All Request December: White Christmas (1954) vs. Black Christmas (1974)

Christmas time is upon us and I have lined up a very special holiday match up for everyone. In the red corner we’ve got the more experienced fighter, the classic Christmas film film, White Christmas! In the blue corner we’ve got the Beast from the East, the Italian Stallion, the one, the only, Black Christmas! Now Black Christmas hasn’t been around as long as White Christmas but it has certain elements that make it a great contender. However, I used to watch White Christmas with my family every year back when I was little…you know, back before I knew better, so it has the advantage of being a seasoned veteran. Time to see if we will be having a White Christmas or a Black Christmas this year? Let’s get ready to rumble!

Billy's got his eye on you this Black Christmas

Round 1: The Opening! How well does each contender grab our attention at the beginning of the match? Well, Black Christmas comes out of the corner with fists a flyin’. It starts off looking from a stranger’s first person point of view. The stranger approaches a sorority house filled with girls partying and drinking and finds a way to slip inside the house unnoticed. All right! But wait, the experienced White Christmas knows how to handle the young’uns. It starts off with a group of soldiers during World War II doing a nice song and dance. It doesn’t take long to get to the action though. It almost tricks you into thinking it is a war film…but not really. Just for opening up with a semi-action scene, White Christmas wins the first round!

Round 2: WTF Are These Movies About? White Christmas is a musical about two guys and two girls getting into mishaps and then trying to save an old friend’s lodge from closing at the end. White Christmas keeps it clean while still getting the mission accomplished. Black Christmas on the other hand fights dirty and follows a deranged murderer into a sorority house. We all get to watch as he makes prank calls and kills off the girls one by one. Now, I watched the original film, which did not explain jack crap about the killer. It did make it very suspenseful not knowing very much as to why this guy is crazy and killing everyone, but I wanted to know, dangit! From what I’ve read, the remake explains more of the back story to the killer and now I want to watch that one. The original is very tame on the action. So tame that there is barely any at all, but it is an old film and is still has a couple of good scares. So, a plot about people getting killed beats out a plot about people singing and dancing. Black Christmas wins the second round by fighting dirty!

Round 3: The Cast! White Christmas is pulling out all the stops. You’ve got some highly skilled and well known actors/actresses such as Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye, and Vera-Ellen. What does Black Christmas give us, Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder, and Keir Dullea. As much as I like the name Olivia Hussey, none of them have stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (that I know of) so White Christmas wins!

Round 4: Musical Montages! Carolers grace us with their presence in Black Christmas. While a couple of girls listen, their friend gets stabbed to death upstairs. Great job, kids. Way to spread the Christmas cheer by distracting the girls long enough for their friend to get killed. Lesson learned: Carolers = death. The next time those pests start singing, get rid of them by chucking a couple of rocks at them. I mean, for crap’s sake, they weren’t even particularly good singers. White Christmas, on the other hand, has trained and very good singing and dancing. The four leads all take part and no one dies because of their singing ineptitude so congratulations! White Christmas pulls out yet another round!

Round 5: Christmas Conversations! Don’t give up on Black Christmas yet. This film still has some tricks up its sleeve. Around Christmas time people love to talk about happy things. White Christmas talks about the snow, helping their friends, dancing, and singing. Black Christmas knows how to keep it happy as well by talking about abortion, fellatio, murder, and how there is a species of turtles that can screw for 3 days. Marvelous! You win, Black Christmas!

Round 6: Time until Action starts! White Christmas ~9 minutes. Black Christmas ~ 12 minutes.

Round 7: Baddies! There is a killer afoot in Black Christmas. You never get to see his face and barely learn that his name is Billy. Not seeing his face definitely adds to the suspense. There is no baddie in the physical sense in White Christmas. However, Mother Nature is being a down right bitch to a poor lodge owner. It has not snowed in a long time; therefore, there have been no customers at the lodge for a long time leaving the poor owner almost bankrupt. Will they be able to defeat Mother Nature and save the lodge? Who knows, but the serial killer wins this round.

Round 8: Best Line! In Black Christmas there is a college student playing Santa Claus. While the children climb up onto his lap he lets out a not so cheery “ho ho ho, sh**” followed by a “ho ho ho, f***.” I’ve got to admit I laughed merrily after hearing that. Danny Kaye from White Christmas is pretty good at delivering some underhanded remarks though. After a pretend engagement announcement, a woman says to Kaye, “I sure wish it would happen to me.” Kaye replies, “Yeah, I do, too.” Which makes a bit more sense in context. It was pretty funny and there wasn’t much else to choose from so bitter, inappropriate Santa Claus takes this round for Black Christmas.

Round 9: Best Kill! It looks like White Christmas just has nothing left to offer. Black Christmas is pulling out all the stops trying to get this match over. One of the sorority girls went to sleep off being drunk when the killer enters her bedroom. He grabs a glass unicorn head from the top of her headboard that had a long spike as the unicorn horn. He stabs her repeatedly with the unicorn. Uh-oh, good move. That’s going to be tough to beat. In the other film, Bing Crosby gets tired of all the misunderstandings and just guns down Rosemary Clooney in order to clear up all the confusion. Just kidding! White Christmas would be super awesome if that happened; however, it doesn’t give us any kills so Black Christmas wins this round.

Round 10: Best Explosion! Don’t count White Christmas out quite yet. It has some fight left in it yet! White Christmas actually had an explosion! Several, in fact! In the beginning, bombs are dropped onto the U.S. soldiers’ camp. There are several small explosions where debris flies everywhere. It even knocks over a brick wall that was structurally unstable to begin with. I just don’t believe it. Right when you think the old dog is down for the count, White Christmas makes an explosive come back! Ha ha, you get it? “Explosive” comeback! I really crack myself up sometimes. Black Christmas failed to keep up this round for it didn’t give us any explosions. White Christmas is victorious!

Cover of the classic Christmas action film White Christmas

Round 11: Action Rating! Black Christmas ½ Monchrome Christmases, out of 5.

White Christmas 0 Monochrome Christmases, out of 5.

Ding, Ding, Ding! Ladies and gentlemen, we have a TKO. It was very close the whole time but there will not be a 12^th round because Black Christmas has overcome the power of White Christmas. The two contenders were near equals in terms of weak-ass action, but it turns out that White Christmas was just a little bit weaker! Congratulations, Black Christmas, you win the holiday bout of ’09!

Winner Recap: Black Christmas-6, White Christmas-5.

Illustration by Alex Langley. Rocket Llama World Headquarters

This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!

Black Christmas requested by Drink Moxie, TheKappa023, FilmSnobbery.