10 Horror Movies With Terrible Concepts But AMAZING Execution
3. Black Christmas (1974)
Black Christmas may be one of cinema's first major seasonal slasher flicks - coming an entire four years before Halloween - but a Christmas-set horror in which a house full of sorority girls are picked off by a serial killer doesn't exactly sound like something with real staying power.
It sounds like exploitation trash, honestly, and so what a surprise it was that filmmaker Bob Clark actually made this potential camp-fest into a genuinely taut, well-crafted, and even downright patient slice of suspenseful horror.
The kills are memorably nasty, the ominous atmosphere is suffocatingly thick, it has actual ideas on its mind, and remains compellingly dark all the way to its grim final scene.
This isn't disposable nonsense like its title and premise might suggest to the uninitiated - it's a predecessor to Halloween which deserves to be celebrated with considerably greater enthusiasm than it presently is.