Ending as quickly as it began, Bob Clark's contribution to the '70s horror wave deserves props for at least anticipating (if perhaps not exactly inspiring) several subsequent genre tropes -- this yuletide-scored slasher points toward John Carpenter's own holiday-themed mayhem four years later, to say nothing of When a Stranger Calls, Friday the 13th, and Scream. The opening, in fact, is a fish-eye lens P.O.V. suggesting Voorheesvision, distorted tracking shots as the unseen killer climbs into a sorority house to terrorize the coeds with dirty calls; their phone rings and torrents of obscenity quake the sisters, although the required "It's coming from inside the house!" chestnut comes too only late for most of the gals. Unlike the later movies, sexuality figures little in the assorted slayings, so that "professional virgin" Lynne Griffin (wrapped in plastic and left in the attic rocking chair), "Queen of Vodka" house mother Marian Waldman (hook to the head) and mouthy raunchster Margot Kidder (skewered with crystal-unicorn figurine) are all fair game to the psycho's gaze. More polished but less daring than his 'Nam-zombie gem Night Walk, Clark's vision of deranged male rage invading an all-girl sanctuary is muddled by the plot, and the promising strain between independent, pregnant coed Olivia Hussey and music-student beau Keir Dullea is ultimately obfuscated. Before the tensions could be explored, Clark was already on his way to Porky's. Thus, from Black Christmas to A Christmas Story -- less distressing a trajectory to '80s "respectability" than Hooper's from Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Poltergeist, but still. With Andrea Martin, Art Hindle, and John Saxon.
--- Fernando F. Croce
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