10 Best Slasher Films Of All Time

Inspired by a series of murders in Quebec, Black Christmas mostly takes place in a sorority house where a barely glimpsed killer is polishing off the girls one by one, their sudden absence explained by the end-of-term setting. Made four years before Halloween, Bob Clark’s movie does for the festive season what John Carpenter did for October 31st and imbues an otherwise innocuous season with an air of menace.

In Clark’s movie, crystal ornaments become lethal weapons and even carol singers (whose sudden appearance is intercut with one murder) seem sinister. You’ve never seen a lonelier, more desolate neighbourhood than this street, and the one warm and inviting place – the sorority house itself – is the last place you’d want to spend your Christmas vacation.

All the genre hallmarks are here: there’s the lurking POV camera, the ineffectual cop, the final girl and red herrings galore, plus Clark throws in a surprise final twist. According to Jason Zinoman, Clark was at one point considering a sequel where the film’s killer, now incarcerated in an asylum, escapes on Halloween night and returns to the town to wreak havoc.

Sounds like an interesting premise for a movie….