Christmas received mixed reviews, but it has since received critical re-appraisal, with film historians noting it for being one of the earliest slasher films. It is also praised for its influence on John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). Aside from its earning a cult following since its release, a novelization written by Lee Hays was published in 1976. It is the first film in the Black Christmas series, being followed by two remakes in 2006 and 2019. Plot An unseen man climbs the exterior of a sorority house, where a Christmas party is being held, and enters the attic. The house phone then rings, and sorority sister Jess Bradford answers to discover it is an obscene phone call from a person who has called before, whom the sorority has nicknamed "The Moaner". Jess and the other sorority members listen as the caller rants and screams in strange voices, before abruptly threatening to kill them. Upset by the call, a younger student named Clare Harrison decides to leave, and goes upstairs to her bedroom to pack her suitcase. There, unbeknownst to the rest of the sorority, Clare is attacked by the killer hiding in her closet and killed.