Tired of those guys trying to be clever with "Die Hard is the best Christmas movie." While it is a great flick, not much actually elevates it as a great Christmas movie aside from.. that it starts off at a Christmas party which becomes irrelevant like 10 minutes into the movie.
Meanwhile Black Christmas. Not only does it take place all throughout Christmas Eve and such.. and actually has snow.. BUT you have
One of the earliest blueprints for the slasher horror genre, in fact being the inspiration for Halloween that Carpenter originally considered making Halloween a sequel of sorts to Black Christmas before deciding to make it stand alone.
Some genuinely disturbing content.. From the content of the phone calls from Billy, to the first murder and its regular appearances throughout the movie, to pretty crazy themes for the time like arguing over abortion, kids being murdered, slut shaming, etc.
and obviously the ending, which is somewhere between unsettling to downright horrifying.
This year was the second time I've ever watched the movie, and honestly it blew me away as much this time as it originally did.
And yeah, as a non sequitur, Gremlins is also a better Christmas movie than Die Hard. Again, the emphasis on actual Christmas is way greater (Pheobe Cates' traumatic Christmas memory, snow, plows, decorations, and Snow White which kids born after the 80s probably don't know that Snow White and Wizard of Oz were Christmas traditions for most of us Gen X.. either on TV or in the theaters).
Die Hard is great. But as a "I'm gonna name a Christmas movie that's going to be cool and shock people" it's not even number 2, let alone number 1.
Meanwhile Black Christmas. Not only does it take place all throughout Christmas Eve and such.. and actually has snow.. BUT you have
One of the earliest blueprints for the slasher horror genre, in fact being the inspiration for Halloween that Carpenter originally considered making Halloween a sequel of sorts to Black Christmas before deciding to make it stand alone.
Some genuinely disturbing content.. From the content of the phone calls from Billy, to the first murder and its regular appearances throughout the movie, to pretty crazy themes for the time like arguing over abortion, kids being murdered, slut shaming, etc.
and obviously the ending, which is somewhere between unsettling to downright horrifying.
basically the phone ringing as the credits roll indicating that Billy killed the final girl
This year was the second time I've ever watched the movie, and honestly it blew me away as much this time as it originally did.
And yeah, as a non sequitur, Gremlins is also a better Christmas movie than Die Hard. Again, the emphasis on actual Christmas is way greater (Pheobe Cates' traumatic Christmas memory, snow, plows, decorations, and Snow White which kids born after the 80s probably don't know that Snow White and Wizard of Oz were Christmas traditions for most of us Gen X.. either on TV or in the theaters).
Die Hard is great. But as a "I'm gonna name a Christmas movie that's going to be cool and shock people" it's not even number 2, let alone number 1.
