History Film / BlackChristmas

* ''Film/BlackChristmas2019'', the 2019 remake.

* 'Film/BlackChristmas2019'', the 2019 remake.

* ''Film/BlackChristmas2006'', the 2006 remake.

[[redirect:BlackChristmas]]

[[quoteright:339:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/black_christmas.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:339:[[IronicNurseryTune He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake...]][[hottip:*: Alternatively: [[JeffDunham He kills you when you're sleeping, he chokes you when you wake...]]]]

->''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, [[TheRemake redone]] in 2006, and one of the {{Trope Maker}}s for the [[SlasherMovies 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 [[ItGotWorse get worse]], as a [[AxCrazy psychotic bastard]] sets up home in the Sorority House attic... And starts his reign of terror, terrorizing the girls with [[EvilPhone disturbing phone calls]] before killing them...

The 1974 movie was directed by BobClark, who is better known for directing [[AChristmasStory a very different Christmas-themed movie...]]

Not to be confused with ''SilentNightDeadlyNight''; another Christmas-themed slasher flick.
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!!This film has examples of the following tropes:

* AccidentalMurder: Jess beats Peter to death with a fireplace poker, thinking he was the killer.
* AmbiguouslyJewish: Phyllis.
* AxCrazy: Billy.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Mrs. Mac.
* BookSafe: One of Mrs. Mac's many, many booze stashes.
* ButtMonkey: Sergeant Nash.
* ByTheLightsOfTheirEyes: Billy, during his attack on Barb.
* TheCallsAreComingFromInsideTheHouse: The original used this ''before'' ''WhenAStrangerCalls''
* CatScare: Surprisingly averted with the actual cat. Instead, we get Barb's asthma attack.
* TheCavalryArrivesLate
* ClusterFBomb: Phyllis's boyfriend Patrick swears at every available opportunity.
** Barb too. She is the most foulmouthed of the girls.
* ComicRelief: Mrs. Mac and Barb, when they're drunk. Sgt. Nash's dimwittedness also provides laughs.
* CountryMatters: Billy's first onscreen call is full of 'em.
* CreepyBasement
* CreepyBlueEyes: Billy is revealed to have them in two particularly creepy scenes.
* CreepyDoll: Billy leaves one with Clare's corpse.
* CuriosityKilledTheCast: Clare and Mrs. Mac die looking for Mrs. Mac's perpetually lost cat, Claude. Phyllis is killed after spotting someone enter Barb's room.
* DeadpanSnarker: Barb.
* DeathBySex: Averted. The list of victims (in order of killing) goes; the virgin, the (middle aged) house mother, a little girl, the promiscuous HardDrinkingPartyGirl, 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.
* [[spoiler:DownerEnding: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]].
* EvilPhone[=/=]HarassingPhoneCall: Repeatedly.
* ExactEavesdropping: [[spoiler:How killer knows to say "just like having a wart removed" to Jess during one of the phone calls, providing more RedHerring fuel against Peter]].
* ExtremeMeleeRevenge: After doing poorly at his recital, Peter smashes his piano.
* FinalGirl: Jess.
* FlippingTheBird: Mrs. Mac, behind Mr. Harrison's back. A picture in the house also depicts an old lady giving it.
* FreudianExcuse: It's hinted that Billy has one. They should never have left him alone with Agnes!
* GenkiGirl: Barb - in a drunken, promiscuous way.
* GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger
* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Averted. The idea that the girls are getting killed as a result of Jess's vengeful boyfriend gets proven false. And she dies last.
* GoryDiscretionShot: Barb being stabbed with the unicorn figurine isn't really directly shown.
* HarassingPhoneCall
* HardDrinkingPartyGirl: Barb.
* HarmfulToMinors: 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.
* TheHeart: Phyllis.
* HooksAndCrooks: Mrs. Mac's death involves her getting a swinging hook thrown into her head.
* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: One of many slasher films to take place on Christmas.
* ImprovisedWeapon: A unicorn figurine and fireplace poker.
* IronicNurseryTune: 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.
* LadyDrunk: Mrs. Mac.
* LaughingMad: Billy.
* MissingMom: Barb's drinking problems are caused by her distant mother.
* MissingWhiteWomanSyndrome: 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.
* MurdererPOV
* NiceHat: Mrs. Mac has several.
* NothingIsScarier: We're never shown or told exactly ''what'' Billy (if it was him) did to Janice, the little girl.
* {{Novelization}}: [[http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/thomasjarvis/BlackChristmasNovelHays1.jpg It's]] rare as Hell.
* OhCrap: Lt. Fuller's reaction to learning the calls are coming from inside the house.
* PhoneTraceRace
* PoliceAreUseless: Largely averted. Only the [[UnfortunateImplications 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.
* PsychopathicManchild: Billy, presumably.
* PunBasedTitle: It's a subversion of the song ''WhiteChristmas'', here black not standing for African-American, but for evil.
* RedHerring: [[spoiler:Peter.]]
* ReactionShot
* SayMyName: The killer calls Barb Agnes before he kills her.
* ScreamingWoman: When Janice's body is found.
* SerialKiller: Billy, since there's the minor implication he committed some rapes and murders before the ones featured in the film.
* TheSeventies: And how!
* ShotInTheAss: A paranoid farmer shoots a police officer in the ass after spotting him skulking around on his property.
* SimilarlyNamedWorks: Around a decade after the film's release an unrelated slasher novel also titled ''Black Christmas'' was published.
* SlashedThroat: Officer Jennings is found with one.
* SoundtrackDissonance: The Christmas carollers during Barb's murder.
* TheStoic: Mr. Harrison, until the end.
* TeamMom: Mrs. Mac, who is literally the house mother. Also, Phyllis, to a lesser extent.
* TokenWholesome: Clare.
* TrashcanBonfire: Clare's father, Jess and Chris are warming up to one when the little girl's body is found in the park.
* TropeMaker: For {{slasher movies}}.
* TheUnReveal: We never know who Billy is, why he's murdering people, or even ''what he looks like''.
* VaderBreath: At the very beginning, as Billy closes in on the sorority house.
* VoiceChangeling: Billy, somehow.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The fate of Claude, the cat.
* WindowPain
* WouldHurtAChild: A little girl reported missing is found dead.

-----

!! The remake provides examples of:

* AGodAmI: One of Billy's fellow asylum inmates apparently has messianic delusions:
--> '''Orderly:''' "Happy birthday."
* AbusiveParents: Billy's mother and stepfather.
* ArcWords: "... My family now."
* AssholeVictim: Mrs. Lenz and her lover.
* BadSanta: Billy, briefly.
* BareYourMidriff: Lauren's outfit.
* BarrierBustingBlow: Billy attacks Leigh through a wall.
* MadwomanInTheAttic: Billy's mother despised his father, and by extension him (the fact that he looked like [[SinCity 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.
* BloodierAndGorier
* BodyBagTrick: The [[NotQuiteDead not-so-dead]] Billy and Agnes pull this off in the hospital by the end.
* ChildByRape: Agnes.
* CreepyDoll: Agnes gets one as a Christmas gift in her childhood, and it shows up throughout the film.
* CrosscastRole: Adult Agnes was played by a man. And it ''shows''.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The candy cane shiv, for starters.
* CuriosityKilledTheCast: Megan is lured into the attic by footsteps and a snow globe tune, while Dana is lured under the step by rustling noises.
* DangerTakesABackseat: Heather's death.
* DeathByIrony: "You're my cookie, and I could gobble you up!"
* DeathBySex: The Santa is killed just as he's about to be get it on with a nurse.
* DoesNotLikeShoes: Billy and Agnes.
* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: 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.
* DropTheHammer: Billy's biological father is beat to death with one.
* DullSurprise: Kyle.
* EvilPhone[=/=]HarassingPhoneCall
* ExecutiveMeddling: 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 ''Film/HalloweenTheCurseOfMichaelMyers'' and ''HellraiserBloodline'')
* EyesOfGold: Agnes's fake eye is gold.
* EyeScream: So much.
* FinalGirl: Kelli.
* {{Gorn}}
* GoryDiscretionShot: The deaths of the Santa, Heather, and the morgue attendant.
* GrossUpCloseUp: Lots and lots.
* HardDrinkingPartyGirl: Lauren.
* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday
* HostileWeather: A snowstorm and the accidents it's causing make it so the authorities won't be able to reach them for several hours.
* ImAHumanitarian: Billy and Agnes. Two words: [[{{Squick}} Skingerbread men]].
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: How Billy ultimately dies, falling over the hospital railing and onto a Christmas tree with a pointy top.
* ImpromptuTracheotomy: The death of the sanitarium guard.
* ImprovisedWeapon: Christmas ornaments, a rolling pin, a candy cane, an ice skate, a gardening claw, the list goes on...
* IronicNurseryTune: ''Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies'' and a few others. Surprisingly effective.
* {{Jerkass}}: Kyle.
* KickTheDog: Billy's mother crushing the "Baby's First Christmas" bulb, and later telling him that Santa was shot down by the Russians.
* KillTheCutie: Melissa, the only main sister besides Kelli who is halfway decent.
* MadeOfPlasticine
* ManOnFire: Billy and, less severely, Agnes.
* MythologyGag: Several, like most remakes.
* NeckSnap: Leigh's death.
* NerdGlasses: Worn by Eve.
* OffscreenTeleportation
* OffWithHisHead: Eve's death, with Melissa's being a partial example.
* OrganDodge: Kelli stabs Agnes in her glass eye.
* ParentalIncest[=/=]VillainousIncest: Billy's mother rapes him in an insane attempt to impregnate herself. She succeeds.
* PeekABangs: Agnes favours this look.
* PeekABooCorpse: Eve is found [[OffWithHisHead decapitated]].
* ThePenIsMightier: Clair's death, and the first instance of EyeScream in the film.
* ReactionShot
* RedRightHand: Billy's skin is yellow. Agnes's gold-colored fake eye may also count.
* RichBitch: Dana and Heather.
* RollingPinOfDoom: Billy kills his mother with one.
* ScaryBlackMan: The asylum guard.
* ScreamingWoman
* SiblingsInCrime: Billy and Agnes.
* ShoutOut: Billy escapes the asylum he's in by killing a Rent-a-Santa and stealing his costume. A [[SilentNightDeadlyNight deranged killer named Billy wearing a Santa suit...]]
* ShowerScene: Lauren gets one, which shows off her tramp stamp.
* SnowedIn
* SophisticatedAsHell:
--> '''Melissa:''' "No. You see, serial killers murder repeatedly for sexual thrill. Billy Lenz was a spree killer - dude just fucking lost it."
* TheStoner: Along with beers, Billy's stepfather has several bongs lying around.
* TeamMom: Melissa.
* TitleDrop: An old newspaper found in Eve's room mentions that Billy's first rampage was dubbed "Black Christmas".
* TitleIn: Repeatedly.
* TrailersAlwaysLie: They featured a lot of footage that wasn't in the film itself.
* TwoFaced: Billy, after he's burned.
* UnexplainedRecovery: Billy and Agnes somehow surviving the sorority house fire.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: In a "making-of" featurette, one of the filmmakers offhandedly mentions Billy's origin was partly inspired by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Kemper Edmund Kemper]].
* VoiceChangeling: Agnes.
* TheVoiceless: Billy.
* VomitIndiscretionShot: Lauren throwing up.
* WakingUpAtTheMorgue: Billy and Agnes.

----

* CrosscastRole: Adult Agnes was played by a man.

* ExecutiveMeddling: 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 ''Film/{{Halloween}}: The Curse of Michael Myers'' and ''HellraiserBloodline'')

* BottleFairy: Barb.

* DeathBySex: Averted. The list of victims (in order of killing) goes; the virgin, the (middle aged) house mother, a little girl, the promiscuous BottleFairy, 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.

* BottleFairy: Lauren.

[[caption-width-right:339:[[IronicNurseryTune He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake...]][[hottip:*: Alternatively: [[JeffDunham He kills you when you're sleeping, he chokes you when you wake]]...]]]]

* BigBad: Billy.

* BlueEyes: Billy is revealed to have them in two particularly creepy scenes.

* [[spoiler:DownerEnding: 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]].
* EvilPhone / HarassingPhoneCall: Repeatedly.
* ExactEavesdropping: [[spoiler: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]].

* FinalGirl: Jess Bradford.

* TrashcanBonfire: Clare's dad, Jess and Chris are warming up to one when the little girl's body is found in the park.

* WouldHurtAChild: The one whoever murdered the 12 year old girl in the park.
** It's implied it was Billy.

* [[MadwomanInTheAttic Billy In The Attic]]: Billy's mother despised his father, and by extension him (the fact that he looked like [[SinCity 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.

* DropTheHammer: Billy's biological father is bludgeoned to death with one.

* EvilPhone / HarassingPhoneCall

* FinalGirl: Kelli Presley.
* FoeYay: Before killing her, Agnes feels Lauren up.

* HostileWeather: Snowstorm builds up outside conveniently to cause problesm to the protagonists.

* ImpromptuTracheotomy: Death of the sanitarium guard.

* ParentalIncest / VillainousIncest: Billy's mother rapes him in an insane attempt to impregnate herself. She succeeds.

* ExecutiveMeddling: 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 ''Film/{{Halloween}}: The Curse of Michael Myers'' and ''{{Hellraiser}}: Bloodline'')

* RapeIsOkayWhenItsFemaleOnMale: 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.

* IGotBetter: Billy and Agnes somehow surviving the sorority house fire.
* [[ImAHumanitarian I'm A Humanitarian]]: Billy and Agnes. Two words: [[{{Squick}} Skingerbread men]].

[[caption-width-right:339:[[IronicNurseryTune He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake...]]]]