The holidays are often the busiest time of the year, and Black Christmas plays off of this well. The sorority girl protagonists are so distracted with the hustle and bustle of the season, as well as the everyday life problems that are typical for so many young adults during their college years, that they naturally overlook key details about the events happening around them. Allowing a killer to move amongst them undetected and pick them off one by one as they separate. With his cryptic, lewd phone calls and other forms of unhinged behavior, the antagonist of the movie really made my skin crawl. The way he's always obscured in shadow, never allowing us to have a good look at him makes him far more enigmatic and terrifying than any of the unkillable masked slasher icons everybody is familiar with. I love that we learn virtually nothing about him. He really is just some random guy who could be just about anyone. Something the movie tries to play off of with a fake out identity reveal. Which I'm sure was great back when this was first released, but ultimately doesn't prove very effective today do to how many times it has been used in other films since then. Black Christmas actually has a pretty slow build-up. Something that allows the mystery to be fleshed out, tension to rise, and the sense of humor to shine. While I wouldn't call it a flat out horror-comedy, there are definitely moments placed throughout that are meant to make you laugh. The movie never goes out of its to set these moments up though. Instead they seem to come entirely from just how believable the characters and events are. I'm amazed by the movie's ability to capture life's real, naturally occurring humor through things like the incompetence of the police force or the uncaring irresponsibility of the college students. The personalities and little histories of the characters themselves are also revealed to the audience in a very naturalistic way. There's not exactly any time taken to flesh out any of these girls to us. Instead we're thrown in with them in the middle of a small Christmas house party. From there it's their actions that define them and tell us who they are. The writing is so strong and the vision for each one so clear that you can easily see how true-to-life they are. This allows each one's subplot, no matter how small, to standout in our minds even if it only exists as a means of separating said character from the group so that they can be picked off. Much like The Strangers, this film was inspired by true events and it's that sense of believability that makes it so forceful. The way it makes thoughtful rather than sporadic use of its blood and violence makes each death more impactful, to say nothing of the strength of its character work. This is simply an all around excellent slasher that will have you (carefully) checking the attic before you go to bed.