10 MORE Horror Movies Where The Hero ALMOST Won
5. Black Christmas (1974)
The late Bob Clark was best known for a slew of ’80s comedy classics, but before he hit the box-office mainstream, he had cranked out some effective horror movies, too - none better than holiday-themed slasher Black Christmas, full of stylish direction, nail-biting creeps, and genre tropes that would become classics a few years later in John Carpenter’s Halloween.
The tense plot involves a sorority house as things clear out for the holidays, but those remaining begin to receive obscene phone calls from an unseen killer who’s living in their attic. Jess (Olivia Hussey) becomes the Final Girl, with all signs pointing to her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea) as the murderous culprit.
In the final moments, Peter corners Jess in the basement, and before hearing him out, she shoots him in self-defence. Police raid the house in the aftermath (as they tend to always do in these things) and clean up the mess, leaving the traumatized girl sleeping off the past nightmare in her room. As the place clears out, it’s revealed that the killer is still in the attic, biding his time before he’s ready to claim his next (and extremely vulnerable) victim.
Whilst the movie is left on a mildly ambiguous note, the writing is on the wall: Jess’s Christmas is not going to end well. If only she had heard her boyfriend out or decided not to take the nap of the century at this opportune moment, things might’ve panned out better.
It’s a bleak and chilling final moment for this overlooked cult classic.