Vivi: Hold on, let me make sure I didn’t just lie.
Okay. I was right. Sorry. I do that a lot because just say facts and I’m like,
Erick: wait, don’t worry. I fact check you when I’m editing. Thank God. I did it a lot. wrong. Delete, you know, is not you, but both of us Welcome back to the chicken. Not scared podcast here with you as always your hosts, Eric and Vivi.
Today, we’re gonna be talking about the 1974 film, black Christmas directed by Bob Clark. But before we get into that, all right, you hear me? I feel
Vivi: like I’m much better than last week. I was really brain foggy
Erick: I’m currently brain foggy. I don’t even know what I’m doing here right now. I like literally just stand around and stare off in the space.
You might have noticed it on one of our wind tuk-tuks cause I was just like, it tastes good.
Vivi: We’re very awkward on Tik TOK. If you want to watch us there. Tasting a wine calendar.
Erick: So we also went to this past weekend. It was really fun when we’re there every day,
Vivi: it was so much, so much
Erick: stuff. It wasn’t as many people as usual though,
Vivi: yeah.
I don’t want to like, under sell it for people who have never gone. Cause it’s pretty fun. But this year do think having a reschedule because of COVID affected them. So we’re hoping it’ll be back to its glory next year, we still saw some pretty cool stuff this year.
Erick: definitely still lost money.
Like I always do there.
Vivi: Oh yeah. we buy assumed. Interesting things
Erick: more tame than usual. I usually buy like statues and things like that. But this time we went with missions for the holidays.
Vivi: Yeah. It kinda helped us. Yeah. Gifts for other people instead.
Erick: We also attended a couple of panels. We saw the creep street pot on Friday. They were talking about the Iroquois theater fire. That’s one of my favorite stories. Once we went on that ghost tour, one time we heard a little bit about it. I was like, oh shit. I didn’t even know that this happened here.
It
Vivi: is a super messed up story. I believe they recorded what they presented. That Friday. So their episode might be out we’ll double check that just in case, but they were super nice. They also got married on Halloween last year, which was really
Erick: funny. Yeah. Congrats. If you’re listening to this the nostalgic critic from YouTube was there panel was fun.
Cause it was about what’s your favorite movie that people. Hate or vice versa. Like it wasn’t a movie that you hate, but everybody loves, I wanted to go up there, but the line was so long. I wanted to say that season of the, which was a movie I hate, but
Vivi: controversial opinions from this podcast or yours.
I don’t know. I have to think about this one. Cause there’s a lot of movies that are popular that I have not seen. And I feel like it’d be one of those.
Erick: I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m sure I’ll Hey,
Vivi: is there a reason I haven’t seen
Erick: We also saw the ghostly podcasts. They were covering a lot of just different ghostly, urban legends around the Chicago land area that covered the Juliet prison, the sausage king.
And they also talked about the Lincoln park zoo cemetery, which is also another favorite of mine from the Chicago lender is that if you are ever in the Chicago land area and are driving on lake shore drive, you can know that you’re probably driving over thousands of bodies that haven’t been dug up because there used to be a similar.
Vivi: Yeah, it is one of those stories that we heard on the ghost tour. As again, just goes to show you if you live somewhere really old, a lot of dead bodies
Erick: in there. I’d love to do a ghost tour over in like the east coast.
Vivi: Oh yeah. Jealous. I think our friends so they did one in Salem.
I can’t even imagine the shit you would see.
Erick: We also walked around and asked people who were horror content, creators artists, a lot of vendors, what their favorite horror movies were. So what I’m gonna do now is I want to play a clip of everyone who he asked
Vivi: And we’ll link them somewhere to.
people were really stumped by this question.
Erick: there was even some who were like, how, who, what genre? Like what, do I answer? And we were like, honestly, just whatever you think. Yeah. that was pretty much all the coverage we had. I
Vivi: think so.
It was so much in three days.
Erick: Vivi. Who’s still not recovered
Vivi: from laminate either is low-key. No.
Erick: What do you have for.
Vivi: I checked out this movie it’s been out for awhile now it’s called St. Mod. I think it came out in 2019 and I saw a lot of people talk about it when it was released. It’s an 8 24 movie. it is very interesting.
Like, I don’t know if I even want to say that much because we might cover it. We might not. Very weird. Very interesting was. Very vague review.
Erick: Yeah. What is it even above it’s a
Vivi: synopsis. Basically a young woman who was a nurse experiences something very traumatic as a nurse and then becomes a born again, Christian, and she now does hospice care she has a patient that is dying from cancer she becomes very delusional and believes that she has to save her soul from the devil. it’s not a horror movie that I’ve seen before. let’s leave it at that because again, I kind of want to talk about it or is it scary?
It is scary in the non-traditional sense. There’s some body horror in there and then like a couple jump scares. So it has some scary
Erick: elements. You seem excited about it. So I’m assuming you like
Vivi: weird. I want to talk about it cause it’s weird.
Erick: Gotcha. Well, that’s all we got for. Could we content?
Erick: What do you have for comfort content
Vivi: I don’t think I have anything for comfort content this week.
Chris global market. Oh yes. That is fun because it’s the first time it’s open since the pandemic. And we get the little mugs it’s essentially like a little German marketplace sells all Christmas decorations, German food, beer pretzels. Oh,
Erick: the pretzels are so good. Yeah. That’s
Vivi: what I look forward to. Yeah.
Erick: Well, if we don’t have any other comfort content, there’s nothing more comforting than it just generally be in the holiday season. And we still got to do a lot of shopping, so that’s not comforting.
It’s not comforting. Yeah. I don’t think we’re going to be comfortable until it’s all over.
Vivi: And then it’s just depressing. Cause there’s nothing
Erick: to look forward to birthday. my nerdy 30, my nerdy dirty 30.
Vivi: Yes.
Erick: Let’s talk about this drink.
Yeah.
Vivi: we decided to make a holiday punch because we’ve done a lot of cream-based cocktails lately. this one’s a little more on the fruit side.
So I made like this cranberry syrup with some mulling spices, nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon, we mixed it with some cranberry juice, pineapple juice.
And because Ms. Mac, the house mother of the sorority in this movie is always drinking. Sherry. We added some Sherry and Jen I’ve never had Sherry. Apparently it is a dessert wine. she takes it on its own. No, but I smelled it and it did not seem appetizing. There’s also different kinds. There’s cream, Sherry, extra dry Sherry, which is what we got the
Erick: cane she’s drinking in.
The movies looks like it’s a whiskey bottle. What color is it?
Vivi: what we have is clear, but what she’s drinking is a brown liquor. Yeah. that being said that appetizing description, do you want to dry it? Sure. Geez. Geez,
Erick: That is quite sour. Really that’s really sour,
Vivi: it’s not something that you would say like, oh, this tastes like a holiday drink, but it’s definitely, delicious if you like something on the sweeter
Erick: side.
yeah, I’d say if it’s holidays, I could see myself drinking this, opening presence, happily.
Vivi: What would you rate it?
Erick: I would rate it
3.25.
Vivi: I’m going to give it three out of five. You don’t taste the Sherry. We should taste it on its own. I’ll actually, you know what? We should do a shot of his cherry. Let’s see if I even fail first, give me a chance.
but I like this.
It’s a chill drink. Try it and let us know what you think. I’m always so surprised when people tell us they’ve tried the cocktails we recommended, like, I know we’re a cocktail podcast, but drinks are so subjective. And people like very different recipes
Erick: on that note. If you know somebody who likes cocktails and isn’t aware of our show, , let them know about our
Vivi: show.
Erick:
Erick: Are you ready for a fun facts? Real excited. By Christmas was inspired by a few themes. According to the screenwriter, Roy Moore, including the urban legend of the babysitter and the man upstairs,
Vivi: it’s super common or written legend.
babysitter gets a call coming from inside the house
Erick: goes and finds kids either murdered or gets themselves murdered yet. and murders that happened in Montreal. However, there seems to be confusion on which murders many believed he was referring to Wayne Bowden, also known as the vampire rapist.
Vivi: Sounds familiar. Refresh my memory.
Erick: The only detail I have here is that he killed five people between 1969 and 1971, and would leave bite marks on his victims.
Vivi: This one, I don’t think I’m aware of it’s in Canada, right?
Yeah, because there was the vampire of Sacramento and that case is a brutal,
Erick: yeah. It didn’t go into full detail on who Wayne Bowden was, but I’m sure there’s a lot of fucked up detail there. The reason that there’s confusion is because later Nick Mancusos who plays, Billy has come out and said it was actually in reference to a 14 year old boy who murdered a bunch of people from his family It was like in west Westmount, some neighborhood in Montreal.
The film was originally released under the name silent night, evil night, but when it performed poorly, the name was changed back to black Christmas before landing on black Christmas, it was also named the babysitter and stop me.
Vivi: I liked the title, black Christmas. They made a good choice. Also silent night, deadly night came out 10 years later and it would’ve sounded very,
Erick: I kind of liked the name. Stop me I don’t.
Vivi: cause I feel like he doesn’t want to be stopped the killer,
Erick: but if we’re thinking about this being he’s got schizophrenia, maybe could genuinely want to be stopped. , I don’t want to do this, but I’m doing it. Stop me. That’s real powerful. I think. But black Christmas is still fun.
Fair point. So the original script included more gruesome murder scenes, which were modified by Bob Clark, who thought they were too intense. He also changed the script to remove any intent, to reveal who the killer was, which has upset some audiences to this day. However, Clark did reveal his backstory later saying, quote, billy is abusive and abused his little sister and was abused himself and probably killed his parents and probably locked her up in a basement for five or six years. And I think she escaped and Billy doesn’t like girls and it turns out agonist. Doesn’t like boys.
Vivi: Wow. That was a lot of information he
Erick: just gave me.
Yeah. It sounds like even, he’s not sure he made
Vivi: it up. We can talk about it more in the end, but I kind of like that the killer is love. So ambiguous
Erick: John Carpenter and Bob Clark worked on an unreleased project together and having loved black Christmas so much carpenter asked Clark if he would ever make a sequel, he responded that he wouldn’t.
But if he did quote, it’ll be, he was captured after all he was put in an institution and the movie will begin the night he escapes back in town and they don’t know. And I’m going to call it Halloween. when they go and ask Bob Clark, like, did you really do that? Yeah. he’s like, John Carpenter.
Sure. Might’ve heard me say that, but it’s all like, thanks to him. He did everything could have just said the idea, but he wrote everything directed at all. Like that’s all him. thank me for it. Yeah. Because
Vivi: I was going to point out that we get very similar to Halloween, those POV shots of the killer, like this film.
Erick: It inspired all of that.
Vivi: I think it’s credited with being the first Lasher or the mother of what will later become known as slashers funny that it’s
Erick: a holiday movie, right?
Vivi: Yeah. It set on the most joyful holiday.
Erick: You don’t think that a holiday horror is going to be like a pivotal point in the history of horror.
Vivi: All we’ve done is holiday horror for like the last month and a half. So I don’t even know what other horror there is
Erick: But That’s all I got. I thought that was a cool one that on, yeah,
Vivi: Ready to take
Erick: the shot cause you don’t lose. Dammit.
Ready, set. Cool.
Vivi: We opened on a sorority house where they’re having a Christmas party. Um, Jessica gets home and she is receiving creepy calls from someone really weird disturbing calls. We meet all the sorority sisters and they are leaving for holiday. So Claire is packing and leaving and she finds someone in her closet and she gets murdered.
And this is kind of the catalyst for the entire movie. The girls don’t know where she is. They’re searching for her. They get her Clara’s father gets involved. They get in contact with the police. The police is kind of shit, but then also kind of helpful when the Lieutenant comes into play. Um, Just as also going through like a personal issue where she’s pregnant and her boyfriend sucks.
And the whole suspicion is that her boyfriend might be the color that is constantly killing off the slew. We’re already sorority girls. One by one by one, we find out that the killer is in the house. After the police have tapped the phone lines and all the girls are dead except for Jace and just finds Peter in the house and fights Peter off thinking he is the killer.
Uh, They leave her in the house alone for some reason. And we find out that the killer has not been found.
Erick: You had two seconds but I did it. I wanted to try the share rate. Good job though.
Vivi: I think we should still try it.
I won’t take it as a shot, but I will definitely sip it. Cause I want to see what it tastes like on its own.
Erick: Yeah. Same here. I’m not ready. Yes. Sherry. I can see why this would be in like a whiskey shape bottle. It has inklings of wanting to be vodka.
Vivi: It’s a lot of flavors. It’s like vodka wine. It’s not as harsh as liquor, but is stronger than a one since we got the extra dry it’s not as sweet as like I’ve heard it is.
Would
Erick: you buy it again?
Vivi: I
Erick: mean, it’s good in the punch, but is it good on its own?
Vivi: I think it’s just a mixing thing. I wouldn’t sling it back like Mrs. Mac does just for fun.
Erick: Why then girl have so many bottles everywhere.
Vivi: We’re naming this one. Mrs.
Mac’s toilet punch for obvious reasons.
Erick: ready for an overview, which I didn’t look up slacking. block Chris Moss.
Nobody that negative. Hmm, it sounds racist. Does
I am going to be says during their Christmas break, a group of sorority girls are stuck by a stranger.
Great.
Vivi: Again, I just get the ones that want to use every word they’ve ever heard ever.
Erick: And not say the point and not say the point of movie,
Vivi: This
Erick: just makes it sound like they’re vacationing and then someone’s just following them around.
Yeah. Yeah.
Vivi: do we have a writing?
Erick: It’s a 7.2. That’s pretty high. Yeah. That’s pretty high. But given its history and what it’s inspired, I think that moves the needle a little bit. I’m ready for this. I love this movie.
Erick: I think I watched it for the first time. Last year, when you showed it to me, oh, it was your first time to,
Vivi: It had come highly recommended from My brother. Gotcha.
We opened up a beautiful boastful sorority house
Erick: lit up decorated The house currently is actually in Montreal and you can go visit it. It’s now known as the black Christmas house. Oh, that’s fun. Let’s go.
It’s been redecorated though and modified, upkeep because 1974 is what? 50 years ago. Jesus, it’s been repaired a little bit,
Vivi: well, we have an outside view of the home as just arrives to a Christmas party that the, her sorority sisters are throwing. However, we do not follow her into the home.
Instead we get a POV shot of the killer watching the girls through the window and surveilling the house
But We watched, as he climbs the terrace and gets into the attic of the home, which is very eerie, it’s all covered in spider webs and they have very creepy artifacts.
Erick: Well, if this sorority is old enough, assuming that years and years of partying at this house, parties has brought them a lot of random shit.
If you paid attention to everything in the house, it’s a lot of weird shit. I’m like, why don’t they throw this way? There’s a lot of birdcages. Did you notice that?
Vivi: Interesting. Yeah. There’s a lot of weird
Erick: decor. at the same time that this is happening, we’re also getting introduced to couple of the girls Barb, who seems to be the party girl.
Yeah. They don’t really mind her too much attention even though you should. I think if I saw that somebody in my fraternity was always drinking and be like, bro, okay. They kind of show some concern at the end, but Yeah,
Vivi: they don’t really bring it up a lot.
She does some concerning things that we’ll talk about though.
Erick: She’s on the phone with her mom it sounds like Barb wants to go over, but then she’s like, nah, we’re going to go skiing on some mountain.
And Barb’s upset. I thought she uninvited her. I thought she was like, don’t come for Christmas. But then she’s going around and asking the girls if they want to come with. And she seems mad about it.
Vivi: I’m unclear of the situation between the two. I wasn’t sure if maybe she was planning to just go home and have a Christmas with her mother.
And now her mother is saying that she’s taking her boyfriend and going skiing so far has to. Now it might all her friends or the mom wants to stay there with her boyfriend. And now she’s just sending Barb off on her own to go skiing either way. I think this is put there. So you know why she like drinking heavily during the holidays?
She could be upset about her family situation, which is what I like about this movie. How it gives you character development for each of these girls
Erick: It’s little
Vivi: snippets, little clues as
Erick: to who they are.
Did you notice that her wreath on her room has shooters?
Vivi: Yes. I thought that was so funny, especially with Ms. Bank going around and sneaking booze. You could literally just pluck one off that
Erick: re yeah. we need to up our decorating game.
Cause we don’t have real shooters on our tree. We have like the little fake ones that you can get from target, but no real shooters.
Vivi: I’m afraid Elvira will drink a mile, knock them off. And then drink them.
the party is still kind of going on we get introduced to Phyllis. They call her Phil we get introduced to Claire and her boyfriend. Chris,
Erick: Jessica gets a call and it’s they call him the moaner everyone does a group. Listen to this guy is called where he just keeps moaning random things. He’s saying a lot of jibberish. I don’t know if I can say this the C word.
Over and over, making them a lot of grotesques sounds.
Vivi: A lot of obscene things that he says, and I’m surprised that that is in a movie from the seventies, but he keeps this going on for a while.
And the girls are just listening until Barbara has had enough and basically tells them all and tells him to get off the phone.
Erick: tells him to go to Lambda Chi. he tells her that he’s going to kill her.
Vivi: And it’s a very sombering moment because it seems like up until that point, the color had just been a pervert, but not threatened them.
Erick: The girls are really disturbed. You can see it on their faces and Claire, when she shows that she’s real uncomfortable, Barb starts to make fun of her. And she’s like, I’ve seen this a ton of times in the city.
Like this is the middle of nowhere. Nobody’s going to do anything out here. And she’s really inconsiderate about how Claire feels because she’s not okay.
Vivi: she storms off upstairs upset, but just tries to comfort her.
When that doesn’t work, just confronts Barb saying what she has to act like that when Claire has already had a hard time kind of thing.
Erick: Oh, I didn’t catch the fitting in part. So it, Claire, like a Neo,
Vivi: Barbara calls her the professional version, which is funny. Cause I think she’s dating that guy, Chris.
So it just seems like there’s obviously
Erick: she’s been digged up obviously.
Vivi: Well, it’s very strange to watch this movie thinking the stereotypes of a sorority that we know now actually for all these women to be in college in the seventies. weird to me. Cause I have this image granted again, I come from immigrant parents that didn’t go to college.
Like college was not a thing until we went to college. That sounds funny. I know college existed before we went to college, but like family wise and generationally wise, obviously there’s people whose families have all gone to college beforehand. I’m just saying to me, this is interesting. It’s progressive to me, but that could just go to show you
Erick: yeah, they all seem really intelligent.
It seems like Bob Clark wanted to add a maturity to this sorority by making the actresses emit the feeling that these girls know what they’re doing. They’re smart. they just got some bad luck with this dude who chose her house.
Ms. Mac shows up with presents. Ms. Max seems to be the house mother.
I don’t know anything about how that works, but I would assume this is kind of like a big brother or alumni. Maybe
Vivi: I wonder that too. I wondered if this was like a thing back then, because you can’t leave all these young women alone and super,
Erick: Claire goes to pack she sees Claude the cat in her room. But we see there’s a figure, the same figure from earlier lurking in the closet and he’s breathing real heavy.
So it doesn’t take Claire long to realize that there’s someone in the closet. Cause Claude is also knowing I told you that would probably be able to trust Elvira more than low-key when someone was intruding. Cause she’s real vocal. And I think if someone broke in and she’d be like,
Vivi: she’d park more than low-key
Erick: low-key would just get happy.
But This is the guy in her closet. as she approaches what do you call that?
Vivi: when you get your dry cleaning.
It’s just, they give it to you
Erick: and it’s hanging from the closet. And as she approaches the guy just lunges himself at her and covers her face with the bag. Cool fact, in the background, apparently the camera man built some contraption to be able to carry camera and do the acting of Billy.
So although Nick van CUSO voiced Billy, the camera man did a lot of the scenes where you can see either his figure or his hands. That, that was pretty cool.
He did all the POV climbing and all that stuff too. the camera man is unaccredited as the killer.
But we continue downstairs where Ms. Mac goes around, talking to the girls and the girls are giving her a present and she’s like, it’s not even nighttime because they’re trying to give her some pajamas to put on. they’re ugly. candy cane pajamas.
Yeah. She was like, let it be nighttime yet. What if I still want to go out? It was, is fun.
Vivi: She’s hilarious. You’re so sad that she dies.
Erick: Yeah. because of all the commotion that’s downstairs, they don’t hear anything that’s happening upstairs. And the guy has time to carry Claire up to the attic and locks himself up. So I
Vivi: think what makes this film successful and what I find very unnerving is this killer is freely walking around this house and they are unaware and. He is doing this and spying on them and they just don’t know.
And again, it’s that notion like in the strangers of real life, scary, because this film isn’t overly gory or full of dumb, scares the parts that make you uncomfortable. It was knowing that he’s in the house and they are not aware of him.
Erick: There’s also an added effect to things like this, I think happened in sororities and fraternities a lot because the houses are so big and because so many people are going in and out, you don’t know who the hell is in your house.
No. You don’t know who you’re inviting over. Like, who the fuck are these people? why do we trust them? I know we’re here to party and shit, but like, oh, so we’re going to get murdered.
We’re going to get murdered or, yeah, it might just be that we’re just too suspicious. I need to
Vivi: tell maybe, yeah.
Erick: Anyway,
if you’re not suspecting that everyone’s going to murder you, probably should start.
Vivi: You’re probably
Erick: murdering people. we find out that Ms.
Mack, as inspiration for this drink has a bottle hidden inside of a book.
That’s in one of the rooms that she’s changing in.
Vivi: Yeah. I believe it’s one of the like library areas of the sorority house because she goes up to it and she’s like B for booze, pulls it out and she has cut out a very specific shape bottle. And this is her drink of choice. This is all she has stashed all over the
Erick: place.
I wonder why she feels the need to hide it. Is it because she’s maybe the assigned school person Possibly Barbara is walking around drinking really like nobody’s business. Why? I don’t think anybody would really judge Ms. Mag, but maybe she’s worried that someone outside will walk into the house randomly and see her.
Vivi: Yeah. It’s not like she’s under age. I don’t know why she just doesn’t also keep it in her purse or something. Why it’s gotta be this crucial that there’s little Heidi.
Erick: Ms. Mack, do your thing.
Vivi: cause she seems to be like a functioning alcoholic, which uh, is not good.
Erick: Okay. Not that part. But Peter calls, Jess and Jess immediately seems to be affected by this call.
Peter is like, Hey, I haven’t seen you for days, but I have to go.
I have to go. I’m practicing for recital justice. Like I need to talk to you. And he’s like, no, I’m busy. she’s like, but I really need to talk to you like today. He’s like, why you got to talk to me today? Like, no, it can wait, tell me, tell me over the phone. they plan on meeting the next.
Vivi: And you don’t know if she’s just uneasy in general because of the moaner calling or because of this conflict with Peter, but she definitely has the bad luck of always being the one to answer the phone.
Now, as everyone in the sorority seems to be getting ready for bed, we hit another scene of Ms. Mac having stashed a bottle in the tank of a toilet while she’s brushing her teeth, because she needs to rinse out with some Sherry, obviously.
Erick: Well, does that work? Don’t they say that you can clean things with alcohol?
I don’t know if it works with teeth though.
Vivi: I know that in the past, when you had a toothache, people would put alcohol on it. Like I had a tooth issue like a couple of weeks ago and I literally syringed whiskey into it because it’s supposed to help with the pain
Erick: because you’re drunk and you can’t feel it anymore.
Vivi: If it works, it works, you know? But Ms. Mack has told just to check on Claire
Erick: as this is happening, we get a shot of Claire under the bag in and rocking chair, moving back and forth with a face of.
Vivi: in the attic.
Erick: stranger, Billy is singing a song about daddy’s gone hunting weird. It’s unsettling. It’s
Vivi: Erie. And I suppose it’s there to make the audience feel uncomfortable. Side note. This is our third movie with uh, Billy in a row.
Erick: Oh my God.
How did I know this? Shouldn’t be happy holidays. It should be Happy Billy days.
Vivi: Is there a billion and Krampus? I don’t remember. I guess we’ll find out we’re going to be four for four.
Erick: But
Vivi: cut to a scene of the next day we see who we find out to be clear. His father has arrived to pick her up for their family vacation. He questions a bus driver. asking if he knows where his daughter Claire would be saying that she is part of a sorority.
The bus driver happens to be part of
The brother fraternity thing that is. Phi Kappa SIG.
Erick: This bus driver is also dropping off the kids because the girls are at this event with the kids, Phil’s boyfriend is dressed up as Santa. So, no, one’s at the house except for Mrs. Mac who stayed behind bus driver tells Mr. Harrison you know, there might be at that event, but maybe you can find her at the house because if she was getting ready, obviously she didn’t go to the event. Still be there.
Vivi: The next scene we got is Ms.
Mack, answering Mr. Harrison’s questions as to where his daughter might be. She informed him that she has packed and no one has seen her all morning. As this is going on, Mr. Harrison is looking around the sorority house, incredibly disappointed.
Erick: There’s a picture on the wall. like a human art piece.
It’s a peace sign, but there’s a couple in the middle having sex and their body
Vivi: makes up the piece.
Erick: There’s also, what the fuck will even was that it was like a grandma with different emotions and the last ones for sticking middle finger out,
Vivi: which is not that bad. And he is already offended by that one.
Erick: He didn’t even see the sex one. Yeah. He’s like, well, grandma’s sticking up their middle fingers.
Vivi: He tells Ms. Mack, I did not send my daughter to this college to be drinking and having sex with men, basically
Erick: Ms. Magazine money though, because the entire time she doesn’t give a shit about what Mr.
Harrison saying, she’s just trying to hide the sex piece son. Yeah. With
Vivi: her hand, she puts her hand on the butt cheek of the poster. She informs him that the girls might all be over at the event. They are putting together. It seems for charity.
Erick: While she’s getting ready. she starts monologuing how pissed she is and Mr. Harrison, he’s like, I don’t dictate what they do.
Like it’s not my job. My job is
Vivi: responsible for all the morals of every woman that comes into this house.
Erick: She says they would help the tower of PISA if they could.
Vivi: And I think Mr. Harrison is very unrealistic in thinking that his daughter is in a sorority and not
Erick: judgy judgy, not living
Vivi: her best life.
Okay. Judging. I don’t know. I imagine if you have a sheltered life and then you go to college and join us sorority, that’s true. You’re going to have some fun. You better
Erick: fucking better. Cause VB couldn’t, she’s mad. She didn’t join a sorority. I’m
Vivi: not social enough to join a sorority.
Erick: I knew some unsocial, sorority people and fraternity people.
They’re living their best lives now or not. I don’t fucking know. Ms. Mack, as she’s getting ready though, here’s Claude she starts yelling out for Claude and is like, where are you? You prick. And Mr. Harrison again, judgey is just staring at her. don’t think that I would give a fuck if someone’s dad was walking around unimpressed with my.
I like your do you’re here for your daughter. I ain’t got nothing to do with that. You don’t have to judge me.
Vivi: I think she does have something to do with that though. Cause she’s responsible for these girls as part of her
Erick: job, but she, she literally just said, she’s not, not for their morals is there to help them take her to the house and put them on the right path.
But she’s not there to watch them and tell them not to drink and their best life,
Vivi: I want to talk about this shot because it’s incredibly creepy. As Mrs. Mack and Clara’s father are leaving we see the scene through the attic window where Claire’s body is still there in the rocking chair, almost watching her father drive off with Mrs. Mack. It’s very eerie and it’s just kind of unsettling that he doesn’t know that his daughter is literally dead upstairs in the attic.
This is a shot that kind of frames. A lot of
Erick: the reason that I think that this doesn’t work is because it’s very visible from outside.
Like Claire has had from the window, they literally zoom out with the camera
Vivi: and then it’s covered by like the bare trees and all the Christmas decorations. Also, if you would see that you’re seeing it from the ground level, what’s to stop you from thinking it’s just someone in their window, or it’s a Christmas decoration.
You can’t see the plastic bag from down there.
Erick: If you’re looking for somebody you’re going to take every lead you get, whether it ends up getting you know or not. Right. That’s what bothers me at
Vivi: the end of this phone. Okay. I agree with you on that
Erick: point. Yeah. Cause I’m like, if I’m panting away and we’re looking for somebody and I see there’s a head in the window, I’m going to be like, yo, what is that?
And ask somebody. And then they’d be like, oh, I don’t know. That’s not anything that we have. Let’s go check it out. It’s a dead body.
Vivi: I think you’re putting a lot of faith in them knowing what they have in their attic. I don’t think
Erick: they,
they also don’t know how to keep track of their own people, Point is it is creepy though It’s almost like Billy is painting her to be a mother figure,
Vivi: Yeah. Because there’s a scene that comes later on that I guess kind of gives a clue to the mental state that Billy isn’t.
Erick: Right after this, Jess meets with Peter at his recital class. conservatory. Conservatory. Yes, Johnny was in the conservatory. So Johnny also did this. Johnny also got someone pregnant and also left now, but Jess meets with Peter at the conservatory, in preparation for tonight, Peter is stressed, but Jess is like, Hey, I wanted to talk to you because I’m pregnant.
I don’t want to get an abortion. Peter says, fuck you, no, you don’t. You selfish bitch. And she’s like, I do what I want. And he’s like, no, you don’t. You do what I want. And she’s like, no, fuck you. I do what I want. But I thought this was pretty progressive for the seventies.
I mean, seventies being like a peace love fuck war time. the world was still not as, progressive as it could be,
Vivi: When did Roe V. Wade. Well, I guess around the Wade was American and this is Canada
Erick: It’s real progressive, I think for the seventies to have this sort of opinion or I guess presentation on the topic of abortion, Jess can be like, I’m the one who decides what happens to this baby. You have no say. And it seems to be like the ongoing conversation. Yeah,
Vivi: do want to touch on this a little more because Eric kind of summed it up to be funny, but it’s, not funny.
It’s a tense scene. this film came out in 1974. This is only one year after Roe V. Wade had come out and made abortion legal for all. So I imagine this was probably more controversial than the murders taking place on screen. Peter is an absolutely horrible human being because he calls her selfish. And then in the same breath says, why would she bring this up now? When she knows how important this afternoon is to him,
Erick: He’s like a kid
Vivi: he’s incredibly narcissistic and manipulative. And I completely understand why she would not want to have a child that ties her to him for the rest of her.
Erick: No, a scene like this also makes you as the viewer realize that possibly Peter is what’s happening at the house.
Vivi: And yes, that is exactly what you’re supposed to believe.
Erick: He tells her to leave and says, we’ll talk tonight. Sounds like a fucking threat. Peter. I
Vivi: know his threats come later. Yeah,
Erick: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck that guy. Anyway. You’ll change your mind.
Oh, I wrote down the threat. See threat. Cause yeah. How the hell are you going to have this like really aggressive ass conversation then he’s like, let’s talk tonight. You’re going to change your fucking mind. Just see. Wait, was that a threat? Peter? I hope your recital sucks, which is what happens.
But Mr. Harrison is at the event and finds out that Claire is not there. Barbara in the background well, Mr.
Harrison is calling. The cops is literally handing a child alcohol champagne. Yeah. which is not. Okay. We do not condone child drinking just FYI in case that wasn’t clear.
Vivi: Yeah. And then she says that the child is probably already drunk Barb.
You got some shit to figure out also, I think Barb is Lois lane. Isn’t she?
Erick: She looked familiar. Yeah. So years later, right? Yeah.
Vivi: So justice back at the sorority house, just in time to answer another call this time, the collar keeps saying the name, Billy, over and over again, your mother wants to know what you did with the baby.
And this of course freaks just out because we, as the audience have just found out that justice pregnant.
Erick: this time the voice is not only a man’s voice, making weird guttural noises and snorting, but also there’s inklings of a female voice. So Billy, the killer can change his voice got multiple personalities between Billy and Agnes, nothing that makes sense to her. But we started thinking, oh, Peter. Peter is fucking with us.
Vivi: as far as the audience knows, he’s the only other person that knows she’s pregnant
Erick: and he’s on the way to being unhinged,
convince that Claire is missing the girls in the stairs and go to the cops I think the cops name is Nash is like, eh, it’s not surprised at a sorority girl who goes missing for a weekend is probably with her boyfriend up in a cabin or something.
And Mr. Harrison’s like uh, no, she ain’t.
Vivi: He’s like, no, that does not make me feel better.
Erick: Nash. The cop asks Barb what’s the number to the house and she’s like fellatio. Fellatio. And she’s like, yeah, it’s a new distribution number F E. And he’s like, oh, okay. So this guy is clueless. Definitely showed means what it means in case you don’t know. I won’t explain it, but look it up.
He writes it down is convinced that this is the real number. Just
Vivi: say fellatio. It’s like fellatio five, six something.
Erick: Jess goes to Chris’s hockey practice and asks him if he’s seen Claire. he’s like, what did the cop say? she’s like, well, they think that maybe she’s hooking up with somebody somewhere else. And he’s like uh, no. And the boyfriend. Yeah. So he goes with her to the cops
Vivi: then we get to a scene of Peter epically failing his piano recital.
He’s sitting in front of three judges and it seems like he is royally messing up. It does not sound pleasant. I am not a classical music expert, but I don’t know if the song is meant to sound like this. This is great. Kind of looks like me, Sarah. I knew you were going to say that. Cause you say that about every skinny white man in the seventies, blonde hair,
Erick: the Bob cut
So anyway, playing sounds like shit. He looks like shit. He looks like he might say itself
playing the piano so hard. You shit yourself. I mean, I’ve seen that. obviously Peter did not do well you can see it on the faces of the judges, the judges, like you
Vivi: feel uncomfortable just being there.
Erick: Have you ever played an instrument so bad that people wish they weren’t there? Probably.
Vivi: Yeah. I played in band and grammar school.
All those sound awful. When you look back at those recital videos,
Erick: I’m sure you did find honey.
Vivi: Kids should not play instruments collectively.
Erick: We all of a sudden,
Vivi: yeah, no. Yeah. It’s bad.
Erick: Meanwhile, this mother is at the cops and she says that she’s lost her 13 year old daughter, Janice, the cop who we see, she’s telling this to his Lieutenant, Ken, but he’s also the father from nightmare on Elm street. What’s Nancy
Vivi: slash Zac Efron. Huh? What’s Nancy’s last name because he’s also a Lieutenant there.
why it is. This is what I choose to believe is Nancy’s father. This is just like the early years of him being a Lieutenant.
Erick: what you’re saying is that black Christmas is a prequel to both nightmare on Elm street and Halloween. It
Vivi: could be because later on, Barb has a dream about a man in her room and it turns out to be true.
So they’re in the same universe.
Erick: Damn. We need a Halloween nightmare on Elm street crossover where they bring back black Christmas. And Billy,
Vivi: you said Halloween and I’m on that street. You didn’t mean black Christmas. A nightmare. No sweet. No. Okay.
Erick: Cause it’s gonna be the SQL.
Vivi: Because the cleaning lady comes on one,
Erick: but Chris and Jess show up and it seems like they know Ken.
I don’t know if he’s related to Chris or something like that because he knows all the cops by first name.
Vivi: It seems like, like they know Chris and his brother’s potentially on the force or was
Erick: really going in on Nash, Colin Nash, the biggest dumb ass on the planet earth. obviously with reason because he said Claire’s off with some boyfriend and didn’t take her missing seriously.
Vivi: Yes. And I think this is something that is unfortunately very common when someone’s reported missing. It’s not taken serious until it’s like hours, days too late.
Erick: We just see this trope with cops in horror movies we watched reckoned city And it isn’t until there’s literally a blown up zombie truck at the doorstep of the cop station when they’re like, oh fuck. It’s real The gremlins. I mean name a movie.
Vivi: And the cops show up way too late.
Erick: Yeah. Or they don’t believe it
Vivi: or they’re way too intense and way too.
Well-trained like, well, yeah, thinking more like diehard, isn’t he a cop and he’s insane. He’s intense. But Chris coming in and yelling at Ken is kind of what gets this investigation going? I felt kind of bad because he just left the mother there while she was making a report. But we later find out they are treating these cases almost as if they’re related and potentially the same killer
Erick: I think this is also one of the first few films out of the 44 movies that we’ve watched other than saw where the cops fucking ridiculous that the cops actually have like a plan that makes sense. They send out a search party, they get people together, they tap the phones they’re doing what they should think.
Vivi: Yeah. Lieutenant Ken is definitely the Lieutenant for a reason in Sergeant Nash is at the front desk for a reason and he’s still
Erick: messing it up. Right. they decide, we’ll look into it further back of the house, Mr. Harrison and Mrs. Mac, While they were preparing to see what happens with the cops. scene just exists to show how unhinged Barbara’s Barb feels that because Claire is missing, they blame her for having gone off on her the night before she went with. For feeling scared for feeling uncomfortable with the call,
Vivi: She’s very much trying to like deflect with humor. She’s talking about animals fucking for some reason, but then leads into how people are looking at her strange and how she feels partially responsible.
I don’t think it’s so much that people are blaming her she herself feels responsible for what’s going on. But Ms. Mac and Phil yell at her to go to sleep because she’s just way too drunk and making a fool of herself, which she does.
Erick: Peter plummets, piano, while pissed with pole. That’s it that’s the whole movie. I was pissed panels costs a lot of fucking money. Right. I
Vivi: was confused. isn’t this the school’s property.
Not
Erick: his, it’s a piece of shit. He needs to take his ass home. He’s drunk. So he just raises a piano with one of the music stands I’m really goes in on it.
Vivi: The scene only exists to show you that Peter is becoming unhinged after having failed his recital.
Something that he has prepared. Yes.
Erick: so he sucks and this is his whole life’s work, nothing wrong with that. I’ve done things on my life and still sucked at them, so that’s fine. Just don’t go destroying property and telling your girlfriend that she can do what she wants. Yeah. Everyone gets together minimum to just, don’t So everyone gets together to do a search The cops have gotten everyone in the neighborhood, they’re at the park. They’ve got dogs, they’ve got this plan. It like, does it do it on the snowmobile? But they’re like, don’t go too hard because the gas is going to throw off the small for the ducks.
Really? really into the details with this search. just to imply that the neighborhood is up in arms we’re going to find either the body or the killer, some clothes, same thing, yeah, I guess they don’t really assume there’s a killer yet. I
Vivi: don’t think you would assume you’d find a body yet.
The girl went missing. There’s a good chance that she got lost. She’s freezing, the search was organized for clues, wasn’t it?
I don’t think they thought they were going to find her body just so out in the open where probably someone would have already seen it by now.
Erick: I’m asking you because I thought that was a rule most manhunts aren’t successful if they’re not found within the first 48 hours
Vivi: I’m pretty sure there is a rule.
Erick: Mrs. Maxine’s behind at the house and you can also see that the figure, is also standing by a tree and you don’t see who it is, but it’s like a shadowy figure who sits down at his stares.
Vivi: I would argue that at this point, this is Peter waiting for just to come home because they had agreed to meet at this time. And that’s why he is later in the house napping because they do kind of show his hair and stuff. It looks like Peter. This is also in here.
So you suspect Peter as the killer later on,
maca stayed behind packing and you can’t do some packing without drinking.
And singing as you do.
Erick: We also get a shot of Claude licking Clair’s body.
Vivi: Which is cute. It’s
Erick: unsettling. Yeah. I don’t, we’ve brought this up in the past, but think they say that your pets likely to start eating your body.
If they don’t find your dead body.
Vivi: Listen, clouds is the only one doing some real investigation because no one else has found this
Erick: body at this point. Yeah. How did glug it in the attic? And Ms. Mac also asked this question is like, why would you even be up here Khaled?
Vivi: because he smelled the body hearing clod in the addict, she goes to investigate.
She’s making her way up into the attic and gets kind of caught in the entrance of the door. As a viewer, we see someone standing behind her, who we know to be the killer, holding a hook in his hand, ready to strike her. He gives her enough time to see Claire’s body sitting in the window before he lets go of the hook.
And we assume, because we don’t really see this scene. A lot of these kills are off screen. Actually. she’s been hit by the hook through the neck and is murdered.
Erick: she gets choked so hard. Her shoe comes off. the rope is so strong. It pulls her body up though.
Vivi: Yeah. He like reels her in like a fish.
Erick: I think it was Matt Curtis survived. Had she taken hint at her own logic? Claude shouldn’t be up here. Well then why continue?
Or if you’re suspicious that there’s some noise upstairs
Vivi: there’s a search party up there.
Erick: Yeah, I know. But I’m just thinking that like logically Like last night we heard a noise that thump inside the house.
Like had there been more noise, that’d be like, mm, probably should call the cops. you know what I mean? Like I think you’d be a little more suspicious given that there’s a manhunt. Possibly some going around, like taking people I mean, maybe because it’s, I
Vivi: agree with you, but I would totally do what she did. and just go up looking for my cat and not think that anyone was,
Erick: but she asks the question herself.
He’s like, what would you even be doing up here? It’s like, you’re right in mismatch. But she doesn’t know that go pack. Get your ass out of there. Forget about Claude. He’s a prick anyway. You’ve said it already. Mrs. Mack was cool. She shouldn’t have done it.
She didn’t deserve it. She does her better
after he does this.
There’s a taxi driver outside of the door whom I’m assuming is there to pick up Mrs. Mack. When he continues to knock, he gets pissed, gets in his car. Billy, for some reason is rocking Claire’s body back and forth. Screams, groans,
Vivi: I think he didn’t intend to kill Mrs. Mack or Ms. Smack doesn’t fill his fantasy of who he supposed to kill. So he’s kind of like freaking out in rage. Like someone has discovered his little secret and that was not his intention.
Erick: with that in mind, why would he go kill Barb
Vivi: as Barb fits the fantasy of who he wants to kill women?
Yeah. Ms. She stumbled upon the scene. He didn’t hunt her down.
Erick: Claire can be seen from the window as we get a pan out shot of the house.
Vivi: We come back to the search party just as cold and decides to go back to the sorority house, remembering that she has plans with Peter, but a woman has apparently discovered the body of Janice because she is now screaming while the rest of the search party approaches Mr.
Harrison, Russia’s, they’re apprehensive that he is about to find. We noticed that he is kind of relieved, but still appalled that what he sees, unfortunately, the mother of Janice is right behind him and she is horrified. Her screams are drowned out by the brain of a telephone where we are now back at the sorority house with
Erick: yes.
and you continue to hear more voices of Billy’s of female voice, who you seem as Agnes and then also a child saying, help me stop me.
yelling. Jibberish.
no, no, no. On the voice acting. Bob Clark also did some of the voicing, Nick Mancuso was the main Billy, but Bob Clark and some of the actresses also helped with doing the voices.
Apparently Nick Mancuso, in order to add a guttural effect, his voice said that he did, some voice recording while upset. ‘
Vivi: oh, that’s a commitment to the job.
Erick: yes
Vivi: Finally had an oven decides to call the police about it as she’s making the phone call, Peter walks in behind her, but we don’t know it’s Peter. At first, we get that POV shot of the killer again, until we focus on Jess and realize that it’s him standing behind her, he’s trying to have a conversation with her.
as of your were already suspicious, that Peter is even in the house to begin with. He is trying to get justice attention and kind of doesn’t care that she’s clearly in distress and trying to call the police,
Sergeant Nash is again, very dismissive of her, takes down some notes, but lets her know that no one will probably get to it because they’ve just discovered the murdered body of Janis, lucky for Jess and the rest of the sorority.
Mr. Harrison and Phil are there at the police station and hear this call being reported. They obviously know that the two were connected. So they further escalate this to Lieutenant Ken. Meanwhile, Peter here only to talk about his problems and his needs talks about how he’s sick of living at the conservatory says he’s quitting and they’re getting married.
He doesn’t ask her. He tells her they’re getting married.
Erick: and just answers in a reasonable way for someone who was in college. remember when you grew up and you said that you dreamed of doing this thing that now you have.
Yeah.
Vivi: Seriously. Okay. Cause that’s what bothers me so much about this. Cause she says, remember when we first met and you told me that being a penis was your dream do you remember the things that I had told you I wanted to do? know what you have hopes and dreams, what you’re already pregnant.
What more do you want? She’s like, I still want to do those things. And my plans haven’t changed just because yours has. And truly, he is only excited about this child because he has failed at being,
Erick: he has nothing else to look forward to. So he says, fuck it. Let’s just do this thing. That’s how,
Vivi: that’s how, yeah.
That’s how you ended up in a troubled family. Just straight up tells them that she just doesn’t want to marry him because he’s trying to sell her on the we’ll be married and you can do whatever you want. You could still do those things. And she says, she just doesn’t want to marry him.
Erick: Even if she did want to marry him because of the way he’s been acting, I don’t see why she would continue to want him.
Yeah.
Vivi: this quickly angers him and he insults her saying, how is she just gonna remove the baby, talking about it? Like she’s removing.
Erick: She’s like, be realistic. this isn’t going to work.
Vivi: To the point where he threatens her saying that she will not have an abortion and get away with this.
And he is then asked to leave by her, which I think is a smart call. Cause he’s about to throw hands.
Erick: Honestly, Jessica kick his ass cause he can’t even play a panel, his hands. So hands in catching nothing,
Vivi: ain’t catching scholarships, catching careers
Erick: and catching nobody’s attention and catching babies dark.
Vivi: as he is storming out, Lieutenant Ken, Mr. Harrison and Phil are entering the home and
Erick: bill, the phone tap guy,
Vivi: phone
Erick: tap guy, But they show up and this whole scene is really long. like as many questions as Ken is asking, you would think that’d be like, is this the only one you got?
Okay, cool. We’re going to grow in the house. scout the place. You have an attic of a basement. They don’t do any of this. It’s just like, stay on the first floor. And I’m like, who else is in the house? And they take the girl’s word for it. But honestly, you’re going to go look wherever it’s possible that someone’s hiding.
Right?
Vivi: Again, you’re coming from the place of knowing that the killer is inside the house. I’m just
Erick: saying you gotta be suspicious. Especially after just literally just saw that Peter was in the house and had no idea.
Vivi: There is clearly no logic
Erick: to these people. You’d be like, yo, Peter was hiding in the house. I didn’t even fucking know it. Well, let’s go find out where he could have stayed.
There’s a basement. There’s an attic. There’s a closet. There’s a, I don’t know, but cops are here. Let’s make use of them and have them go look. I’m just saying, okay,
you’re looking at me like, I’m crazy. Well, because
Vivi: you’re coming from the point of knowing the end.
Erick: No, it’s not lie. I genuinely be suspicious of everything. Okay. I literally walked through the house last night, kicking doors down. Cause I was like, they could be in the closet. They can be on the patio.
They could be in the bathroom. That could be in the block. I looked everywhere. I looked on the tables. I did. I looked in the crane. It was him.
Vivi: Well, we came to the conclusion that it was probably Elvira throwing herself at the doors cause she’s in, because she has learned how to open
Erick: doors. Oh my God. does running jumps to open our bedroom door.
She goes from the living room all the way to the back room, where our bedroom is and opens the door by throwing herself at it to get in. And she’s
Vivi: equally a crackhead as her brother, but also, I don’t understand her fascination with getting into that room. It is the coldest room in the house.
Erick: you’ve found her in there, right?
I walk in there and she’s just on the ground. Like,
Vivi: this is just where she wants to sit and you won’t let her in there. She’s not
Erick: even like on the bed. She’s on the ground. Is there by the door. I did it. It was a lot of work.
Vivi: I can’t explore anymore because I’m exhausted. But after the police walk around the house question, the girls and investigate Claire’s room, they leave explaining how the wiretap is going to work.
When a call enters to the house, a call will also be placed to the police station where they can then hear the conversation. bill will then try to locate the call
Erick: They do also tell them, you got to keep the guy on the line long enough for us to find out what’s happening.
bill literally has to run around this room, going through terminal to terminal to trace the call. Yeah, it sucks.
Vivi: They also informed the girls that there is a police station outside in case anything happens.
As the cops are heading out, we get a scene of the killer playing with Claire, his body. He has placed a doll in her hand and is making small voices and rocking her back. continues
Erick: to sing that daddy rabbit
Vivi: songs, unsettling.
It’s weird, like a doll.
Erick: that guy’s in Barb’s room. Jess in the distance hears a loud gasping noise runs in sees that Barbara’s having a panic attack. she has asthma.
So she, you guys are inhaler and reveals that she had a nightmare and imagined a guy in her room standing there in front of her.
Vivi: And this is the scene where the killer has gotten way too bold because he’s literally just standing behind them watching this happen. And they don’t realize that.
Erick: Yeah, I don’t know.
Vivi: the house is like old enough that it would creak every time someone walks around?
Erick: Yeah.
After just helps Barb out, she hears the curlers outside and watches. The carolers seeing this entire song, never lived in a neighborhood.
Vivi: think
Erick: people, Carol.
I don’t think we do this on the south side. I’ve never seen this before
Vivi: I feel like this is a very old timey tradition that we don’t see
Erick: anymore in the suburbs. Maybe they still do this.
I don’t know people with money. Do this. I don’t know. Point is it’s rude to leave. So just watches the entire thing.
Vivi: To the credit of the kids. They sound pretty good. They do.
Erick: I was thinking about how awkward this scene had to be, jess is kind of just like grabbing her necklace and like staring
Vivi: Well, It’s true. What do you do while you’re watching
Erick: them?
It’s like when you get sung, happy birthday. Yeah. You
Vivi: just kind of deal with that.
Erick: So she’s watching, but upstairs. Billy goes back into Barb’s room. Barb seems to also be rustling and having another nightmare because I’m assuming in her drunkenness thinks it’s the dream. Again, he grabs, what I thought was a trophy, but she has a lot of glassware
Vivi: everywhere.
She seems to have a lot of like porcelain glass figurines, which make the scene very beautiful. It’s just an odd choice. I don’t know if these were popular in the seventies. these two scenes are undercut with each other. So the caroling is going on while Barb is about to be murdered, kind of making it very artsy.
This is the scene that reminds me a lot of Suspiria.
Erick: gotcha. With the music and things like that, yet he grabs this glass unicorn had and to the theme of the music, turns it on its side, uses the unicorn horn to stab the shit out of Barb over and over while shards of these other glass figures are breaking
Vivi: it reminds me of Suspiria because one, the blood is extremely pigmented and bright red, and it is shot in a way where the main focus isn’t anything that’s going on in the background.
It is solely black, the glass figurines and barbs blood,
with only slight glimpses of the
Erick: killer. in an abstract form through the warping of the glass,
Vivi: It’s kind of an interesting shot.
Erick: But just is like, okay, here’s your tip. A lady interrupts right as written in the song and says, don’t, you know that there’s a killer on the loose kids.
Get back in the car, the lady is like them to hear your phones.
Vivi: It’s just makes her way back into the house to answer Lieutenant can is also preparing to answer the call at the police station. The killer, essentially taunts Jess mentioning bits of the conversation she had with Peter about removing a baby. Almost like it were a wart. However, she does not keep the killer on the phone long enough. And Lieutenant Ken has to call her back.
Not only to let her know that, but to ask her why she got so shocked when the killer mentioned something about a baby. Obviously it does not want to say anything, but Lieutenant Ken has a suspicion that this has something to do with the killer, his true identity. but there’s also awakened suspicions in Jess about Pete being the killer. Phil has woken up and is asking what is going on in the house since she can’t exactly sleep. She tells her that Barb had a nightmare and that the killer has called again, which then leads to the phone ringing one more time as just answers it.
She realizes it’s Peter who has called her crying, telling her not to kill their baby and having just a very awkward conversation with,
Because they didn’t have any luck tracing the first call, the Lieutenant tells bill to try practicing. Tracing this call. He hears the awkward conversation between the two of them and then calls Jess back telling her once again, She’s going to have to keep people on the phone longer if they’re going to be able to trace them, but then presses what the conversation was about saying that it’s probably important.
And I argue that that is awkward,
Erick: that you have to tell this cop out of nowhere, like planning on getting an
Vivi: abortion, but just planning a quick abortion, you know, no big deal. He
Erick: could be like some really religious cop and be like, fuck you. I’m not helping you anymore.
Vivi: Exactly.
Like just planted. Well, this is Canada. we hope it’s a little more progressive. I don’t know.
Erick: No murderer is also run free in Canada. So I dunno. Yeah.
Phil earlier knowing about Peter was like, There’s no way, like Peter’s sweet. couldn’t be the killer. Jess is like, wait, no, Peter was in the house earlier when had just gotten off the phone with the kids.
It can’t be Peter and just feels like a sense of relief.
Vivi: We get this funny scene of then Phil getting some water and being scared by people in the window. It turns out it’s people from a search party that are going around and telling them to lock their doors and to call them for help. If they see the killer, the girls left this off because it’s funny how scared they got, but then have a serious moment of realizing that no other doors or windows are locked in the house.
Erick: Do you realize that this is the only dorm window that’s locked? Well,
Vivi: cut to them. Walking around the house, locking and
Erick: closing all the windows. Yeah. Phil though immediately gets murdered.
She goes into bars. There’s a strange noise. the door moves a little bit and Phil turns around
Vivi: guessed and surprise. Doesn’t get to even yell.
The killer then slowly closes the door behind her.
Erick: feels that, Meanwhile, it just goes around locking all the doors and windows, the phone rings you hear more pig noise is at the same time, because Ken has asked, where could Peter be?
She’s like the conservatory him. And one of the other cops go to check the conservatory and they find the smashed piano. Him not being there gives Ken more suspicion of Peter that he’s unhinged. And he might be the killer.
Vivi: It seems to be her. Always the one answering the calls. I don’t know, it fits because the killer knows she’s pregnant and has like this issue with his sister or children keeps asking for the baby, if he seems to spare her because of this reason, or he enjoys taunting her because he just quickly kills off everyone
Erick: else.
That’s true. he never reveals himself to jazz maybe because he does say help me, stop me to Jasper when Jess answers the phone, maybe he sees Jess as like his conscience. I don’t know.
Vivi: Yeah, because she’s pregnant.
Erick: Interesting. Ken, here’s the conversation though. And bill who was at the terminal place, finds the terminal is actually for the house. That’s on six Belmont avenue, I believe is what the street was. He tells Ken Ken’s like, no, no, that’s, that’s not right. You got the wrong thing, man.
He’s like the calls are going out, but also coming in which it doesn’t make sense.
Right.
Vivi: I don’t know. I don’t remember how old phones work. Well,
Erick: we just talked about how, when you are on a call, you can’t receive another call because the line shows up as busy. You can’t make a new call to yourself. Can you call yourself unless they have multiple phone numbers, but then that seems like the lines, right?
redundant.
Vivi: You might want multiple lines if you’re in a sorority household. Extensions. I don’t know. I don’t know how this works. I am not a gremlin. I am not a certified electrician.
Erick: Was there no caller ID? No, but was there star 69? I don’t know. It starts 69 still. No, no caller ID.
Oh, that’s true. Hey, I guess you do always see the number and you feeling so disappointed by this cause people don’t know what star 69 is anymore. It’s okay. We’ll start 67. I don’t remember. Was a
Vivi: bunch of shit.
You have to that’s where you call and murder people. Oh, okay.
Erick: No, that’s 8 1 1. Hell, what was it called?
Vivi: Oh
Erick: yeah, that movie movie. Is it 8 1 1 hell One 800. Hell. That’s not even a full number. I’m gonna read this Let’s try it. Yes. But Ken’s like, Nash, Nash. You have one job You’re going to call Jess. You’re going to tell her it’s nothing. Don’t fuck this up. Nash tries gay Nash. does try, but just as like, I’m going to go wake up.
The girls and Nash is like, no, don’t do that. He’s like, just leave the house. Don’t ask questions. And she’s like, why? He’s like, don’t ask questions, And she’s like, I’m going to get the girls. He’s like, don’t, you know what?
The killers in the house, and she freaks the fuck out.
Vivi: She does. I think at this point you should listen to the police working this case. If they tell you just to leave the house,
Erick: you would worry though. I think the morality in you was going to try to stay behind to get your friends or
Vivi: your family. What happens to Jess? she reaches for a fire poker and makes her way up the stairs.
She has been calling for a Barb and fell, but there is no answer from them. She keeps yelling. Please answer, please answer. When she finally gets to Barb’s room, she opens it to reveal both Barb and Phil, all bloodied and dead.
Erick: she hears the killer is behind the door because he’s making weird noises. she sees the eye of the killer behind the hinges of the door,
Vivi: which I would argue is effectively creepy his
Erick: eyes like got a red tint led red eyes.
Vivi: this was a good creepy shop though. And one of those lessons, more situations,
Erick: just thinks quickly pushes the shit out of the door and really is poorest. He starts screaming and cheeses. on the stairs, He grabs her by the hair and pulls her back she falls.
She quickly thinks to go into the basement and closes the door. Billy continues to ramble jibberish And after a little bit stops, just thinks coast is clear, but goes into the basement. Doesn’t unlock the door. Smart.
Vivi: As she’s making her way through the basement, we see the figure of a man through the windows.
And at first it’s not clear who it is, but he soon starts to call out to her saying just, just it’s me, Peter, are you in the basement? Let me in. And I would argue, yes. Peter is incredibly suspicious. How does he know that she is in the basement? How does he know it is her? Why is
Erick: he crashing through the window to get there?
Why does he
Vivi: break the window down? Just rightfully so. It does not answer him and kind of hides further in the basement when he breaks his way in and walks towards her,
Erick: Slowly crouches over and he’s like, don’t you hear me talking to you?
Don’t try to hear me calling you. Why are you doing this? Why are you hiding?
Vivi: we cut away.
Erick: don’t know what happens. I wish we did. Yeah.
Vivi: Yeah. It’s one of those. Leave it to the audience moments that I have a lot of thoughts about. I mean, she
Erick: fucks him up.
Vivi: I mean, she does. But we cut to Lieutenant Ken arriving on the scene has no time to inspect the situation because he hears justice screams from inside. This is when we, the audience finally see that just NP are on the floor. Pete completely covered in blood covered in mild sauce. Yeah. It’s pretty bright red and just appears to also be killed.
But when they call her name, she seems to respond. we don’t know what went down
Erick: here. No, she squeezed his insights out. I’m
Vivi: assuming she did some damage to his internal organs causing him to bleed
Erick: like that.
hit him on the side of the head, just wish I knew how she kicked his ass because he deserved it.
Vivi: Obviously it was a struggle because she also kind of went down. But this is so odd to me. Obviously. I agree with her. I would have suspected him the entire time, but.
He clearly wants her to have this baby. Part of me is surprised that he doesn’t want to just take her entire her to a bed until she has this baby. I don’t think he would do her any harm because that could result in harm to the
Erick: child, but a life or death situation you can’t be too. short.
Vivi: Yeah. I agree. She did the right thing because at the end of the day she read herself of someone terrible one way or another. Not saying
Erick: that it’s okay to murder,
Vivi: do not murder anyone. Okay. But unfortunately we find out she murdered the wrong guy.
Erick: You know, what’s weird is that this kerfuffle happened, but she’s not visibly damaged in any kinda way. Like, He’s bleeding like crazy. And she just looks almost sudden bothered, her hair’s not even messed up.
Like it’s the woman.
Vivi: Even if you kill someone, you got to look good doing it. Okay. Can I get blood on you? But justice taken upstairs and put in her bed. She’s been doped up to kind of help with the trauma of everything that’s happened. And around her, the police are kind of wrapping up the investigation.
They have discovered the bodies of the other girls. However, they have not discovered the bodies of Ms. Smack
Erick: and Claire. They’re wrapping things up. you, as the viewer, we’re also hearing a lot of loose ends tied up Mr. Harrison and Chris are in the room Mr. Harrison, as they’re starting to wrap up and they’re like, okay, we cleaned up the bodies. Would we do? Or it will, start working on the paperwork. Mr. Harrison passes out. I’m assuming, because they say they didn’t find
Vivi: Claire.
This is all just too much. You clearly don’t think that something good is going to come out of this. If they found two other sorority sisters then. Yeah.
Erick: Mr. Harrison, Baz is out Chris Ken and the other cop going action. And I’m like, oh, we need to take this guy to the hospital. They run out the last time.
Vivi: Her by
Erick: herself. Yes. Like, why isn’t she also been taken into a hospital?
Vivi: I thought it was an odd choice to even put her in a room. is an active crime scene. Take her to the hospital and we’ll get
Erick: an ambulance. Yeah. Like what’s going on here really suspicious even thought Like you would leave a cop overnight in the room to keep because obviously one out
Vivi: before I am staying the night and then wow, Mr. Harrison, Passes out. They forget and leave her there. Terrible.
Erick: Yeah. Well, one does stay outside, but you would still keep one inside the house obviously keeping a cop there to keep, watch didn’t work.
Vivi: But again, everyone just leaves her there. And as we continue to pan out throughout the rest of the house, we see scenes of other empty rooms and we make our way back up into the attic where we see the bodies of Ms. Smack and Claire. Again, realizing that the cops have not discovered their bodies and that the killer is still in the attic with them.
The last thing we hear as we zoom out of the window on Claire’s face one last time is the phone ringing again?
And that’s the final scene of the movie zooming away from the house.
Erick: Yeah. You see Claire’s head from the third floor window,
Vivi: again, you wouldn’t see it.
Erick: We’re investigating
Vivi: this fucking, I mean, I agree. They need to go check the attic at this point. They need to check everything. Especially since they found Peter and her in the base, where was
Erick: he making these calls from? Oh, the phone in the attic. Let’s go check it out. And how long has he been here?
Did he also kill Janis?
Vivi: I’m not saying they did a great job. Okay. But yeah, that wraps up the movie. What do you think
Erick: of it? I like it. So, I like the surprise at the end that Billy and Peter are not the same person
Vivi: what do you think? Yeah, I really liked this movie. I would probably put it in my top five, honestly. I think it’s effective in being scary without actually being over the top.
You got to give it the credit for being one of the first slashers
Erick: And it’s not even that gruesome Bob Clark brought that down. So I wonder how it tends to kill his war before
Vivi: I think it holds up over time, even though it’s set in the seventies,
I give it a negative.
Erick: I would give it a nun. I feel like with more intense skills would have been cooler, but the way that the movie currently exists is really good. I heard that the first remake dives deeper into like what Bob Clark described as the intentions behind Billy
Vivi: But I think part of what makes it so good is how little, you know, don’t get me wrong upon first watching this. I’m like, I want to know who this is and why he’s doing what he’s doing, but that’s just not how things work sometimes. And that’s what makes it scarier. I was thinking like, what if Billy in the attic is Billy from silent night, deadly night.
Erick: I mean, the movie was going to be called selenite evil nights. So they dress the Santo the entire time. Who knows? Maybe he was looking for the chimney and found the terrorist instead. Do not like real kicker would have been, had he been like punish every time I killed somebody badly.
Vivi: what would you say scared low-key
Erick: He does not like people singing apparently, and I didn’t know what this cause I sing all the time and he doesn’t, this is not to give myself props, but doesn’t really mind when I sing, every time we watch something and people are singing, he’s like, wow, it starts growing.
Vivi: because he thinks it’s strangers.
Erick: He just does not like people having fun because he also does it when kids laugh and movies, the only person who should be laughing.
Vivi: But do you want to tell us about it? Low-key
I am sorry that people saying,
Erick: what we’ll do is take him Carolyn with us.
Since we live in the suburbs, we can find out if it’s a thing
Vivi: where he also just hates Christmas music.
Like I do.
Erick: The disrespect,
Vivi: but is that pretty much it for us here?
Yeah,
Erick: Go watch black Christmas. try Mrs. Mac’s Toilet punch. It’s really good.
Vivi: As always. We hope you guys had a good time here with us. You can follow us pretty much anywhere at shaken, not scared pod except Twitter. Twitter is shaken. Scared pod. You could send us an email at chicken, not scared.
pod@gmail.com.
Erick: Support the show on patron. You can get early access to episodes or a bonus episode in theme, drink idea every month. Listen, wherever you get your favorite podcasts, give us a follow check out our drink videos.
Vivi: Sure. To like rate, review, all that good stuff. Kate, thanks. Bye.
Erick: what were they talking about? I don’t even know. There’s almost some ass thing. I really don’t know, but I joined it and the guy was like, there are some club members in here who haven’t been initiated to ask club.
Vivi: Okay.
Erick: You’re so cool. Yeah. that’s what, at the end, they were like naming off people and we’re like, Natalie you’re down Chelsea you’re down. going down the list and I was like, bye. I don’t want to be initiated to ask club.
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