Black Christmas was NOT first
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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.