Join horror journalists and occasional academics Andrea Subissati and Alexandra West as they discuss the seminal Canadian proto-slasher Black Christmas, as well as John Carpenter‘s immortal classic Halloween.
REQUIRED READING
Black Christmas. Dir. Bob Clark. 1974. [DVD]
Halloween. Dir. John Carpenter. 1978. [DVD]
LISTEN
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One nerd nitpick: Sue Snell wasn’t in on the pig blood prank, nor was she boning Travolta. She was a tampon thrower, and she was boning The Greatest American Hero, but mostly the only one who tried to be sympathetic.
Great episode!!! Have assigned this to my class to listen to for homework in prep for their upcoming exam.
Not sure if this was true but I read somewhere (need to find the article and link it) that Debra Hill wrote the dialogue of Laurie, Lynda, and Annie to be more authentic. Again, will find the article and post. Which makes me wonder if she was being paid per ‘totally’ or if the dialogue was so bad that she decided not to take a writing credit.
Yes, I think Black Christmas ends with the death of Jess as Billy only calls people on the phone after he’s killed. She’s also alone, sedated, and with no defense after beating her (innocent) jerkass ex-boyfriend to death. As such, I think Halloween has it over the nihilistic ending of Black Christmas.
I’m not sure where Ian Thomas gets the idea that Debra Hill “decided not to take a writing credit,” as the on-screen credit is “Screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill.”
Debra Hill is a bit of an unseen force in horror; as well as producing and co-writing several of Carpenter’s biggest hits, she produced The Dead Zone and according to David Cronenberg, she had an uncredited hand in the script for that.