Black Christmas was NOT first
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Bou — 16 years ago(September 05, 2009 02:14 PM)
AHA! Three years later, I discover, via the New York Times archive, that I am not crazy, that in fact this film existed. A 20-minute short was made by the same people that served later as the basis for the feature-length 1979 film. I see that someone has also now posted this under "Trivia." The film was called "The Sitter." Here is the address of the NYT's Janet Maslin review of the 1979 feature, which addresses (without naming) the earlier 20-minute short: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/reviewres=9F06E4DE1538E432A25751C1A9669D946890D6CF.
Too bad almost no one seems to have heard of "The Sitter," let alone seen it. Although the location of the killer caller is now iconic, if not cliched, that was a new one to the audience of that short film, which delivered a far harder punch than does the full-length film. This board is littered with comments about how the first 20 minutes of "When a Stranger Calls" are truly scary, and that's because they're essentially that short filmwhich should have stood alone and never been made into the longer one(s).
P.S. On Google Books, in Adam Rockoff's "Going to Pieces," about slasher films, he discusses "The Sitter," how it came to be made, and to be remade. Discussion starts on page 65. -
NowhereToHide — 16 years ago(March 18, 2010 03:07 AM)
I have a question and I do not mean this in a trollish manner.
Was Halloween partially the reason why this film was released, in addition to the quality of the short film? Like, was it a cash-in?
Also, I didn't think Black Christmas was at all scary, just confusing. -
Bou — 15 years ago(April 07, 2010 03:18 PM)
I think that they made "When a Stranger Calls" for both reasons, yes, although that's just an educated guess on my part. "Halloween" has a very different angle and tone to it, but the good-responsible-babysitter aspect is shared. And I can hardly imagine why "The Sitter" was lengthened into "When a Stranger Calls" for any reason other than a financial one. As I say, I saw "The Sitter" as part of a festival of short films on a college campusnot the venue to be making money. It generally takes a feature film for that.
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lorddeano — 15 years ago(April 07, 2010 07:54 PM)
You cant really compare this version, the remake or the short to Black Christmas because yea there was a killer in the house in all of them, but with Black Christmas you know that the killer is in the house the whole time, you even see him climb in the window at the start.
It was never meant to be a shock when she finds out.
Dude you should see Black Christmas, it its so much better than this film.
I would like to see the short tho.
"What your mother and I must know, is.." -
Bou — 15 years ago(April 08, 2010 03:01 PM)
I apparently was wrong about "The Sitter" coming before "Black Christmas." It took my forever just to verify that the short did exist and that "When a Stranger Calls" was derived from that short. My memory of the short in original release was off by a few years; I now think it came out a three or four years after "Black Christmas," though even now I haven't been able to verify a release date.
Since I never saw "Black Christmas" when it came outI'm pretty sure it never even played in my town, else I'd have seen itit's hard to say what effect that had on spreading the concept of the "he's in the house" idea. I would gather from the extreme number of screams and general pandemonium in the showing I saw of "The Sitter" that it sure hadn't become anything like a commonplace in my area! It was shocking.
I would agree with you that both the long and short film are very different from "BC" since you know up front in that one what's going on. I would like to check this one out sometime; I've read a number of praises here for it. -
Bou — 14 years ago(July 17, 2011 09:03 AM)
Five years and change later . . . I have finally seen "Black Christmas." (Oh, how time flies, ticklemejoker, when you're having fun.) Now, it's a solid film, much superior, I believe, to most psycho-killer films. However, I can't say that it scared me the way "The Sitter" did. Maybe it's that I'm older now (MUCH older!). Maybe it's that I have so much more cinema experience now. I dunno. But there wasn't anything in "Black Christmas" that made me scream bloody murder, and that even with the fact that my own phone rang just one beat after the ringing phone stopped in the end credits!
That said, having seen this and now being aware of the dates of both releases, I must admit that "Black Christmas" was the first to use the ringing-from-the-same-house device. However, there is a major difference here in audience experience. In "Black Christmas," while we are unaware of the killer's identity, as we are in "The Sitter," we are long aware that the killer is inside the house, that he is somehow phoning from the house. We don't know that in "The Sitter." The audience learns this fact only when the sitter does. Talk about terror! "Black Christmas" was not famous enough, by any means, for this device to have become a classic film trope. There was no urban legend that I knew of at that time, either, and you have to remember that urban legends did not have the same kind of huge, lightning-fast distribution that they do today. Thus, the surprise reveal was, for most of the audience, a real surprise. We screamed our butts off. -
CelesteChere — 12 years ago(February 13, 2014 09:40 PM)
Could you please describe this short from whatever you remember? I believe they called it 'Fosters Release' or something? I've searched every where for this and can't find it anywhere, so at least maybe I could find out how the movie went down from what you remember, pretty please? Like did the killer succeed in killing the kids and the baby sitter? How exactly did the audience react when they found out the killer was in the house? What the killer frightening and terrifying? Someone said something about the baby sitter slamming a freezer door in his face or something? Anything you can tell me or remember would be greatly appreciated, thank you!
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Mithrandir-Olorin33 — 14 years ago(November 08, 2011 11:25 AM)
Black Christmas was the first to bring all the elements that define a Slasher film together. Lots of earlier films could be called proto-slashers for various elements like Psycho, bu Black Christmas was the first complete package.
"When the chips are down these
Civilized
people will Eat each Other" -
suspiria56 — 13 years ago(February 17, 2013 09:08 AM)
Really good thread this..about to watch WHEN A STRANGER CALLS tonight. Really want to see THE SITTER too.
Re: BLACK CHRISTMAS, it's just a quality horror film. Really good characters, and that ending leaves me cold with fear every time. Amazing film.
for the record, put BLACK CHRISTMAS on a double with Bob Clark's DEATHDREAM. Great examples of 70's US horror.
"Gran'pa was always tha best." -
emwolf — 12 years ago(December 18, 2013 04:26 PM)
I know this is years after your post, but when we were taking home economics class (would have been 1975 or 1976) and we were talking about babysitting, they played a movie called "Foster's Release" which was a 20 minute film with the recently released convict making calls from the extension in the house to the babysitter. I vividly remember the sitter slamming the freezer door into the face of the pursuing psycho ex-con. American education at its finest!
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MozartsMuse — 10 years ago(June 17, 2015 09:18 PM)
Apparently there were two short films based on the babysitter urban legend:
Judson's Release
(aka
Foster's Release
) (1971) and
The Sitter
(1977).
Here are some articles about
Judson's Release
:
http://www.fangoria.com/new/unearthed-a-secret-history-of-horror-at-usc/
http://cinema.usc.edu/events/event.cfm?id=14564
Outside of the trivia on IMDb, I can't find any other details about
The Sitter
.
I really want to watch both of these short films, but I'm having trouble finding information on them. It would be cool if they were included as special features on the blu-rays for other films like
When a Stranger Calls
or
Black Christmas
.
Welcome to
Fright Night
.for real.