An improvised film criticism essay on Bob Clark’s masterpiece, Black Christmas (1974), looking at themes of isolation, escapism, color symbolism, homages, foreshadowing, and the paradigm of the final girl. Also, the origin of a certain phrase that has become a metaphor, and the characteristics of rotary home phones that might make parts of Black Christmas confusing to 21st century viewers. The more times I watch this perfect film, the more I notice. Merry Christmas in July y’all! Click below to watch on YouTube or scroll down to read the transcript.

Merry Christmas in July! If you celebrate, Black Christmas is the gift that keeps on giving because I have seen it literally 30 or 40 times, and I keep on noticing new things. It keeps on getting funnier and more disturbing every time I see it.

Thing number one: Barb (Margot Kidder’s character), the sad, over-the-top drunk comedy character. Barb has a glass menagerie, as in the Tennessee Williams play where there was a girl who never left her house and had a bunch of glass animals. Barb’s glass menagerie, just as in the play, represents fragility—which Barb has because of her asthma—isolation (well, she’s an alcoholic and her mother made other plans for Christmas), and living in a fantasy world where she’s drinking too much and saying these inappropriate things, thinking that it makes her happy, but it doesn’t.

The thing about the Tennessee Williams play is that it all hinged around a “gentleman caller.” Sickly and sadly, these women at the sorority house literally have a gentleman caller: the killer who is making the obscene phone calls, who tells Barb, “I’m going to kill you,” in the flattest, most terrifying voice. Glass Menagerie right here in the middle of this movie!

This took me way too long to figure out: Black Christmas is a subversion of the title “White Christmas”—the song that Bing Crosby sang in Holiday Inn. “White” in this case would mean the renewal of the world because Jesus was born, the snow, a starting over. “Black” is shadows, death, obscurity, and the mystery that isn’t going to be solved in this film. That’s a thing that you have to realize if you haven’t watched this: there’s no solution. I’ve seen it 30 or 40 times, and my brain keeps trying to put it together because that’s what brains do—look for patterns. But there ain’t no patterns.

(Musical interlude)

That’s the song that the carolers were singing when Jess came to the door looking beatific and pregnant. Yes, Jess is the “final girl” of Black Christmas. Traditionally—since all the slashers that came after this movie ripped it off and made all the rules—the final girl was always the virginal one, the one that wasn’t indulging in any hanky-panky. But Jess is pregnant.

Unfortunately—and I didn’t like to admit this until tonight—Jess is dead at the end of the film as the credits roll. Detective John Saxon has detected a pattern that every time the killer kills, he then makes a phone call. So everyone leaves the house with Jess asleep and sedated, and then the phone starts ringing. So we know that she’s dead, and all of this has been futility.

Now, Art Hindle’s character, Chris: when Jess finds him in the middle of the film at the hockey rink, he’s wearing a hockey mask. That didn’t mean anything yet in 1974, but when the Friday the 13th movies rolled on until Part 3 when Jason got his hockey mask, maybe someone had seen Black Christmas, seen this towering Art Hindle in this weird mask, and decided to put it on the killer.

It makes me think for the first time that maybe he was supposed to be a red herring or a suspect in Black Christmas. He’s very attentive; he keeps touching the women comfortingly, which no one would have thought much about back then. But if we’re looking at it now, it does seem like someone who—I know it’s his girlfriend Claire that’s gone missing, but normally he would be a suspect because he’s involved; he’s the boyfriend of one of the missing girls. So maybe so, but that’s not why he’s wearing the hockey mask yet—it just looks that way to modern viewers.

Another thing about modern viewers: if you’re a young person and you’re watching this, do you know why we say “the calls are coming from inside the house” when what we mean is that you’re the problem? (“It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”) “The calls are coming from inside the house” because the problem is within you.

Well, this movie—and an urban legend that led up to this movie—Black Christmas is the reason that we say “the calls are coming from inside the house.” It has now become a metaphor for someone not realizing that they have a problem and that they’re the ones causing it. But in this case, the killer was literally hiding in the sorority house making the phone calls. You may not know that back then (and in the ’80s), as a fun trick everybody used to do at home, you could pick up the landline and call your own number, and it would ring on another extension in the house so you could prank call the people in your house. So that’s what’s happening here: the calls are coming from inside the house.

As a bonus: do you know why Barb said that they had a number that was “Fellatio” and then the number? I didn’t realize this at first, but people used to have a phone number that was a word. It’s the same thing as “Pennsylvania 6-5000” or “Transylvania 6-5000.” They didn’t have the three-number exchange and then the four-number phone number, so they had to call the operator and say “Fellatio 7355” or whatever it was. So I don’t know if that joke would work now, or if it showed up in the later remakes (I haven’t watched any of them).

Anyway, that’s what I’ve got tonight! I love Christmas in July. I’m very happy when I rewatch a movie, figure out new things about it, and get to come and tell you, my friends. In the meantime, I don’t know what to say—I don’t have a cute sign-off. Don’t drink too much, and call your dad, call your mom, use a cell phone… Good night and Merry Christmas in July!