This movie is seriously too underrated....
The first time I started watching this I seriously couldn't stop! When it was over I wanted more! OH MY GOD the score was SO good! I can't believe it's not available anywhere!!
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MovieChat Forums > Communion (1976) Discussion > This movie is seriously too underrated.....
Love it. Watching it now for the third time.
shareI agree it's up there with rosemary's baby.
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I avoided it for so long as it always played during late-night movies (at midnight and beyond)in the 80s and 90s on local t.v. stations. I've watched it and it's a captivating nail biter. I wish it got as much as acclaim as over shown Halloween. Mind you, I like Halloween. But, it's overplayed on t.v. and movies like this and Black Christmas are ignored.
I must warn you. I'm very susceptible to flattery.
but that is a good thing that this film and black Christmas are so cultish as it makes them more special to people. it's like being in a cult or something knowing about them. you feel privileged and cool for knowing about them when no one else does.
you do realize that Halloween is not as special because it is overplayed as you said right?
True. Undeniably true. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
I must warn you. I'm very susceptible to flattery.
why did you avoid it in the '80s and '90s when it was played on local tv stations? the reason why black Christmas is not a mainstream horror popular classic is because it doesn't have any stars and because it's so harsh with the violence and tension. it's not accessible to most people. I've never seen anything so horrible, realistic, raw, sinful, evil, eerie, grim, devastatingly and emotionally draining and painful, depressing, tragic, or morally wrong as the scene when the most innocent girl in the world gets suffocated to death with the plastic bag.
and it's extremely eerie and creepy and grim how after it happens you can see her in the window from the outside. there are certain things that you can't do in a movie and one is kill someone who is really sweet and innocent.
the parts when he would call the girls and use that extremely strange voice which sounded like a little boy was so creepy, scary, and disturbing. we are afraid of strange or mysterious things and his way of talking in those scenes was downright bizarre and unexplained as far as why he was talking like that. what kind of person talks like that? still one of the top 5 scariest, creepiest, and most disturbing films that I have ever seen.
I hate how people always say that scream wasn't the first movie to have a guy scaring someone by talking to them on the phone, it was when a stranger calls. they should say instead black Christmas was the first movie to do this. as black Christmas was made 5 years before when a stranger calls.
Well, I was a kid in the 80s, and to be honest, I never saw Black Christmas on t.v. Halloween was played to death, though. I can attest to that.
Your description is precisely why it's scary and should be considered for more viewing. It terrifies me. I cannot watch it alone in my house. I mean, the last call plays throughout the end credits - just ringing and you know why it's ringing as there's no room for ambiguity. You're helpless and angry because of the utter recklessness of the cops. Also, you do wonder if the attic's ever discovered. It's dim, but the film does its job.
Good horror stays with you. Good horror makes you terrified. Modern horror, to me, desensitizes the mayhem and grim nature of the killer or killers - almost to the point where I hear more laughs in the audience than sheer crying.
Finally, When a Stranger Calls is a film that pulls a number on me. I lived through the days of no Caller ID (We had star 69, but still) and I babysat kids. So there ya go. I do appreciate your passion for this film. It's refreshing.
I must warn you. I'm very susceptible to flattery.
yes, I am so happy I finally found someone who also grew up in the '80s and loves horror films. for me the Friday the 13th films will always be my favorite horror films. what about you? what are your favorite horror films?
besides those films my favorite horror films are the nightmare on elm street films, the Halloween films, the first 2 evil dead films, and the first 2 hellraiser films. my favorite film of all time is waxwork and my second favorite film of all time is the lair of the white worm.
same here, I never saw black Christmas on tv when I was growing up and I had never even heard of it until about 10 years ago. it's beyond terrifying, terrorizing, and petrifying. I know that 90% of all the people in the world if they watched it they would be so petrified and shocked and disturbed, terrorized, terrified, and scared by it the first time they watch it.
I can still remember the first time I watched it about 10 years ago. it was the day time and I remember being so extremely petrified and horrified and shell shocked and disturbed and scared that I was afraid of everything just walking around my house. I was at a point of high caution. I was like paranoid and on high alert and high alarm. it was like I couldn't calm down or be relaxed or comfortable no matter what I did. I was paralyzed in fear.
the only films that have scared or disturbed me this much are the omen, the stepford wives, night of the living dead, dawn of the dead, the redeemer: son of satan, and tourist trap. the most disturbing, scary of all the films i've ever watched is probably the redeemer: son of satan followed closely by tourist trap. black Christmas is probably the third scariest and most disturbing film I've ever watched.
yes, exactly I watched black Christmas alone and that made it scarier and more disturbing than if I was with someone. when you are alone you dont' have anyone to console you or talk to you while watching it, so you are just alone in your thoughts.
why did you say it's dim?
exactly the phone keeps ringing all the way through the end credits and so you are left there with a feeling of disturbance and incompleteness and fear and terror. the fear of not knowing what is going to happen and not knowing if people are going to survive a movie gives you a feeling of such great fear, despair, and dread.
I was sitting there in silence while watching that scene with the phone ringing and it was one of the most painful, devastating, disparaging, horrible, paralyzed in fear, disturbing, and dreadful feelings that I have ever had while watching a part of a movie.
it was so clever and intelligent of an idea. let's make the audience not know what happens to the main character. let's keep them hanging. you can list on your hand how many movies have ever done this. it's that little of an amount of movies that don't tell you what happens to the 2 main characters in a movie in the end.
and to think that the same guy who directed it also directed one of the most beloved, innocent, good natured, old fashioned, good morals, family values films of all time in a Christmas story is unbelievable and incredibly weird and unpredictable. I mean who in the world would have guessed that the same guy who made one of the most raw, black as hell, evil, damaging psychologically, insensitive, unapologetic, scary, and disturbing films of all time would make one of the sweetest, most innocent, family values laden, good morals filled, and most happy feeling films of all time?
The original Nightmare on Elm Street does it for me and always will. What a great idea to freak people out. Create a entity that haunts and kills you in your dreams. I mean, you have to sleep. You can avoid Jason by not going to Camp Blood (Add Manhattan and space, too). Michael Myers haunts Springfield. But, you have to sleep! I don't care for #2, but #3 and #4 are good.
Also, I enjoy The Exorcist, Friday the 13th (#1 and #2, #7), and so many more (Come on, I was born in the 70s and raised in the 80s, I have a large supply of great films to love). I do adore psychological thrillers that crawl into your skin and won't let go of the itch until like a week later, but still you scratch years afterwards. Repulsion is like that, and yes, The Stepford Wives bothers me (which it's supposed to do). Exchanging your wife for a robot to mold? Creepy.
Like you, I heard of Black Christmas, but couldn't get to it, until I pretty much had my own place. I watched it in my bedroom (Bad idea!). Besides the girl in the attic, the other lasting image is Billy's lone eye. Dude! What the hell? I checked my closets and made sure my doors and windows were locked. No lie. Yes. I'm a chicken. Also, I called the movie dim because no matter how clear the screen, the movie has a dark feel. It's not a bright lit movie at all and that adds to the film. The director did a fine job by giving us both a horrid and sweet take on two Christmases. Who else could've done the job?
I must warn you. I'm very susceptible to flattery.
hey would you like to take this to your private message area? that way we can talk in private and in a personal way.
the original nightmare on elm street is better than it has to be, that's how good it is and it is more clever and original than it has to be. the thing about it is in a way it's not realistic and so it's not that scary because of this; you can't be killed by an entity in your dreams, dreams don't have entities or demons or anything real. so in that way it's no scary or realistic in any way.
but in another way it's scary and terrifying and that way is the personal, universal, and profound world of dreams and nightmares. it's personal because the dreams you have are of your own mind. it's profound because dreams can be life altering and real seeming, so much so that sometimes when I am awake i'll be confused because i'll think that I did something that was actually just a dream. it's universal because everyone dreams and everyone remembers dreams. so they took all these elements and made a powerful, original, disturbing, and scary film.
the things I love about it are all the little things, the little elements that are creepy and disturbing. like the girl haunting Nancy at her school while drenched in blood and like in a plastic bag. and also the phone transforming into Freddy's face. and Freddy pulling her under the water in her bath and cutting her arms after she falls asleep. also her friend getting strangled by something in his jail cell.
and Glen getting sucked into his bed. and of course tina getting pulled all over the place across her ceiling and sliced to death by invisible knives. that effect was so disturbing and scary and was so ahead of it's time. we had never seen an effect like that in a movie before it. it was ground breaking. so that effect was so impressive. the other thing impressive about it is the ideas of it. the ideas behind a lot of the murder set pieces in this series are usually more impressive than the effects to get them done.
I also love how Nancy finds out that if she has a part of him like his shirt that she can somehow defeat him by getting him to come into her waking world. I also love the idea that they can't ever sleep or they will be killed. everyone has to sleep eventually but if they do they will die. this is such a great idea for a horror film series.
I wonder if wes craven thought when he made the first film that it could become a film series? I also love how Nancy thinks of a way to kill Freddy by setting up traps in her house with a sledgehammer, a dart type thing, and I love how she physically is able to kill him by setting him on fire with fire from her furnace. which is quite ironic given he got killed as a human being by being burned to death.
by the way, don't ever bother with the remake from 2010. it sucks beyond all hell. the original film has so much soul but this remake has no soul. it is so, so bad and so pointless. it does nothing worthwhile or useful to the nightmare on elm street world. I deeply wish it didnt' exist.
also 5 is great the dream child. do you love it also? it has some really cool ideas in it. I love the part with the comic book guy being inside a comic book world. I also love the idea of the girl who is bulimic and then getting forced fed food by Freddy.
also Freddy's dead the final nightmare, I know this is the most criticized and made fun of nightmare on elm street film but I love it. I loved the humor and the effects and the video game world part. and also it has one of the best and most epic endings to any nightmare on elm street film. and I love the fantasy elements it has. like the part with that bus.
the flashback scenes are so epic. I mean if they were able to get Johnny Depp to be in it in a cameo in 1991, after he was a star actor in Hollywood, after he was in Edward Scissorhands, then you know it has to be a great and worthwhile film. it means a lot to nightmare on elm street fans because you are finally able to see Freddy as a little kid and they finally kill Freddy supposedly anyway. and the idea of having Freddy's daughter kill him is so amazing and special and delicious for so many fans of this series. and the ideas of how they are going to kill him is so ingenious.
haven't you ever seen wes craven's new nightmare? it is one of the best films in this series. and any real fan of this series knows this.
I did it the same way as you. I watched black Christmas in my bedroom.
and it was so depressing to me when he passed away. Bob Clark passed away about 5 years ago. I found out while watching the in memoriam section of the Oscars.
another idea that was really creepy and disturbing about black Christmas. well one of the many things was the idea of the killer hiding out in the attic. the mysteriousness of this is unnerving and disturbing. also him climbing the house was done in such a creepy and disturbing way. the way it was shown was so unnerving. also the winter setting makes it more stark and grim and raw feeling.
I know that this is the scariest and most disturbing movie ever made that takes place in the winter time. also the idea of being terrorized by someone making creepy and sexual phone calls is a really terrifying idea but then they made this idea even scarier and more disturbing by making him call them from their own house.
which, come to think of it(I've never thought this before, it just came to my mind, just now)is just like the idea in Scream, in the scene with Drew Barrymore. the killer says to her, I'm right here. so, they took the phone idea and changed it a bit to make it where the person being terrorized knows that the killer is right by them talking to them on the phone. the audience knows in both films where the killer is at a certain point while they talk to the victim.
also the other creepy idea was the particularly gruesome and disgusting and horrible way that Margot Kidder's character is killed with a sharp object. oh my gosh even that scene was horrible and hard to watch. you see, again it's the realism and black as hell ideas and harsh violence and killings that are so disturbing in this film.
the key is always show just enough of the violence to make you see and believe it but never show too much where it becomes a generic slasher film death. your mind always creates the parts it doesn't see. your mind can imagine far worse than anything they can show you. less is more when it comes to doing a killing scene right. and also, oftentimes your mind imagines things happening that don't happen. like with the texas chainsaw massacre. most people who watch it come away thinking that more violence was shown than actually was.
Sure. We can move to private, so we don't hog space. LOL.
Margot Kidder's death serves two-fold: we get to see how violent "Billy" is and since some horror films exploited the Madonna-whore complex, she got the latter treatment, bloody, violent and extreme; while the girl in the attic (I forgot her name) gets a violent, but in comparison, tame murder with the suffocation. She served as the Madonna. I love when horror films provide societal notions and doesn't simply slash for slash sake, you know?
No worries. You won't catch me watching the Nightmare remake. Very few horror remakes get me in a theater's seat. A good one is Dawn of the Dead. I was surprised (and worried) when that one showed in theaters.
Everything you described about the original Nightmare makes it a classic. Don't forget to add when Tina says, "Oh God!" and Freddy replies with "This is God" while showing his hand knives. You knew the danger. He wasn't playing around. I do like the Nightmare series. Dream Child (#5) is good. The soul pizza and movie within a movie scene is brilliant along with the roach motel death. How creative was that?
Freddy's Dead gets a bum rap. But, it's worth a look, and yes, seeing Johnny Depp made me scream (by that time 21 Jump Street had went off the air and he was the ingenue of sorts). I was happy to see him. New Nightmare also gets a bum rap, but I think it's because it went over the heads of casual fans. They wanted pure slash, not the cerebral discussion Craven provided.
The funny thing is that Black Christmas came on cable last night: the remake and the original back to back (The Movie Channel) and I was surprised by the original's addition, but happy too for the exposure to other viewers. I still screamed when "Billy" pulled Olivia Hussey's hair. You'd think by now I know when it's coming, but nope. I still get lost in "telling her to get out of the house". She never listens, lol.
Confession: I have never seen the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I think the myth and perception of the film scared me than possibly seeing it. Amazing the power of suggestion, isn't it?
I must warn you. I'm very susceptible to flattery.
Yes, it was a very fun movie. It starts out similar to The Bad Seed but then started to remind me of a giallo film from Italy. All I ask for each year as a Christmas present are a bunch of horror DVDs, and out of the ones I've seen so far this year Alice Sweet Alice is my favorite.
sharewhat is wrong with it reminding you of a Giallo film from Italy?
shareexactly this film is actually better than it's huge reputation and hype which is so rare. less than 10% of movies that have this level of hype and reputation or more are better than the hype and reputation and give you more than your high expectations.
in a way it's good that its' reputation is where it is because then you are pleasantly surprised by how good it is but then not as many people will watch it because they don't think it's as good as it is by it's level of hype and reputation. so, yeah you're right it should have a better reputation and more hype than it does.
me too, when I first started watching it I couldn't stop from the very beginning and when it was over I wanted more. and it didn't feel dated or '70s film. usually '70s films are too slow moving and boring and too talky but this film wasn't slow moving at all and didn't have too much dialogue.
I thought the music was actually very annoying.
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