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Late To The Party: ‘Black Christmas’ (1974)

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I’d like to start this out by saying that I actually have seen Black Christmas, just not the 1974 classic. My experience with the classic holiday slasher is with the 2006 remake Black Xmas. Having experience with the ’06 remake, and thinking it was a passable slasher flick led me to believe I would have a basic grasp for what to expect from the 1974 classic. Fun fact, I was wrong.

The first thing that stood out to me that was vastly different, and executed much better, in the ’74 version was the threatening phone calls that happen periodically throughout the film. In the remake of Black Christmas there are only a few phone calls, and they are for the most part brushed off and ignored. With the original however, the phone calls didn’t feel like some drunk fraternity member messing with one of the local sorority. The calls have weight and bring forth some serious dread.

Threatening phone calls aren’t the only thing the sorority sisters have to worry about though. With one of their members missing, and a local girl also going missing only to be found dead later, the phone calls only fuel the tension flowing throughout the sorority as members slowly begin to disappear without a trace.

If I had only one real gripe about the movie overall, it’s that it takes a little to long for the movie to find its primary protagonist. Black Christmas follows all the sorority sisters that are still present as they go through their day to day while being stalked by an unknown killer which helped to make the movie feel more alive, but made it difficult to latch onto characters if any one of the women could be axed off any minute.

Credit: Black Christmas (1974)

Until the third act there wasn’t a clearly defined final girl which is a staple of slashers. That can be forgiven since Black Christmas is one of the earliest slasher films, so you can’t be too harsh with it for lacking a few familiar elements one would expect with a slasher.

Easily my favorite thing that the original Black Christmas pulled off that the ’06 remake chose to completely ignore, was that the identity of the killer is never explicitly given. During the film’s opening an unknown intruder attacks and kills one of the sorority sisters, only to drag her corpse off to the attic where she will remain for the remainder of the flick. The house mother also receives the same treatment after she meets her gruesome end with an oversized hook before being dragged off to the attic with the killer.

Image Credit: Black Christmas (1974)

The psychological aspect of never knowing just who the killer really is, and the fact that two bodies are never discovered was for me at least, one of the most effective endings to a slasher film that I have experienced. I would personally rank the final moments up there with John Carpenter’s classic Halloween. 

I’m very happy that I was finally able to experience Black Christmas, and as a lover of the slasher genre it was interesting for me to see the beginnings of the tropes that I would learn to love as they evolve over the years. If you’re looking for a horror movie to enjoy during the Holiday season look no further than 1974’s Black Christmas.

Image Credit: Black Christmas (1974)

A classic for a reason, I plan on loading up this classic every holiday season alongside Krampus to bring a little fear and gore to the Holidays.

Feature Image Credit: Chris Fischer

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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Trailer for ‘The Exorcism’ Has Russell Crowe Possessed

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The latest exorcism movie is about to drop this summer. It’s aptly titled The Exorcism and it stars Academy Award winner turned B-movie savant Russell Crowe. The trailer dropped today and by the looks of it, we are getting a possession movie that takes place on a movie set.

Just like this year’s recent demon-in-media-space film Late Night With the Devil, The Exorcism happens during a production. Although the former takes place on a live network talk show, the latter is on an active sound stage. Hopefully, it won’t be entirely serious and we’ll get some meta chuckles out of it.

The film will open in theaters on June 7, but since Shudder also acquired it, it probably won’t be long after that until it finds a home on the streaming service.

Crowe plays, “Anthony Miller, a troubled actor who begins to unravel while shooting a supernatural horror film. His estranged daughter, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), wonders if he’s slipping back into his past addictions or if there’s something more sinister at play. The film also stars Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg and David Hyde Pierce.”

Crowe did see some success in last year’s The Pope’s Exorcist mostly because his character was so over-the-top and infused with such comical hubris it bordered on parody. We will see if that is the route actor-turned-director Joshua John Miller takes with The Exorcism.

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