Black Christmas - Television Tropes & Idioms

He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake...*

If this movie doesn't make your skin crawl, it's on TOO TIGHT!

—1974 Tagline

Let the slay ride begin.

—2006 Tagline

A 1974 slasher, redone in 2006, and one of the Trope Makers for the slasher genre.

The story is about a group of sorority girls who are staying over for Christmas break. Each one has their problems, but they don't know it's about to get worse, as a psychotic bastard sets up home in the Sorority House attic... And starts his reign of terror, terrorizing the girls with disturbing phone calls before killing them...

The 1974 movie was directed by Bob Clark, who is better known for directing a very different Christmas-themed movie...

Not to be confused with Silent Night, Deadly Night; another Christmas-themed slasher flick.

This film has examples of the following tropes:

Accidental Murder: Jess beats Peter to death with a fireplace poker, thinking he was the killer.
Ambiguously Jewish: Phyllis.
Ax Crazy: Billy.
Big Bad: Billy.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Mrs. Mac.
Blue Eyes: Billy is revealed to have them in two particularly creepy scenes.
Book Safe: One of Mrs. Mac's many, many booze stashes.
Bottle Fairy: Barb.
Butt Monkey: Sergeant Nash.
By the Lights of Their Eyes: Billy, during his attack on Barb.
The Calls Are Coming From Inside The House: The original used this before When a Stranger Calls
Cat Scare: Surprisingly averted with the actual cat. Instead, we get Barb's asthma attack.
The Cavalry Arrives Late
Cluster F-Bomb: Phyllis's boyfriend Patrick swears at every available opportunity.
- Barb too. She is the most foulmouthed of the girls.
Comic Relief: Mrs. Mac and Barb, when they're drunk. Sgt. Nash's dimwittedness also provides laughs.
Country Matters: Billy's first onscreen call is full of 'em.
Creepy Basement
Creepy Doll: Billy leaves one with Clare's corpse.
Curiosity Killed the Cast: Clare and Mrs. Mac die looking for Mrs. Mac's perpetually lost cat, Claude. Phyllis is killed after spotting someone enter Barb's room.
Deadpan Snarker: Barb.
Death by Sex: Averted. The list of victims (in order of killing) goes; the virgin, the (middle aged) house mother, a little girl, the promiscuous Bottle Fairy, a cop, the nice girl, the red herring and then (probably) the final girl. And the final girl is having an abortion. And, unlike most later slashers, nobody is killed during -or just after- sex.
Downer Ending: Peter is mistaken for the killer, is killed by Jess and then we find out that the killer is still in the house with Jess.
Evil Phone / Harassing Phone Call: Repeatedly.
Exact Eavesdropping: How killer knows to say "just like having a wart removed" to Jess during one of the phone calls, providing more Red Herring fuel against Peter.
Extreme Melee Revenge: After doing poorly at his recital, Peter smashes his piano.
Final Girl: Jess Bradford.
Flipping the Bird: Mrs. Mac, behind Mr. Harrison's back. A picture in the house also depicts an old lady giving it.
Freudian Excuse: It's hinted that Billy has one. They should never have left him alone with Agnes!
Genki Girl: Barb - in a drunken, promiscuous way.
Giving Someone the Pointer Finger
Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Averted. The idea that the girls are getting killed as a result of Jess's vengeful boyfriend gets proven false. And she dies last.
Gory Discretion Shot: Barb being stabbed with the unicorn figurine isn't really directly shown.
Harassing Phone Call
Harmful to Minors: Patrick and Barb swear like sailors in front of young children (Patrick even does it while dressed as Santa). A little while later, Barb gives one of the kids alcohol.
The Heart: Phyllis.
Hooks and Crooks: Mrs. Mac's death involves her getting a swinging hook thrown into her head.
Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: One of many slasher films to take place on Christmas.
Improvised Weapon: A unicorn figurine and fireplace poker.
Ironic Nursery Tune: Billy sings Daddy's Gone A-Huntin to Claire's corpse, plus there's all the stock Christmas tunes.
Jerkass: Barb is mean when drunk.
Lady Drunk: Mrs. Mac.
Laughing Mad: Billy.
Missing Mom: Barb's drinking problems are caused by her distant mother.
Missing White Woman Syndrome: Averted at first. Sergeant Nash dismisses the concerns of the missing Clare's friends, telling them she's probably just shacked up somewhere with her boyfriend.
Murderer P.O.V.
Nice Hat: Mrs. Mac has several.
Nothing Is Scarier: We're never shown or told exactly what Billy (if it was him) did to Janice, the little girl.
Novelization: It's◊ rare as Hell.
Oh Crap: Lt. Fuller's reaction to learning the calls are coming from inside the house.
Phone Trace Race
Police Are Useless: Largely averted. Only the Irish-American is always incompetent, although one has to wonder why the officers rely on him so much, when he's clearly not to be trusted.
Psychopathic Manchild: Billy, presumably.
Pun-Based Title: It's a subversion of the song White Christmas, here black not standing for African-American, but for evil.
Red Herring: Peter.
Reaction Shot
Say My Name: The killer calls Barb Agnes before he kills her.
Screaming Woman: When Janice's body is found.
Serial Killer: Billy, since there's the minor implication he committed some rapes and murders before the ones featured in the film.
The Seventies: And how!
Shot in The Ass: A paranoid farmer shoots a police officer in the ass after spotting him skulking around on his property.
Similarly Named Works: Around a decade after the film's release an unrelated slasher novel also titled Black Christmas was published.
Slashed Throat: Officer Jennings is found with one.
Soundtrack Dissonance: The Christmas carollers during Barb's murder.
The Stoic: Mr. Harrison, until the end.
Team Mom: Mrs. Mac, who is literally the house mother. Also, Phyllis, to a lesser extent.
Token Wholesome: Clare.
Trashcan Bonfire: Clare's dad, Jess and Chris are warming up to one when the little girl's body is found in the park.
Trope Maker: For slasher movies.
The Un Reveal: We never know who Billy is, why he's murdering people, or even what he looks like.
Vader Breath: At the very beginning, as Billy closes in on the sorority house.
Voice Changeling: Billy, somehow.
What Happened to the Mouse?: The fate of Claude, the cat.
Window Pain
Would Hurt a Child: The one whoever murdered the 12 year old girl in the park.
- It's implied it was Billy.

The remake provides examples of:

A God Am I: One of Billy's fellow asylum inmates apparently has messianic delusions:
Orderly: "Happy birthday."
Abusive Parents: Billy's mother and stepfather.
Arc Words: "... My family now."
Asshole Victim: Mrs. Lenz and her lover.
Bad Santa: Billy, briefly.
Bare Your Midriff: Lauren's outfit.
Barrier-Busting Blow: Billy attacks Leigh through a wall.
Billy In The Attic: Billy's mother despised his father, and by extension him (the fact that he looked like That Yellow Bastard only added to that hatred). She and her lover wound up murdering Mr. Lenz, and kept Billy locked up in the attic, presumably only giving him the bare minimum to survive.
Bloodier and Gorier
Body Bag Trick: The not-so-dead Billy and Agnes pull this off in the hospital by the end.
Bottle Fairy: Lauren.
Child by Rape: Agnes.
Creepy Doll: Agnes gets one as a Christmas gift in her childhood, and it shows up throughout the film.
Crosscast Role: Adult Agnes was played by a man.
Cruel and Unusual Death: The candy cane shiv, for starters.
Curiosity Killed the Cast: Megan is lured into the attic by footsteps and a snow globe tune, while Dana is lured under the step by rustling noises.
Danger Takes a Backseat: Heather's death.
Death by Irony: "You're my cookie, and I could gobble you up!"
Death by Sex: The Santa is killed just as he's about to be get it on with a nurse.
Does Not Like Shoes: Billy and Agnes.
Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Averted. Obsessed with having another, better child, Mrs. Lenz, after her lover passes out during a bout of drunken sex, goes up to the attic where she keeps her deformed son Billy, and rapes him, successfully giving birth to a daughter nine months later. Suffice it to say, this contributed greatly to Billy's already steady descent into insanity.
Drop the Hammer: Billy's biological father is bludgeoned to death with one.
Dull Surprise: Kyle.
Evil Phone / Harassing Phone Call
Executive Meddling: The original version of the remake had, among other things, more character development and deaths more akin to the original; Dimension Films stepped in and started demanding rewrites and re-shoots (they're infamous for this sort of thing, see Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers and Hellraiser: Bloodline)
Eyes of Gold: Agnes's fake eye is gold.
Eye Scream: So much.
Final Girl: Kelli Presley.
Foe Yay: Before killing her, Agnes feels Lauren up.
Gorn
Gory Discretion Shot: The deaths of the Santa, Heather, and the morgue attendant.
Gross-Up Close-Up: Lots and lots.
Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday
Hostile Weather: Snowstorm builds up outside conveniently to cause problesm to the protagonists.
I'm a Humanitarian: Billy and Agnes. Two words: Skingerbread men.
Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How Billy ultimately dies, falling over the hospital railing and onto a Christmas tree with a pointy top.
Impromptu Tracheotomy: Death of the sanitarium guard.
Improvised Weapon: Christmas ornaments, a rolling pin, a candy cane, an ice skate, a gardening claw, the list goes on...
Ironic Nursery Tune: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies and a few others. Surprisingly effective.
Jerkass: Kyle.
Kick the Dog: Billy's mother crushing the "Baby's First Christmas" bulb, and later telling him that Santa was shot down by the Russians.
Kill The Cutie: Melissa, the only main sister besides Kelli who is halfway decent.
Made of Plasticine
Man on Fire: Billy and, less severely, Agnes.
Mythology Gag: Several, like most remakes.
Neck Snap: Leigh's death.
Nerd Glasses: Worn by Eve.
Offscreen Teleportation
Off with His Head!: Eve's death, with Melissa's being a partial example.
Organ Dodge: Kelli stabs Agnes in her glass eye.
Parental Incest / Villainous Incest: Billy's mother rapes him in an insane attempt to impregnate herself. She succeeds.
Peek-a-Bangs: Agnes favours this look.
Peek-A-Boo Corpse: Eve is found decapitated.
The Pen Is Mightier: Clair's death, and the first instance of Eye Scream in the film.
Reaction Shot
Red Right Hand: Billy's skin is yellow. Agnes's gold-colored fake eye may also count.
Rich Bitch: Dana and Heather.
Rolling Pin of Doom: Billy kills his mother with one.
Scary Black Man: The asylum guard.
Screaming Woman
Siblings in Crime: Billy and Agnes.
Shout Out: Billy escapes the asylum he's in by killing a Rent-a-Santa and stealing his costume. A deranged killer named Billy wearing a Santa suit...
Shower Scene: Lauren gets one, which shows off her tramp stamp.
Sophisticated as Hell:
Melissa: "No. You see, serial killers murder repeatedly for sexual thrill. Billy Lenz was a spree killer - dude just fucking lost it."
The Stoner: Along with beers, Billy's stepfather has several bongs lying around.
Team Mom: Melissa.
Title Drop: An old newspaper found in Eve's room mentions that Billy's first rampage was dubbed "Black Christmas".
Title In: Repeatedly.
Trailers Always Lie: They featured a lot of footage that wasn't in the film itself.
Two-Faced: Billy, after he's burned.
Unexplained Recovery: Billy and Agnes somehow surviving the sorority house fire.
Very Loosely Based on a True Story: In a "making-of" featurette, one of the filmmakers offhandedly mentions Billy's origin was partly inspired by Edmund Kemper.
Voice Changeling: Agnes.
The Voiceless: Billy.
Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Lauren throwing up.
Waking Up At The Morgue: Billy and Agnes.