Olivia Hussey was 16 when she gained worldwide stardom together with her thrilling efficiency as Juliet within the 1968 movie adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Nonetheless, Hussey, who died on December 27, 2024, is undoubtedly finest remembered by audiences for her groundbreaking efficiency within the basic 1974 slasher movie Black Christmas, during which she performs Jess Bradford, one in all a gaggle of sorority sisters who’re stalked by a serial killer through the Christmas season.
Simply as Black Christmas was one of many progenitors of the slasher style, Jess grew to become one in all horror cinema’s first final-girl heroines, greater than a decade earlier than the time period was invented in reference to the final surviving feminine character in a horror movie. Because the lone survivor of Black Christmas, Jess attained ultimate woman standing immediately alongside Sally Hardesty, the final-girl heroine of the unique The Texas Chainsaw Bloodbath, which was launched just about concurrently with Black Christmas in 1974.
Nonetheless, whereas Sally Hardesty, performed by Marilyn Burns, achieved ultimate woman standing by way of the character’s unimaginable show of uncooked emotion and sheer endurance, Jess emerges in Black Christmas as a feminist icon whose survival relies on self-reliance, not male intervention. Greater than 50 years after the discharge of Black Christmas, Jess stays a uniquely revolutionary heroine who subverted the ultimate woman trope lengthy earlier than it was formally established.
- Launch Date
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December 20, 1974
- Runtime
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98 Minutes
Jess Bradford Is the Anti-Laurie Strode Remaining Lady
As one of many earliest slasher movies, Black Christmas launched numerous slasher film tropes that grew to become fixtures inside the horror style over subsequent a long time. Black Christmas influenced John Carpenter’s Halloween, which included the aesthetic qualities and creepy tone of Black Christmas whereas utterly diverging from the ultimate woman archetype established by heroine Jess in Black Christmas. In stark distinction to Laurie Strode, the shy, virginal heroine performed by Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, Jess seems in Black Christmas as a sexually lively, socially adventurous younger girl who additionally occurs to be pregnant and states her intention to have an abortion.
The Laurie Strode archetype has been so influential inside the horror style that premarital intercourse has develop into just about synonymous with loss of life. By utterly avoiding this stereotype with Jess, Black Christmas is a refreshingly and timelessly unconventional horror movie, particularly for these viewers who’ve been numbingly conditioned to simply accept the sex-equals-death method as being a just about unbreakable style rule over the previous 50 years.
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Black Christmas: Revisiting the Basic Christmas Slasher Film
The basic Bob Clark movie popularized sorority horror, Christmas horror, and influenced the American slasher movie.
Black Christmas subverts viewers expectations concerning its dealing with of the sexual purity of its characters in its opening scene, during which Clare, the sorority sister character who most clearly matches the standard good-girl virgin ultimate woman archetype, turns into the primary character to die. After Clare is smothered to loss of life by serial killer Billy, Billy takes her up into the sorority home attic, the place Billy hides all through a lot of the movie.
‘Black Christmas’ Makes a Feminist Assertion with Jess’s Being pregnant
One of the vital surprising elements of Black Christmas and its growth of the now long-established ultimate woman trope is the truth that Jess is pregnant and intends to have an abortion, a lot to the disapproval of her estranged boyfriend, Peter, who ultimately threatens Jess in opposition to having an abortion. Whereas Jess presents her resolution to Peter as an act of bodily autonomy, primarily based on Jess’s want to meet her life’s ambitions, Peter’s anger in direction of Jess’s resolution additionally serves to introduce Peter as a suspect within the sorority home murders.
Whereas Black Christmas director Bob Clark acknowledged that he didn’t intend for the movie to include any political statements, the seemingly cautious, considerate reasoning behind Jess’s resolution to have an abortion has develop into a potent fictional image for a lot of pregnant ladies who discover themselves in an analogous real-life state of affairs. Jess’s refusal to be intimidated and swayed by Peter on this resolution represents a significant turning level within the historical past of the ultimate woman trope, particularly given the timing of Black Christmas, which was launched the yr after the issuance of the landmark Roe v. Wade resolution from the Supreme Courtroom allowed the authorized proper to abortions.
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Is The Remaining Lady Nonetheless a Staple of Horror?
The Remaining Lady has been a staple of the horror style for a few years and it continues to be an emblem of empowerment that units the style aside.
Nonetheless, simply because Peter is introduced as a misogynistic character doesn’t imply he’s a assassin. Whereas the police are seemingly satisfied of Peter’s guilt by the tip of the movie, the true killer, Billy, is hiding within the attic. Furthermore, after Jess turns into the ultimate woman in Black Christmas, there may be severe doubt whether or not Jess will, regardless of her earlier steadfast pronouncements, undergo with the abortion, assuming that she lives lengthy sufficient to make this resolution.
Jess’s Destiny Is Left Unsure in ‘Black Christmas’
Jess Bradford’s unconventional trajectory as a ultimate woman heroine is particularly evident in Black Christmas with the movie’s ambiguous ending, during which a sedated Jess is seen sleeping in her sorority home bed room whereas the killer of Jess’s associates, Billy, nonetheless hides within the attic. The sight of the attic door being pushed open and the maddening sound of the home’s ringing phone led audiences to consider that Billy would ultimately swoop down and homicide the defenseless Jess.
However the lackluster Black Christmas remakes, the excruciating unresolved ending to Black Christmas nonetheless generates rampant hypothesis concerning Jess’s destiny, together with frustration {that a} true Black Christmas sequel wasn’t made to deal with whether or not Jess lived or died. The timeless fascination with the movie and its ambiguous ending proves that Black Christmas nonetheless holds up as a Christmas horror basic, in no small half due to Olivia Hussey’s influential and ingenious ultimate woman efficiency. Black Christmas is streaming totally free on Tubi, Peacock, and Pluto TV.