[Editorial] Sorority Sister and Seasonal Slayings-Comparing Black Christmas (1974, 2006 and 2019)

TW: Sexual assault and rape.

While slashers are commonplace in the horror genre now, back in the ‘70s the sub-genre was on the brink of an explosion. Films like Halloween (1978) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) would all make an unforgettable mark on the genre, but Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974) is credited as being one of the first slasher movies.

The story of Black Christmas follows a group of sorority sisters as their sorority house winds down for Christmas and they find themselves being stalked by a largely unseen killer. There’s no doubt that Black Christmas is a cult classic in the horror genre, but unlike most horror properties, it managed to survive the ‘80s and ‘90s without being subjected to the remake or sequel treatment.

That was until 2006, when a more violent and backstory-heavy version of the movie was released, often stylised as Black X-Mas and featuring a cast of every young and popular female actor of the time, including Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Lacey Chabert. Focussing more on the killer, Billy, and his relationship with his family, this remake heavily divided opinion. Many love it for its over the top violence and ridiculous story, while others are colder on it for being so different from the original. 

Finally, in 2019, Sophia Takal took on the Black Christmas story, with the film instantly receiving a negative reaction from a section of the horror community for being too ‘woke’, feminist focussed, and having a PG-13 rating. 

The Black Christmas series is impressive for featuring three standalone movies, each telling a completely different story, and only really retaining the sorority house at Christmas setting every time. Each film is such a completely different experience, with each sitting in a different section of the horror genre, and attracting a different set of fans. 

As someone who has seen all three movies multiple times, and is an avid fan of the first and the third one, I wanted to talk about the common themes the movies share, what they choose to do differently, and why every entry in the Black Christmas series is worth your time, depending on your mood. 

The Killer

The 1974 version of Black Christmas does something quite special in that we never get a clear picture of what our killer looks like. There’s no mask to hide his appearance, instead, when the killer is in a scene, we’re either seeing things from his point of view, or we see a shadow or a shape lurking in the sorority house. We see legs, or an arm, or an eyeball glaring through the gap in a door, but we never get the full reveal of our killer, because really, it’s not important. Black Christmas isn’t here to create an iconic slasher villain like Jason, Michael Myers, or Freddy Krueger. Instead, the focus is placed upon the women he is terrorising, and the way these women are treated as they try to reach out for help. 

It turns out that the killer has been phoning the sorority house for weeks with strange and obscene phone calls. So much so that they’ve dubbed him ‘The Moaner’ and the women pretty much take the calls in their stride at this point. These phone calls are the only real insight we get into our killer, as we spend far more time on the phone with him than we do seeing him interact with any other characters.

His calls start as explicit and sexual, but when Barb calls him out on his actions, he says he’s going to kill her. By this point, the killer has already gained entry to the sorority house, having found an open window in the attic, so it’s clear that his actions are escalating, and a harassing phone call is no longer enough for him. 

From then on, the calls become increasingly erratic, he mentions people called Billy and Anges, and seems to be mimicking conversations from a set of parents, possibly his own. He also mimics parts of conversations that have been taking place in the sorority house, placing suspicion on everyone who’s set foot within it since the movie began. 

However, as the movie climaxes, we find out the killer’s calls are coming from inside the house. When a Stranger Calls (1979) may get credit for this horror movie trope, but Black Christmas did it first. This is a double blow for Jess, who has been told all night to stay inside and lock the doors if she wants to be safe, and yet it turns out that the sorority house was the most dangerous place for her the whole time. Even in the end, we never see the killer’s true face, as his crimes are blamed on Jess’ boyfriend Peter, but the phone continues to ring in the sorority house, suggesting he’s still lurking somewhere in the darkness.

The 2006 remake decided that the best thing to do would be to lean into the small pieces of information we learned about the killer in the original movie and create a complicated backstory around this. Born in 1970, with a liver condition that made him bright yellow, Billy is hated by his mother. This hate comes both from his medical condition, and her hatred of Billy’s father. 

When Billy is five, his mother and her new lover murder Billy’s father, and Billy flees to the attic after witnessing them burying the body. In 1982, desperate for another child and unable to get pregnant with her lover, Billy’s mother rapes him and becomes pregnant with his little sister/daughter Agnes. On Christmas Day in 1991, Billy attacks Agnes and pulls out one of her eyes. He then kills his mother and her lover and ends up being imprisoned for his crimes. 

In the present day (2006), Billy’s old house has been turned into a sorority house and he is something of a local legend. The sisters buy a present for Billy every year which is always opened first as part of Secret Santa. 

However, on the year Billy decides and succeeds to break out of the hospital and head home for Christmas, it turns out Agnes has been living in the attic of the sorority house the whole time and decides to start a murder spree as well. Because Billy is mirroring what happened to his father, and in turn, Agnes is mirroring what happened to her, most people in this film die by getting a plastic bag shoved over their head and then one or both of their eyes removed. So to be honest, after you’ve seen the first couple of deaths, it’s sort of old news. 

The two killers instead of one trick is refreshing, but when the first murder takes place and we know Billy is still locked up at this point, it’s obvious that someone else has to be involved. 

Finally, Black Christmas (2019) manages to give us a killer that is somewhere in the middle. In this version of the story, it is once again not important exactly who the killer is, and the focus is once again placed on the sorority sisters and their experiences. However, we do get to find out who the killer is, as well as a little bit of backstory to explain the reasoning.

Whenever someone is murdered, we get a clearer view of the killer than we were given in 1974, however, they are wearing a dark hooded robe, and so it’s impossible to tell who is underneath. We also find out pretty quickly that there is more than one killer when Riley and her friends are attacked by multiple hooded figures in the middle of their Christmas party.

The real killer here is the power that the university’s founder, Calvin Hawthrone, placed in a bust of himself. The black goo that oozes from it allows the DKO fraternity to infect new pledges with his toxic masculinity and patriarchal thoughts, and use it to kill the women who “stepped out of line.”

While defeating the DKO brothers allows Riley to get her revenge on her rapist and Kris finally rids the campus of Professor Gelson, it also provides a bigger win for the surviving sorority sisters as a group. They’ve shown that they can defeat the deep-rooted and outdated sexist views that run through the college, and also how important it is that everyone works together to get rid of these types of ideas for good.

Feminist Themes

Black Christmas (2006)

Placing the action of the original Black Christmas in a sorority house means that the focus of the story was always going to be on the women. By making the killer an unseen and unnamed presence, we know that the main characters are meant to be the women under attack, mainly Jess, Barb, Phyl, and Clare.

While the obscene phone calls the women are receiving are distressing, Barb says she’s used to this type of behaviour from living in the city and gives the caller a piece of her mind before hanging up. While having to put up with this type of harassment shouldn’t be the norm, the truth is that most women can relate to it, whether it’s being abused online or being catcalled in the street. We’ve become used to it, and also know that there isn’t always a lot that can be done to stop it, even when we do fight back. 

There’s talk of a girl on campus who was raped a few weeks previously, and a high school girl is murdered in the park before the killer makes his move on the sorority house. This type of female-directed violence is all around the women all the time, and they are simply trying to navigate it to ensure they make it home safely for Christmas. 

Clare is the first sister to be murdered, and when her father comes to meet her the next day, he quickly realises something is wrong. However, at first, the police are hesitant to offer any real help. There are suggestions that Clare is merely shacked up with a boy somewhere, and that no one should worry about her. They also ask about her emotional problems and how many boys she’s seeing. Even when Jess calls later to report the increasingly violent-sounding phone calls, it’s not until Clare’s father points out the sorority house connection that the police offer to do anything about the harassing caller. Jess is even told it’s probably just a boyfriend playing a little joke on her, which it evidently isn’t, had the police officer even bothered to ask about the content of the phone calls. 

Jess’ central storyline also focuses on the fact she is pregnant, but doesn’t want the baby and is planning on getting an abortion. Peter is completely against this idea, instead suggesting that he quit college so that they can get married and raise the baby together. “How can you make a decision like that? You haven’t even asked me!” Peter demands, to which Jess replies, “I wasn’t going to tell you about it.” Peter has little concern for Jess’ feelings and simply gets more and more erratic about the situation as the movie progresses. It gets to the point where his behaviour is so extreme that both the police and Jess think he could be the murderer, with Jess eventually killing him in self-defence when he corners her in the basement.

In the 2019 version, a huge plot point is the fact Riley was raped by DKO brother Brian, but no one believed her. Brian was able to keep his high position in the fraternity and is even invited back to campus after his graduation to welcome the new pledges. Riley, on the other hand, has to deal with people making backhanded comments about her rape allegations and accusing her of lying. However, that never stops her from speaking her truth and making it clear exactly how she feels about Brian. With her sisters believing her and backing her up, Riley has the support she needs to keep fighting Brian every single day. 

Overall, the 2019 version is here to highlight what it’s like living as a woman right now. There are women defending themselves with keys between their fingers, ‘not all men’ arguments, women texting each other when they get home safe, and discussions on the importance of consent and rape culture in general. There’s also feminist t-shirts, diva cups, period products, and talk of why grown women shouldn’t be referred to as girls. 

The 1974 version and the 2019 version are both perfect examples of feminist issues and show that even over 40 years later, women are still facing the same problems and threats. In 2019, when Riley approaches campus security about her missing sorority sister, she’s greeted with the same brush off that Barb and Jess got in 1974 because men don’t seem to understand the fear and worry that radiates through a friendship group when a woman isn’t where she’s supposed to be. Even though it’s only been a few hours since their friends went missing, they know instinctively that something bad has happened.

Sadly, the 2006 version is missing any hints of feminist themes or important discussions around the threats that women face every day. The closest thing is a brief look at revenge porn when Megan finds out that her ex Kyle, who also happens to be the current boyfriend of sister Kelli, had filmed them having sex and it has now been posted online. However, Megan is dead before we can explore the effect this video has had on her and instead is only used to make Kyle seem like a bad guy. Let’s be real though, in an 80-minute movie that’s mostly eye popping and flashbacks, there was never going to be time for an in-depth discussion around revenge porn.

Comparing 1974, 2006 and 2019

Black Christmas (2019)

I’m never going to tell someone not to watch a horror film even if it’s one I don’t particularly like. We all experience horror movies so differently, and something that doesn’t work for me will almost certainly be someone else’s favourite movie. 

For me, the weakest entry in the series is definitely the 2006 movie. It feels like a very basic slasher and doesn’t really add anything substantial to the genre. Instead of looking at the wider threats that women face every day, like not being believed or ruled as hysterical, the women in the 2006 version can’t get help because 911 is busy and the snow is trapping them in the house. It’s all very cliche, but there are some great sequences, such as the finale in the walls of the house. If you like over the top violence and can stomach the noise of multiple eyeballs being ripped out of people’s heads, then you’ll have a good time with this one. 

The 2019 version is a strong second place for me, and one I enjoyed even more on multiple viewings once I knew the whole story and what was coming, as I’ll be honest, the paranormal/ritual element of it did catch me off guard a little the first time! It’s a horror movie that’s not afraid to delve into the feminist themes that feel so relevant to me today as a female horror viewer and, while exaggerated, I recognise so many of the situations Riley and her sisters find themselves in. While it got a lot of hate for not being very violent or gory, it’s worth noting that most of the deaths in the 1974 version also happen off-screen, so gory deaths do not a good movie make. The 2006 version is proof of that. 

The winner out of all three Black Christmas movies has to be the original 1974 movie. I actually saw the 2006 version in the cinema before I even realised it was a remake, and didn’t see the 1974 version until years later and was chilled to the bone. There’s something so terrifying about the way you barely see the killer, and instead, see things like the attic hatch silently closing, or Clare’s dead body in the attic window as her father drives away in his car on the street below. 

The final chase with Jess is also one of the best in horror history, from the killer’s eye through the gap in the door, to him grabbing her hair through the bars of the stair as she tries to escape. The open ending is also terrifying and with a lack of a sequel, it means we never really know what happens to Jess or the killer, making it all that harder for you to sleep at night once the credits stop rolling. 

All three movies work well as a festive triple bill when Christmas rolls around, but if you’re looking for the perfect feminist double bill, I can highly recommend the 1974 and the 2019 movie at any time of the year!

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