HALF-DROWNED HOUND 
Black Christmas
I was certain I wouldn't give a slasher film a 4 out of 5 stars, as it's not one of my favorite subgenres of horror and they typically fall quite flat for me, but there's clearly a reason Black Christmas is so lauded. The Caller- "Billy", seemingly- is horrifying without even appearing onscreen, instead communicating only by phone as he famously hiding away in the very same house his victims are living in. Slashers rarely scare me- part of why I don't watch them often- but I have a feeling if I think about that aspect of Black Christmas for too much longer, I'll need to sleep with the lights on.
The movie has a very jarring (in a good way!) mix of knowing and not knowing what's going on. The first victim's body being so close yet so far to everyone searching for her gives us a taste of that classic "No, don't go in there!" feeling, but in the reverse way- "She's still in the house! Go in there!" We also have dramatic irony on our side in the ending- was a delightful twist to see that the Caller was still at large, and that he was going to kill again after everyone thought they could finally exhale.
However, like I said, there's a limit to that ironic edge that leaves the viewer still without the full picture. Even though we know he's still alive, we don't know who he is, why he's doing this, or if he'll ever be stopped. We have shots obscured by shadows, and we have the name Billy, but all we really know is that he's still there and he's still itching to kill. So many slashers- including, it appears, the '06 remake- rely on their villains having the most messed-up, almost offensive backstory (seriously, why is it always abuse survivors?) possible to make them interesting, but in my opinion, what makes the Caller/"Billy" so horrifying is the lack thereof. We're given no explanation as to why he's like this- he just is. Sometimes there is no explanation for evil.
It helps it stand out, too, that it ends fully on a cliffhanger, though you're meant to predict the obvious. You can speculate about what will happen after the film ends, with him still in the house with an extremely vulnerable young woman as everyone else thinks they've caught him, but you can never really know, and that's what makes it memorable. It holds that suspense in time, never breaking it with a scream or a stabbing noise to indicate that our fears have come true. Black Christmas focuses on the unsettling aspect of horror, not the active scares, making it scarier after the movie's ended than during the runtime itself, or at least making the fear last past far the end.
If i had to come up with a criticism, I guess it'd be that- and I know I'm jumpy about this stuff, it's just that it's super common in horror- it might lean into a 'demonizing schizophrenia' type thing with the Caller's garbled speech- but then again, word salad is much less sensical, so it seems to be a case of an unfortunate coincidence. That said, you never know ... but it's not something I'm an expert on, and I do, as I mentioned, have a bit of a stick up my ass. So, y'know, take it with a grain of salt. Also, I have to come up with criticisms, because then it'd be a boring review.
Overall, though, I enjoyed this film much more than I thought it would. It played to my personal taste in horror more than most slashers do, leaning more into a mystery/thriller-type genre than the gorefests some others can be. (No disrespect to those who like gorefests, I'm a big fan of Saw myself- it's just not something I go for most of the time.) While it's brought down by brushing up against an ableist trope, it definitely deserves its place as a classic horror film for its other artistic choices, and watching it was a great way to end the holiday season 🎄 Merry Christmas!