Black Christmas (2019)

Why do these screams matter?

A feminist horror film grounded in explicit social commentary, Black Christmas’ (2019) decision to privilege political messaging over conventional horror tropes divided audiences. While its director, Sophia Takal, acknowledges that the film has a lot to say about privileged men and their predatory behavior, she wanted the movie to reflect zeitgeist conversations about “disposable female characters” (Collis). The film centers on a group of sorority sisters who are being killed one by one on their college campus by a misogynistic fraternity immersed in dark magic. The four most prominent sisters are Riley (Imogene Poots), Kris (Aleyse Shannon), Jesse (Brittany O’Grady), and Marty (Lily Donoghue). While each character navigates her own issues, the film is very clear that their real strength resides in being part of a community of women who support one another.

Our first scream happens in the movie’s opening moments. Lindsey (Lucy Currey) is walking alone across her college campus at night when she realizes someone is following her. But when her frantic calls for help go unanswered, Lindsey is forced to confront the masked assailant alone.

 

The woman in peril trope that opens many slasher films is certainly nothing new. And Lindsey’s death sequence here is a fairly traditional one. As she walks across the desolate campus, we feel a sense of dread that slowly escalates in time with the building music. Lindsey’s realization that she is being followed and her attempts to reach out for help, both by telephoning her friends and knocking on the door of a tranquil-looking home adorned with Christmas decorations, indicate her awareness that she is in danger. But it is her screams for help that most fully express her panic and fear. Here, the act of screaming fulfills a very specific narrative purpose. Yes, Lindsey screams because this is, after all, a horror film and lulling audiences into a false sense of security by playing to their expectations of the genre is part and parcel of the movie-going experience. But when considered within the overall arc of the film, this moment is clearly trying to say something about women who navigate the world alone and their vulnerability.

Lindsey’s experience is a startling reflection of cultural norms related to female safety. The reason why this sequence works is because the audience can identify the inherent danger Lindsey faces being a woman walking alone at night. There is an assumption that Lindsey’s behavior is risky, a cultural framing that is evident in everything from college campus safety classes that stress the dangers of walking alone to apps designed to track the movements of family and friends (Ball; Ohlheiser). Lindsey’s mounting fear as she suspects she is being followed is an expressly gendered one and her scream at finally coming face to face with her attacker is, in part, an acknowledgment of how certain spaces are less safe for women than they are for men, a fact that is typically built into the very social system and spatial organization of college campuses. Lindsey’s scream goes beyond the woman in peril trope to become one that marks the specific systemic danger of the college campus for women. That this danger is grounded in reality is without question. A recent study found that “female college students experience high rates of both intimate partner violence and sexual violence” (Fantasia et al. 191). Lindsey’s scream goes beyond woman in peril to one that marks the specific systemic danger of the college campus for women, a reality born out by disturbing campus climate data. While statistcs vary, the research indicates an “epidemic level” of sexual violence against women on college campuses with a shocking 20-25% of women of traditional college age (18-25) likely to experience sexual assault while at college or university (Babcock and Kortegast 206). For women of color, women with disabilities, LGBTQ+ women, and undocumented immigrants, the threat is even greater (Miodus et al.). Lindsey’s screams provide a literal voice to these lived experiences and remind the audience that even spaces historically perceived as “safe” may be anything but for women.

The threat of violent infiltration continues in our next scene when Kris, having had enough of the threatening messages the sorority has been receiving, responds to the caller with threats of her own. Fearing reprisal, Riley yells at Kris for always being too confrontational. Their argument is interrupted when a bow-wielding masked figure enters the house.

 

The dialogue that precedes these screams is important because it reflects feminist division over the best way to deal with threats of sexual violence. Riley, a survivor of rape, is fearful of drawing too much attention to herself and wants to call the police for help. But Kris, whose overt activism has made her a target in the past, believes in taking matters into her own hands and confronting would-be harassers directly. As the audience surrogate, Marty is trapped in the middle of the argument as she finds truth in both Riley’s and Kris’s positions.

The argument that happens between Riley and Kris also contains shades of how women responded to Trump’s many moments of misogyny on the campaign trail. (“An examination of the 2016 electorate”). As a woman who still believes that institutional structures will save her, Riley is still looking outward to be saved. But as a woman aware of layers of intersectional oppression, Kris’s mandate to fight back carries with it an intimate understanding that institutional structures typically do not solve sexual violence but, rather, contribute to it. And the film does, ultimately, come down on Kris’s side.

Yet, despite the tension that exists between the women, Riley, Kris, and Marty instinctively band together when faced with a threat from the outside, first represented by Nate (Simon Mead), Marty’s boyfriend, and then by the killer. When Nate admonishes Kris for lumping all men together, the women argue in unison about the power imbalances caused by the patriarchy and ultimately kick Nate out of the house. As they do so, the killer infiltrates the home and their pointed words about privilege give way to emotional responses of fear at the threat they are facing and anger that a man would feel empowered to stalk and torture them. Removed from the previous divergence between Riley and Kris, these screams become a primal response similar to that of prey being stalked. The women instinctively understand the threat posed to them with the film seemingly suggesting that the mask worn by the killer is irrelevant; it could be any man behind the mask and their terror would be warranted.

Marty’s decision to sacrifice herself so that the other two can flee reiterates to the audience that despite their ideological differences, these women are united in sisterhood. By demonstrating the importance of community care over individual gain, Marty’s sacrifice also lays the foundation for our final scream. When Riley is taken to the fraternity house against her will, Kris-backed up by a diverse group of women- arrives to free her.

 

Kris’s scream at this moment encapsulates a lot of things: rage at the men intent on rendering women submissive, grief over the lingering effects of her friend’s assault, and frustration that these battles must still be fought. When Riley says to Kris during the melee that Kris was right all along and finally agrees that they have to fight back, the scream she releases in this moment reads as a pointed battle cry. It also conveys Riley’s understanding of the need for women to stay vigilant against forces of oppression and to directly repudiate all forms of sexism, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia. When considered in tandem, the screams of Lindsey and Riley comprise a narrative arc that reminds viewers of the violence embedded in patriarchal structures and suggests women have no choice but to fight back.

The final standoff resists the horror convention of having a singular Big Bad be the origin of the film’s misogyny and danger. Rather, it leans into the idea that cultural norms that reinforce toxic masculinity are the bigger threat. When the women enter the room, they are surrounded by men in masks and cloaks. Their uniform appearance obscures all markers of individuality and suggests that the real threat facing the women is a singular, collective force driven by toxic masculinity ideals and a system that views the women as expendable. The final fight screams showcase how the individual screams of the women become intermingled, resulting in a chorus of rage in which individual voices are indistinguishable. The crescendo of screams serve as an auditory marker of their dissent against the sexist microaggressions and overt misogyny to which they- and every woman- are at some point subjected. Unlike Lindsey’s scream that went unheard and contributed to her vulnerability, these screams become magnified to draw attention to a systemic danger bigger than any one woman, a point crystallized when Riley finally admits, “I should have been fighting the whole time.”

 

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Works Cited

“An examination of the 2016 electorate, based on validated voters.” Pew Research Center, 9 Aug. 2018.

Babcock, Robert E., and Carrie A. Kortegast. ““My Life is Controlled by a Lingering Thought in My Head That it Could Happen Anytime”: How Women Navigate Fear of Sexual Violence on Campus.” Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education, 2024, pp.1-18.

Ball, Aimee Lee. “Staying Safe on Campus.” The New York Times, 20 July 2012.

Black Christmas. Directed by Sophia Takal, performances by Imogene Poots, Aleyse Shannon, and Lucy Currey, Universal Pictures, 2019.

Collis, Clark. “Director Sophia Takal calls her Black Christmas remake a ‘fiercely feminist film‘.” Entertainment Weekly, 26 Nov. 2019.

Fantasia, Heidi Collins, Melissa A. Sutherland, and M. Katherine Hutchinson. “Lifetime and Recent Experiences of Violence Among College Women.” Journal of Forensic Nursing, vol. 14, no. 4, 2018, pp. 190-197.

Modus, Stephanie et al. “Campus Sexual Assault: Fact Sheet from an Intersectional Lens.” American Psychological Association, n.d.

Ohlheiser, Abby. “Don’t leave campus: Parents are now using tracking apps to watch their kids at college.” The Washington Post, 22 Oct. 2019.