Ep. 15: Black Christmas

O' come let us adore...the original slasher! And right now you can adore it on the big screen! Black Christmas is returning to theaters for its 50th Anniversary from December 7-22 in a wonderful new 4K restoration.

So as a primer for its return to theaters, we're here to celebrate the season by celebrating the film that started it all, the film woefully overshadowed by Halloween as the slasher progenitor. And that said, we're examining it with a very specific restriction: we won't be comparing it to Halloween at all. Because there's a thousand articles that already do that, and we feel it's a bit of disservice to Black Christmas to only look at it with respect to a completely different film. We're here to talk Black Christmas and Black Christmas only.

Because it's one of the best of the best. Maybe THE best slasher ever produced. It's genuinely scary, innovatively shot, and very feminist for a horror film produced in 1974. With a cast of unforgettable characters and chilling screenplay, Black Christmas is an essential film for any horror fan, not just because of its iconic status as an innovator, but simply because it's a masterfully crafted suspense film, period.

We also talk about the final girl trope (since this film, of course, has the first ever slasher final girl, Olivia Hussey's perfectly realized Jess) and whether or not the trope even really exists, plus we take a look at the Christmas-horror genre itself and try to figure out why there's so many of these movies! In the cheeriest time of the year, why do we still crave the grotesque?

As we mentioned in the episode, here's a list of all the places you can catch the film this month:

-Olympia Film Society in Olympia, WA
-Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle, WA
-New Beverly Cinema and Vista Theater in Los Angeles, CA
-Brattle Theater in Boston, MA
-Rivoli Theatre in La Cross, WI
-AFS Cinema in Austin, TX
-Denver Film in Denver, CO
-Rubber Glove Studio in Denton, TX
-Cinema Moderne in Montreal, Quebec
-Hollywood Theatre in Portland, OR
-Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA
-Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA
-Metro Cinema in Edmonton, Alberta

Black Christmas
Directed by Bob Clark
1974, Canada

Additional Music:
"Christmas Spirit" by Silverman Sound Studios
Creative Commons (BY 4.0) license
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Incredibly Strange Video is produced and edited by Ryan Quinn and Cassie Kay. Follow us on Bluesky @isvpodcast.bsky.social for updates on the newest episodes!

Theme music:
The End by EVA
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All excerpts from the films discussed are used for educational and critical purposes only.