It's amazing how many familiar performers have been talked into risking their reputations by playing this material as if they believed it.

Made in 1974, this effective Canadian stalk'n'slash movie mixes dark humour with sinister tension.

Fascinating as opposed to wholly enjoyable, Bob Clark's Canadian sorority house slasher is largely gore-free, but bolsters the anaemia with a genuinely disturbing tone that draws on the creepy Old Dark House thrillers of old.

"Black Christmas" is begun expertly... but finally deflated by a clumsy finale that betrays its gore-gore-gore's-sale comic-book mentality.