Olivia Husseyas Jessica BradfordThe story
About Black Christmas
In the last days of term before Christmas, the students of a university sorority house are plagued by obscene and increasingly menacing phone calls, and then one of them goes missing. As the campus empties for the holidays and the police begin to search, a young woman torn over an unplanned pregnancy and a volatile boyfriend comes to realise the danger is much closer than anyone suspects.
The CineClaus verdict
The Christmas horror film a lot of later slashers borrowed from, and it still unsettles.
Bob Clark keeps most of it inside one house and the threat on the end of a phone line, so the dread builds slowly in a place that ought to feel safe. The decorations and snow are everywhere, but the season is atmosphere more than heart.
The ending refuses to tidy anything up, which is either its best idea or its most maddening one. Watch it alone after midnight with the landline unplugged, if you still have one.
The family desk
Can the kids watch?
Our take: too strong even for younger teenagers, with sustained stalking, strong violence including a suffocation and a stabbing, strong sex references, some very strong language and an ending that leaves the threat hanging, so keep it for older teens at the very least.
BBFC advice: Contains very strong language and strong sex references.
Content advice & accessibility
- Where the advice comes from
- The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC).
- Our age guidance
- Editorial, separate from the official 18 certificate, and never looser than it.
