Black Christmas: Where's the Baby,Billy?

If I were abducted, beaten, tortured, and thrown into a piss-laden dungeon with one choice of horror film to take with me, Bob Clark's Black Christmas would be that horror film! From the pervading atmosphere he creates to his methodical set up for impending doom, Clark's Christmas is an underrated holiday-horror classic, in my opinion. The film was released in 1974, nine years before his prominent holiday staple A Christmas Story, and four years before Carpenter's Halloween(sorry Michael fans, but before Haddonfield was being stalked, Billy was making unsettling phone calls to unsuspecting sorority girls). The film opens with a wide-shot of a sorority house where we are introduced to a nice point-of-view shot of our menacer sneaking into the house and making his home in the attic. What makes this set up so delightfully suspenseful is the fact that the girls haven't got a clue, but we the viewers know very well what's going on. Soon after Billy makes his way into the house, the obscene phone calls start. The calls continue and become increasingly macabre along with the girls becoming rapidly instilled with fear after they catch word of a young girl who was found murdered in the park not too far from their house. Not before long, the girls lives are taken at the hands of Billy. The film offers very little blood-shed, but this isn't at all a downfall. The phone calls are extremely unsettling and as I stated before, the girls lacking knowledge of Billy in the attic provides much-o suspense. You never see Billy. He's purposely draped in shadow the entire film along with his hidden identity of the POV shots. I believe this adds to the film in many,many ways. Bob wanted it to be that way. He was given shit about concealing the killer's identity, and I'm glad he didn't cave! The performances from Margot Kidder,Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea and John Saxon are very credible. You actually believe these are real people! Throw in an eerie score from Carl Zittrer and an unsettling ending and you've got yourself a horror/thriller you can set your watch to. The only drawback is that I'll never get to see this for the first time again. One of my all-time favorites!