Includes live in-person post-screening Q&A with cast member Lynne Griffin.

Black Christmas opens with a madman climbing into the attic of a sorority. The women inside include even-tempered Jess (Olivia Hussey), wisecracking Barb (Margot Kidder), and aloof housemother Mrs. Mac who has a secret stash of booze in every corner. Their holiday festivities are interrupted by threatening phone calls and the disappearance of sorority sister Claire (Lynne Griffin) who was quietly murdered in her room. The killer carries her to his hiding place in the attic and displays her like a life-size doll, the visual centerpiece of a holiday nightmare as family and friends search for answers.

Black Christmas is a feminist masterpiece. The film was released less than two years after Roe v Wade, and the protagonist is an ambitious, assertive, unapologetic woman who chooses to have an abortion and deftly navigates her boyfriend’s disturbing (and suspicious) reaction to the news.

Director Bob Clark is also behind cult classic horror films Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1972) and Deathdream (1974), not to mention family holiday staple A Christmas Story (1983), but Black Christmas is his most beloved and influential horror film, paving the way for kindred slashers like John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978).