Mike Flanagan Says This Shocking Prime Video Holiday Horror Is “Still a banger”
The Christmas holiday is almost here. For many, that means cocoa by the fire and a steady diet of Hallmark Christmas films throughout the month of December. For most horror fans, however, the setup is slightly different. Keep the fire and the cocoa, but replace the Hallmark programming with seasonal fare that delivers thrills, chills, and copious amounts of bloodshed over sappy meet-cutes and happy endings. As one of the preeminent voices in the modern horror space and a dedicated fan of genre cinema, Mike Flanagan knows the drill. In fact, he’s probably curled up by the fire watching Silent Night, Deadly Night as I type. Or, perhaps he’s presently revisiting Black Christmas.
The director has previously expressed a deep-seated appreciation for the flick. In fact, last December, he staged a rewatch of Bob Clark’s seminal holiday horror classic and later professed his undying adoration for the film on Letterboxd.
Flanagan shared via his critique that he double-billed Black Christmas with Clark’s other holiday classic, A Christmas Story. The films couldn’t be more different, but both remain timeless efforts that define the season, albeit in very different ways.
Black Christmas catches up with a group of sorority sisters who tangle with an uninvited houseguest in their shared dwelling over the days leading up to the Christmas holiday. The misfortune they endure begins with seemingly innocuous phone calls but quickly escalates to grisly violence as the sisters begin to fall victim to an unseen killer.
Flanagan’s Letterboxd critique rightfully calls the film “a slasher classic.” He goes on to say, “Black Christmas is among the first “proto-slashers” that helped create and define the genre before John Carpenter’s Halloween. It’s still a banger. Exceptional sound design heightens the sense of unease and suspense. This is a wonderful movie, an early slasher whose influence is still felt today. It is haunting, unflinching, and has a twisted, viciously bleak ending that sticks with you.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. The ending provides little in the way of holiday cheer, but if it’s a shocking, seasonally tinged exploration of the macabre that you seek; the film will be right up your alley.
Whether you’re gearing up to watch this beloved classic for the first time or the 50th, you can presently find it streaming on Prime Video.
That is all that we have for you at present, dear reader. Stay tuned to Dread Central for more seasonally appropriate streaming recommendations as we round the corner to the Christmas holiday.
Categorized:Streaming News