A Revisit to Black Christmas (1974)
Jan. 12th, 2013 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kybearfuzzMy Blu-ray of Black Christmas (1974) showed up Friday. It was pretty quick, considering I ordered it three days ago. I can't say I recognize a great difference in the quality, but as always I love the movie.
What's great about watching it again is finding the little things I've missed before, usually a funny line of dialogue or something minor oddity. Tonight, I realized that there was a scene where the housemother puts on lipstick to leave and gets interrupted by the sound of her cat meowing. She walks into the hallway and drops her purse, cursing the cat. I realized that she only put the lipstick on the right side of her upper lip and didn't finish. So she goes through multiple scenes with only the right side of her upper lip bright red and it looks so strange.
My favorite line from the movie:
[after the mysterious caller hangs up]
Clare Harrison: "I don't think you should provoke somebody like that, Barb."
Barb Coard: "Oh listen, this guy is minor league. In the city, I get two of those a day."
Clare Harrison: "Well maybe. But you know that town girl was raped a couple of weeks ago."
Barb Coard: "Darling, you can't rape a townie."
Dramatic irony is all over the movie. The characters are constantly looking for Clare who was the first to vanish. Her body, complete with a clear plastic bag over her head, sits in a rocking chair in front of the attic window. She's completely visible the whole time, except that no one thinks to look up.
The ending is ambiguous about who the killer is, something that I doubt the film producers could get away with it these days. Even though it's 40 years later, all of the main actors are still alive (though most died in the movie). I really wish that Bob Clark was alive as I think he could have actually done a modern sequel to the movie.
Now I'm not much for writing fan fiction, but I've often wondered what the remaining characters would have done after the movie ended. The phone rang after the police and doctor left a sedated Jess (the sole survivor) alone in the house (with a police guard at the front of the house waiting for the "lab guys"). They thought the killer was dead and they had to get a man in shock to the hospital. However, the real killer was shown in the attic after they left and he always called the house after he killed someone. The meaning is clear. He has killed Jess.
The lab guys and police would return, find her dead, and realize that they were mistaken who the killer was. Two bodies still had not been found, including Clare, but I would think would turn up in a final search of the house. By then, the killer would be long gone, as mysteriously as he appeared really.
Think about it. Forty years after the killings, the house's history would be long forgotten except in urban legend. Maybe a new sorority could have moved in, the college masking the history on purpose. The killings could begin again, with the new main characters going to a long retired Lt. Fuller (John Saxon) for info. He would realize that the killer had returned (granted he'd be 60 years old or older himself). Maybe then they could reveal "Billy" the killer and his history.
I would love that!
Ah, if I won the lottery, maybe I could make it happen. It couldn't be any worse than that piece of $#!+ remake in 2006.
What's great about watching it again is finding the little things I've missed before, usually a funny line of dialogue or something minor oddity. Tonight, I realized that there was a scene where the housemother puts on lipstick to leave and gets interrupted by the sound of her cat meowing. She walks into the hallway and drops her purse, cursing the cat. I realized that she only put the lipstick on the right side of her upper lip and didn't finish. So she goes through multiple scenes with only the right side of her upper lip bright red and it looks so strange.
My favorite line from the movie:
[after the mysterious caller hangs up]
Clare Harrison: "I don't think you should provoke somebody like that, Barb."
Barb Coard: "Oh listen, this guy is minor league. In the city, I get two of those a day."
Clare Harrison: "Well maybe. But you know that town girl was raped a couple of weeks ago."
Barb Coard: "Darling, you can't rape a townie."
Dramatic irony is all over the movie. The characters are constantly looking for Clare who was the first to vanish. Her body, complete with a clear plastic bag over her head, sits in a rocking chair in front of the attic window. She's completely visible the whole time, except that no one thinks to look up.
The ending is ambiguous about who the killer is, something that I doubt the film producers could get away with it these days. Even though it's 40 years later, all of the main actors are still alive (though most died in the movie). I really wish that Bob Clark was alive as I think he could have actually done a modern sequel to the movie.
The lab guys and police would return, find her dead, and realize that they were mistaken who the killer was. Two bodies still had not been found, including Clare, but I would think would turn up in a final search of the house. By then, the killer would be long gone, as mysteriously as he appeared really.
Think about it. Forty years after the killings, the house's history would be long forgotten except in urban legend. Maybe a new sorority could have moved in, the college masking the history on purpose. The killings could begin again, with the new main characters going to a long retired Lt. Fuller (John Saxon) for info. He would realize that the killer had returned (granted he'd be 60 years old or older himself). Maybe then they could reveal "Billy" the killer and his history.
I would love that!
Ah, if I won the lottery, maybe I could make it happen. It couldn't be any worse than that piece of $#!+ remake in 2006.
