Black Christmas (1974)

This is Free with the podcast that asked the question: why pay shudder seven bucks a month for a bunch of classic horror movies that have zero beautiful sweaters when you can go online for free and watch a classic horror movie with more beautiful sweaters than the J.

Crew Outlet Store?

I'm Jordan Morris.

And I'm Emily Fleming.

Today's movie is the original Black Christmas from 1974.

A movie with more 70s energy than a coked-out key party with all the members of the Doobie Brothers.

With us, as always, is super producer Matt, the man with the drops.

Oh

my God.

Yeah.

Do you know?

Oh, God.

Phone call drop.

Scary.

The

sounds in this.

Jordan,

you warned me how scary this movie was.

So I decided to do a TikTok live.

And a bunch of people watched me watch this movie.

And they watched me cover my ears and cover my eyes and go, no, no, no, no, no, over and over.

And where's the cat?

Is the cat dead?

What happened to the cat?

I think the cat is fine at the end of the movie.

They never showed us.

But they leave the door open all the time.

So it probably got out.

Oh, let me tell you.

This movie ends with one big stupid fucking door open.

So let's go.

Okay.

Yeah, Black Christmas.

It is a heck of a film.

But before we talk about this movie, which is, as of this recording, streaming free with ads, we're going to talk about something else we saw for free on the internet this week.

Other free stuff.

Emily, you had a matter of utmost importance you wanted to discuss with us.

Okay.

So

this isn't technically free, but this is on Netflix, which in my opinion is the king of Christmas movies.

Paid streaming platform, Emily.

Okay, we'll allow you to do it.

I know, I know.

You gotta pay for it.

Your Christmas wish, you get free mention that.

I guess you could get a free trial, and I guess they're gonna be able to.

Okay, we'll let this slide.

All right.

I'm sure you can find clips of this thing I'm going to talk about, so you don't necessarily have to

subscribe for money.

But

Free With Ads is a very big fan of the man we know as Rex Manning.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I refuse to know the actor's name.

His name is Rex Manning, and that's all.

Yeah, he's exactly.

He's defined as a single role.

Do we know the name of the guy who played Luke Skywalker?

We don't.

No one does.

No one can name that man.

He's Luke Skywalker.

I don't know.

I think his name is Luke Skywalker, actually.

It is.

Yes, exactly.

Don't ask.

Okay, sorry.

I have a photo with him from a Planned Parenthood fundraiser, and it's Mark Hamill.

But

I've never heard that name before.

I've never heard it.

He is a very nice man.

I'm sure.

Mark Hamill is great.

He's a legend, and some say the best joker.

Rex Manning, if you go to a Planned Parenthood fundraiser, we will know your name too.

Oh, my God.

Anyway.

That's a good incentive.

Anyway.

If he wants to sop some panties, just put on the pussy hat.

My panties

were sopping up some egg yolks, let me tell you.

So there's Rex Manning News.

Tell us more.

What's the hunkwatch?

It's not just Rex Manning.

He's our cool, cool writer from Grease 2.

Right.

Which, if you're going to listen to two episodes of Free With Ads, I highly recommend Grease 2 and Empire Records.

They're two of my favorites.

But this heartthrob,

would we say he's our ultimate hunk watch?

he's i mean i think if you were to yeah if you were to create like a like a dictionary definition of a like a down-the-middle hunk watch like obviously we've had some non-traditional hunks we've had some non-human hunks we've had some monster hunks so obviously hunk is a broad spectrum it's true i think if we wanted just a boilerplate good old-fashioned steak and potatoes hunk yes actor yeah

rex manning well somebody google it because it's a I found it.

It's Mark Hamill.

Mark Hamill.

No.

Some say the best joker.

So, wait, what's happening with Rex Manning?

Yes.

Okay.

So he's a goddamn smokeshow to this day.

His name is Maxwell Caulfield, is his name.

That's a heck of a name.

Which, oh my God, that's basically Rex Manning of a name.

But so there's a new Christmas movie with

Chad Michael Murray, who has aged very well.

Okay, okay.

Okay,

which I didn't find that hot, like, when I was young.

I guess I know the name Chad Michael Murray, but I could picture him.

One Tree Hill.

One Tree Hill.

I miss that.

Which he never quite did it to me as a 10, like a teen girl.

I kind of liked the scrappy,

like scruffy, artsy dudes.

he

has

he is um hot, hot, hot, but not as hot as our boy.

Let me tell you.

So, this uh movie, The Merry Gentleman, it's on Netflix.

Um,

it's about a girl who was like kind of in the rockettes type of a thing, and she was told she's too old to be in the rockettes kind of thing, so she's got to move to the next stage.

So, is this played by a, is this like a Tori spelling?

Who are we talking about here?

She's great.

She's been in a lot of stuff.

This is an actress that

she feels like she could be like a, she could have been an Emma Stone, could have been an Emma Roberts kind of girl.

She's been in a lot of stuff, but I'm not remembering her name, but she is fantastic.

The wig, however, not so much.

But

so she has to go back home because she loses her job and she tries to do a Christmas magic mic type thing.

Like she tries to, like, she, or like it's like

reorganizing it to like save the town or save the community center kind of thing.

Yeah, something like that.

I think it's like a bar.

I don't know.

Right.

What matters is dudes.

And she's got a few hunky dudes.

Chad Michael Murray is one of them.

But then in walks Rex Manning.

And as soon as he walked in, I was with my girlfriends, Michaela, friend of the podcast, Jenna Purdy, and and Laura Morton.

And I screamed at the top of my lungs, and none of them knew why.

I was like, Rex Manning!

Like, I just lost.

And he looks amazing.

He looks amazing.

The moves are amazing.

The body is, oh my God, he's so hot.

So it's interesting.

So, yeah, I guess he funny to like kind of track him a little bit.

So, obviously, he was huge in the 80s, Greece too, and then he kind of like resurfaced in the 90s in a very important 90s movie.

But, you know, Michaela, who is a tick younger than us, maybe there wasn't a great Maxwell, Max Field, Maxwell, Max Caulfield role

post for her to latch onto.

I guess maybe until now.

Which Jenna and Laura have no fucking excuse.

It's so pathetic.

I'm kidding.

How dare they not have seen Empire Women?

No, listen, I will school.

A movie that's better in our minds.

But here's the thing like

some of my friends just don't have the attention span to watch certain things and it's like this ain't like Empire Records and Grease 2 just ain't for everybody it's an acquired taste and I think it's the listeners of this podcast taste.

You guys are my sleepover friends that get it.

There you go.

Like you guys are.

Hopefully everybody listening to this podcast hoots and hollers when Rex Manning appears on stage.

Oh my God, just watch it.

It's hunky.

It's fun.

I don't know if everybody's hubbies are going to be into it, but I was very into it.

Okay.

There you go.

Would you rank it above Hitched for the Holidays, the Hallmark movie we watched a couple weeks ago?

100%.

Wow, okay.

Now, if Joey Lawrence were to dance and strip down,

this would have been, he should have been in this movie.

Maybe you would have said whoa.

He should have.

That's his thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, once you're in the middle.

And we would be saying whoa.

He wouldn't be when he's taking off, if he's ripping off the tearaways.

We're the ones saying whoa

for a change.

Joey Lawrence, like, please go do some Netflix, like, hunky movies.

Please, please, please.

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't think he's called his agent.

Hey, what if I did one of those Netflix Christmas movies?

It's so funny to have

someone who has the career that my mom thinks people can have, where you just

do Saturday Night Live.

And you're like, oh, I never thought of that.

My mom told me once I should write a Pixar movie.

And you're right.

You know what?

I should.

I should write it.

She's right.

All right.

Let me correct

what I just said.

No, you don't have to.

Netflix.

Yes.

Get Joey Lawrence in a fucking Christmas movie, you assholes.

Done.

Okay.

Did I do it?

Harsh words for Netflix.

That was great.

Do it, Netflix.

Yeah, you crank out 40 of these things a year.

Joey Lawrence can be in one of them.

Yes, please.

All right.

Well,

let's switch from talking about sexy Christmas movies to

Christmas movies with a horrifying sexuality.

It's black Christmas.

I had never seen this movie.

I got very into the idea of watching it because I got super into the Scream franchise this year.

I had only seen the first one.

I re-watched it.

I'm like, oh my God, this rocks so hard.

I need to see all the screams.

So I did, and I kind of got into like the references and all the like kind of meta stuff in Scream.

And I know that this movie was like a big inspiration on Scream.

There's a lot of little references.

So I was like, oh, Black Christmas.

Why have I never seen this?

Real quick.

So I thought I'd just kind of rope y'all into it.

Yes, is this the first reference to the call is coming from inside the house?

I was gonna ask the same question: like, is this the first

already an urban legend at this point?

So, they're like, so this movie's you know, the big reveal is the obscene phone calls, the killer who's been slashing people.

It's the call is coming from inside the house.

So, this was already an urban legend, and it's also kind of loosely based on some like other murders, kind of like scream is, you know, it has some true crime basis but yeah but but the like call in the house was that's an old urban legend yeah it's in pop culture already so they're like as old as the invention of the telephone yeah well i thought there was um

the first time it was in a movie was with Carol Kane.

There was something with When a Stranger Calls.

Oh.

I've heard of that movie.

I've never seen it.

Was that call coming from inside the house?

It sure the fuck was.

Where was it coming from and it was but the thing is when a stranger calls is from 1979

oh so i think it's the line the call is coming from inside the house not necessarily the the herbal legend which you're talking about i think i think it's this movie I think this movie this is the first call we're calling it this we're making a determination this is the first time a call has ever come from inside the house film historians we're calling it now Well, what's so crazy is I watch,

like, watch Mojo a lot.

They did, like, a whole thing about the first reference, which was when a stranger calls.

So when I watched this, I assumed that that wasn't going to be part of it.

My suspense was

full of disbelief.

So this was pretty fun.

I

didn't know what to expect.

You know what else this director directed?

What?

What?

A A Christmas story.

Wow.

This guy loves Christmas.

Yes.

No.

So he directed fucking You're Gonna Shoot Your Eye Out,

Leg Lamp, Tongue Stuck to the Pole.

Christmas story.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's crazy.

And his first movie is something called Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things.

Fucking story.

Jesus Christ.

This man should be checked on.

Yeah.

I don't like it.

I don't like him.

So, all right.

Black Christmas.

We see a sorority house and someone is watching.

We got that killer POV.

What a cool.

Like, what a cool thing that this.

The breathing we hear.

Emily, I think you alluded to this.

Like, the sound effects in this movie are fucking chilling and disgusting.

This breathing that they have is so...

Chilling and gross.

I wanted them to turn the camera around and the guy's just wearing a CPAP mask.

That would have been

What's so frustrating

is the whole movie, like, there are snippets of you are the killer, essentially.

Right.

You are viewing the world of the POV

as the killer.

Well, yeah, I think it's better the way I described it, but sure.

I like doing it because the porn also

feels like porn.

Exactly, man.

Think of pornos.

I like

the porn.

I don't like that.

Think of our favorite pornos.

But it wasn't just the viewpoint, like you're climbing, like like you're climbing a trellis.

You're like, there's all these activities as the thing.

So then when you're waiting for the other characters to potentially discover this

person, it's even more suspenseful because you're like, I know where this fucker is.

And you also don't know.

I just watched where he was.

Why isn't he there?

And you also don't know whether or not the shot you're watching is just, you know, a normal shot or if you are watching the viewpoint of the killer, which is very, very

shot in a way that is so disorienting.

And also, the house is stunning.

I know that I love.

It's a beautiful house.

Oh my God.

It took me a while to realize that this was a sorority house.

It took me a second.

I thought, because Margot Kidder has looked like a 50-year-old woman her whole life.

I know.

We have our oldest teen segment.

There's a lot of

people who could, I don't know if we can have an oldest college student segment, but

a lot of folks in their mid-30s here that we're supposed to believe are in college.

They all look awesome.

Everybody's really good looking in this movie, but like they all look.

Oh, incredible.

But like, it, I thought it was just a bunch of adults having a party.

Yeah, I know.

It kind of reads like that.

Nobody seems like a kid.

Yeah, I'd never seen this movie, so I didn't realize it was a sorority house.

If you look closely up at the first shot of the, right above the door, you do see the three Greek letters.

And I was like, okay, sorority house.

Okay, I missed that.

I just saw the number six, and I just went, okay.

So, yeah, so they're having a little sorority party.

It looks so fucking fun.

It's the 70s.

Everybody's drinking and smoking, having a great time.

Ugh, take me there.

Our POV fella sneaks in through the attic.

We got a bunch of cool, cool folks who we're going to follow throughout the movie.

There's Barb.

She's wearing a velvet choker and a men's dress shirt.

Oh, God, she's so cool.

And

I forget this character's name, but she's kind of like the final girl at the end.

She's wearing a

Jess.

She's got a sweater that looks like two giant hands.

I love the sweaters in this movie.

I am going to take a screenshot of that.

And then, you know, you can just put a

screen, like a photo search in Google, like, or whatever.

I'm going to find this fucking photo.

You're going to buy that sweater.

Oh, I'm going to find it.

But also, that actress is from, like, I think it was the 1960s Romeo and Juliet.

Oh, okay.

That was, like, a huge deal.

Like, this actress, I mean, we, I don't know what she's doing now, but

her voice, her voice, she's like Mary Poppins on Kwelludes.

Oh, she's voice.

Yeah, what it was weird because it was like, is she British sometimes?

Transatlantic accent.

It was, I was kind of confused by it, but I was also like, I don't know, people have accents.

Well, it's called

people talk like stuff.

It's true, but in the beginning of the movie, it was hard to figure out who we were supposed to be focusing on because I thought that Margot Kidder was our like final girl.

Right.

This is our drunk party girl who is like tough as knack.

Like, tough as knacks?

Tax.

Sorry.

Tough as nails.

I don't think tough as tax is a phrase either.

Tough as nails, right?

Listen, some people are not tough as nails.

People are tough as tax.

Tough as tax is good.

She's a great character.

I think this movie.

They get through a corkboard.

Yeah.

I think, yeah, I think

this movie is about the sexual politics of the time.

And

she is this kind of sexually liberated, tough talk.

And she makes all these dirty jokes.

She makes that cop safety ratio later.

She's great.

She's a great character.

But then we also have Andrea Martin, who is like this nerdy, cool girl in the sorority house who

I almost didn't recognize

and I suspected to be the killer the whole time.

Oh, yeah.

Well, maybe she was because we don't really know.

Spoiler alert for the end of this movie.

Okay, so they're having this party.

It looks great.

Everybody's sweaters are awesome.

And they get a phone call.

They get this fucking chilling ass, what they would call an obscene phone call.

It sounds like there's multiple people on the line and kind of everybody's listening.

And yeah, and Barb is kind of like egging it on.

She's like kind of, you know, telling him he's going to like, I'm going to stick your dick in your throat and stuff like that.

Being like, well, he was

saying horrible shit.

Yeah, the stuff is really, really.

I like kind of assumed.

I'm like, oh, this will be like a can't be Christmas horror movie where people get stabbed with candy canes and say like you're on the naughty list But no, this is a like fucking down and dirty like grindhouse ass movie.

Well, the crazy thing is so I did a live stream for tick tock and then I asked everybody would you like me to leave the sound on for the movie?

And they were like yes

and then that came on and it was like cunt this and all that.

And I went, I'm going to turn this down.

Sorry, guys.

Absolutely not.

I'm going to turn this down.

It was so disturbing.

Yeah, it's really, it's, it's, yeah, it's

a lot.

Phone calls were probably the most disturbing moments of the movie for me.

There's a couple of like jump scares, kind of, not really, but this really got under my skin.

Oh, yeah.

Totally.

It was disturbed for sure.

So, yeah.

So we're going around.

So this happens.

Everybody's kind of bugged by it.

I just wrote in my notes, cat, kitty, there's a kitty in the house.

Yay, a cat.

I think we mentioned maybe we know the cat or we don't know if the cat gets it at the end.

I have watched a couple different cat dies horror movies recently.

I saw Smile.

Cat gets it in Smile.

I was very mad.

Sorry for that.

The first four.

First Smile.

Yeah.

I'm too scared to see that.

It's pretty scary.

I don't think it's like a, I didn't think it was a great movie, but I was very scared by it.

It's a really like disturbing movie, Smile.

Well done in some ways, but maybe more like fucked up.

Well, you warned me about this movie, and you were right.

Yeah.

So the only smile I like is Brian Wilson's unfinished masterpiece.

Thank you.

That never killed a cat.

Yeah.

Nobody ever killed a cat listening to Sloop John B.

Because they played with the wrecking crew too much.

Sure.

Anyway, this studio musicians, the wrecking crew.

Okay, so there's a lot of fun characters.

There's this old lady who kind of like runs the sorority house.

She's great.

She keeps hidden flasks all over the house.

There's one in the library.

There's one in the toilet.

She has a hat that also includes a bowl cut hat.

Now,

this movie I think is interesting

because it's kind of worst hat red herring.

You see a hat and you're like, oh, that's the worst hat.

Then a fucking worst hat will come along.

I think I know what I think the worst hat is.

Okay.

This one is like a fake killer.

This is like a, ooh, you think this is going to be the worst hat?

No, it ain't.

Anyway.

So, so hunker down and keep listening for our reveal of the actual worst hat.

I got my finger over the trigger to play this.

So just play.

I'm so excited.

Well, before we talk about the worst hat, we do have a sting about who we play in the movie.

Oh, of course we do.

Can you play it?

Who we'd play?

I'm going to play that house mother, baby.

Character.

Yeah, very Emily coated.

I kind of think that, um, you know, I always dreamed of being an actress, but um, I'm getting old.

Well, kind of, but I'm as I get as a boy, I wanted to host a podcast.

Father, I'd say, soon there will be radio shows that you listen to on your telephone, and I can be the star of such shows.

Shut up.

But no, I mean, like in horror movies or any hallmark lifetime anything i would love to play the eccentric older woman in everything which means i've got time to become that person oh yeah and this the sorority house mother is a delight she hides liquor in all kinds of fun places uh she has a bunch of fun hats a fabulous red manicure stupid blue eyeshadow, and red lipstick.

She shitfaced the whole movie until the bitter end.

She hides the tiniest bottles of sherry in a cutout spot in a library book

in the back of a toilet.

Like she ties, like she ties dental floss around a bottle in the back of the toilet.

She's got liquor in the back.

And I just want to go, you can get bigger bottles, bitch.

Like, you can just get a big purse and go to town.

But

most of the movie, not really caring about all the sorority sisters who are.

Oh, no, she don't give a fuck.

Yeah,

the amount of dying people do while someone else is in the other room in this movie is pretty wild.

Yeah, she didn't, but she did care about the cat.

Like, she cared.

She did care about the cat.

So, yeah.

Shout out to the house mother.

We love you, bitch.

And, okay, so

the, what's Jess,

our final girl with the amazing sweater.

She gets a call from a dude.

And he's kind of frantic.

She's very, like, kind of cold and clinical.

He says, I love you.

She gives them the old fucking Han Solo.

I know.

Oh, my God.

Devastating.

And so, okay, so after the obscene phone call, there's one of the sorority sisters who has the good sense to get out of the fucking house.

She goes upstairs to pack.

Unfortunately, her knowing to get out of the house is what kills her because

whoever's in the attic puts a fucking dry cleaning bag on her head and kills her in the way that our parents told us all we were going to die if we played with dry cleaning bags.

He lured her with the cat.

He lured the cat towards him.

And I'm pretty sure there's like a hole behind that closet where he's able to get up to the attic.

Like, I don't know why I'm trying to analyze how he gets throughout the house because there's no way in fuck he's just up in the attic the whole time.

I mean, he could, you know.

Like, he's got to be

the way that closet is.

Or he could be multiple, or he could be multiple people.

Well, I thought he was multiple people, and then we killed all the people, and then, okay, anyway, we'll get to the end.

So, yeah, but he used the cat to lure there, and then he suffocated her, and that was the most exciting kill in the whole fucking movie.

I've seen it's like, it is like, and we kind of go, and he puts her in the attic.

He puts her in the attic in a rocking chair.

And we'll get these periodic shots of her just like

suffocated in the in the garment bag.

It's it's pretty wild.

So anyway, so she's she's dead, but just presumed missing.

So no one, I think even by the end of the movie, they don't really find her.

So she's like in the attic.

Her dad comes looking for her um we learn that jess um the conversation she was having with the dude she was pregnant she wants to get an abortion um it's a very heavy scene she is wearing a pink floppy beret i'm like well there's the worst hat there's wait a minute

wait a fucking minute

i love that hat i i'm still don't think that's no no i don't think that's the worst hat matt it's not don't play it oh you better pull that chair back motherfucker another red herring i think there's a worse hat than this It's a pink herring.

There you go.

Good point.

A pink French herring.

Yes.

This guy, so this dude, he's like a toxic dude.

He's like a piano prodigy.

This is the oldest looking college student in the world, comfortably 45.

And he has the most angular face of anyone I've ever seen.

The sharp angles on this guy's face.

This is a very specific comparison, but he looks like a race car in a PS1 game.

That's how angular this guy is.

All triangles, baby.

All just a bunch of triangles

coming down the road.

Are you saying that this guy is the oldest team?

You know what?

Let's go ahead and call this guy the oldest team.

Okay, thank God.

All right.

Oldest team.

He can be 18 or 19.

We haven't done that one in a while.

Yeah.

And I, you know, me, I'm getting like blue balls from not playing my stings.

Honestly, there's all the boyfriend characters in this movie were just like, what, why, what are they even, why?

Because his character, he's in a piano conservatory, which, okay,

I guess all college majors are valid.

Do I have to say that?

You do, unfortunately.

Oh, God.

Like, honestly, as a, I have two degrees in studio art and theater, and it feels like the two of them cancel each other out into nothing.

I don't know.

Yeah.

But, like,

that's a okay.

Concert piano.

How many jobs are there as concert pianists?

Anyway.

You could play at Nordstrom.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You got to.

People like people enjoy having music while they shop at Nordstrom.

Anyway, like

degree for that.

This guy is so intense.

The amount of money he spends on turtlenecks, turtlenecks,

it must put his family into the poorhouse.

Sweaters in this movie.

But yeah, she's like, he gets her pregnant or whatever.

And then I guess he's not a fan of her discontinuing that pregnancy.

So yes.

And I'm like, bitch, what are you going to do?

Support this kid on some piano money?

Like, what the fuck are you talking about?

You're like someone's.

Piano daddy?

You're like someone's someone's mean mom in a biopic.

You're just saying, piano and daddy.

Don't follow your dreams.

Get a real degree.

Listen, I would rather

write a Pixar movie.

Piano is not really a skill.

What are you talking?

Your dad's a musician.

Yeah,

but he's like...

Yeah, wait.

Wait, professional music paid for your college degrees.

No, no.

Well, here's the thing.

My dumbass paid for half of it because no one wanted to go to the school I went to, and I was the only person to audition for the theater department or submit to the art department.

So I got all the money.

Oh, well, that's okay, but still.

My school had 500 students.

My points.

I showed up and it worked out.

I don't know why I'm defending this guy's dream of being a concert pianist when he's not a real person, but I defend his dream.

Okay, well, I don't know.

This guy seems like a piece of shit.

Yeah, no, he's got a lot of problems.

Whatever.

If you're out there,

sorry, Ben Folds, or like, who am I apologizing to?

Ben Folds, specifically.

Billy Joel.

Apologize to Billy Joel.

So I am in a Ben Folds music video.

If you guys want to check it out,

yes, it's on Vimeo.

It's for Cologne.

It's a song called Cologne.

Anyway.

So yeah, so we have, so

this is the kind of like, this is the kind of relationship fight that's going on throughout the movie.

We get back to our old lady who is unfortunately not long for this world.

She's looking for that cat, that fucking cat that I guess gets everybody killed.

She goes up in the attic.

She sees the suffocated girl.

She's like the only one who ever sees this dead body.

Yeah.

For some reason,

their attic has a giant swinging metal hook in it.

I have no idea why.

What does this, what's the functionality of this hook other than to kill you?

I don't know.

It feels like something something that belongs in a car, like microphone.

Or like a freezer, a meat freezer.

It's a meat hook.

Is it not a meat hook?

It might be a meat.

It might be a meat hook.

You're right.

Yeah, maybe you're putting meat in attics.

You might be right.

That's the best explanation.

It might be like a pulley system to get things up there.

It wasn't very sharp.

It was one of those hooks that has a curved kind of teapot thing on the end of it.

I could hook some meat on that.

I don't want to brag or whatnot, but I could hook some meat on that.

I could try that.

Spoiler alert.

He did hook some meat on that.

That's true.

I guess we do see in practice some meat actually gets hooked.

It's the people meat.

The people meat gets hooked on the hook.

So yeah, the killer whose POV we're still in.

We're always in basically for the whole movie, almost.

It's wild.

Hooks our gal.

And

we get a little POV freak out where he's kind of like yelling and screaming and kind of doing this gibberish that

he does.

Just real quick.

That's that's actually me when the DoorDash guy forgets me to see his pizza cups.

Sorry, Emily, you were gonna say something.

Honestly, Jordan, I identified with his freak outs.

Me too.

I feel like that sometimes.

So, yeah, when, like, for some, there's a few moments in this movie that are just

without reason to the point where you think maybe this killer is supernatural.

Like, there's a few things.

This is one of them

um

in the attic

that you got rocking chair suffocated girl and then you got our house mom he just freaks the out and starts screaming knocking over everything also they've got one of those horsies that are on springs oh yeah rocking up there and i'm like what the mud

that's gotta be magic hang on the source of the flowers the boingie horse horse.

But it's like they just decided to go, What would are you afraid of the dark?

Put it in the attic.

Yeah, just put a bunch of weird horror props around.

Yeah, there's a baby doll and a wee dollar.

Baby doll.

It's so weird.

And he's just breaking everything.

And everything he breaks, I go, well, that wasn't very valuable anyway.

That's fine.

Yeah, sure.

It's probably thinking about like that's replaceable.

Well, I just kind of went, well, that looks like a nice horsey.

I wouldn't break that.

But then I went

by that matter.

But yeah, so he's clearly like out of his fucking gourd.

But what the fuck is he doing up there?

So the town kind of like gets wind that people are going missing.

There's like a little girl in town that's also missing.

So there's like search parties going throughout town.

What it was?

Yeah, so I think the little girl dying.

I think we are meant to.

I mean, this movie is so full of questions.

I think we're meant to believe that whoever killed the little girl is the one killing the sorority

sisters.

Can I talk about that just for a second?

I don't know.

Because after

our fun, drunk lady, who is the house mom of the sorority house, dies, like we see the original girl rocking in the rocking chair, suffocated by the plastic bag.

And then it cuts to the search party of everyone trying to find our original, you know, suffocated girl in the rocking chair.

And her parents, like everyone's screaming.

And the parents of that original girl go look in a ditch.

And they start screaming.

And then I'm like,

they're not looking up.

What are they looking at?

The little girl, right?

They're looking at some little girl who died.

What little girl?

Why do they care?

I don't get it.

I don't get it.

I mean, I think if you see a little girl that's dead, you're probably going to scream.

But that's not their little girl.

Right.

I also don't remember in the movie.

It's a dead child.

Well, why are they looking at it?

Probably a piano.

Why are they looking at it?

It's a search party.

Well, why are they looking at the little girl?

Like, I don't remember.

Because they found it.

Somebody else found it.

Why are you looking at it?

Kind of like, I think they know that some shit's gone wrong.

So, like, everybody's kind of looking around.

Wait, so are we assuming that the person in the attic killed this random girl?

He's in the attic.

Yeah.

So I think we don't know.

The town doesn't know.

The town doesn't know.

I hate this movie.

Wow.

All right.

All right.

We haven't even finished it yet.

I'm sorry.

I love this movie, but I hate it so much.

It really is like the movie.

There's too many unanswered questions.

Much like life, some would say.

Anyway, so we kind of...

The Dunstruck would never do this to me.

There you go.

Yeah, right.

They would have more delectable dinner scenes as well.

There's no delectable food in this movie.

I know.

No Nicholas Cage either.

What are we doing?

So the stalker is kind of creeping around the house.

He's watching people sleep.

Very scary.

Very scary.

He goes up to Barb.

He kills her with like a glass unicorn.

So cool.

Fucking brutal.

We have like a team of...

of people at the phone company who are trying to trace the obscene calls.

The cops in this movie are all really ineffective.

I think it's supposed to be kind of funny how.

The guy at the phone company, the amount of time they spend on him running to and fro the factory with all the like plugging in the phone.

I love this.

At the phone company, yeah, everything is.

I'm like, how did phones work in the 70s?

How do they work now?

I don't know.

So funny.

So yeah, this guy is kind of running around trying to trace the calls and they're trying to like keep the guy on the line for just long enough and they can't do it.

The search party comes to the search party comes to the sorority house.

It's just these kind of like yokels and they're they're swinging like a shotgun around and making everybody feel really unsafe.

It's like a comedy scene, and I think it's pretty funny.

One of the search party guys swinging the gun is wearing a checkerboard hat that looks like Spokoli's shoes, and I think that is the worst hat in the movie.

Matt, play the sting.

Finally, dog.

The worst hat.

Worst hat edging.

Oh, God.

You can all come now.

It doesn't even feel good anymore.

Yeah.

No, it feels very good.

Yep.

That's the worst hat, I think, if you ask me.

So, yeah, that's when they.

So, okay, so this is happening.

This kind of goofy little scene is happening.

And then the thrilling conclusion of Black Christmas happens, and we'll tell you about it right after this.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while, maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no,

no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcast.

We're back.

It's free with ads.

We're going to talk about the thrilling conclusion to Black Christmas.

Finally, they're able to keep the killer on the line.

And they find out, yes, here it comes.

The line you've all been waiting for.

The call is coming from inside the house.

Yeah, Jess, they like call Jess.

They tell her to get out of the house.

She's going to wake up people who are sleeping.

I think these people are actually dead who she thinks are sleeping because everyone just assumes that the missing people in this movie are in their rooms.

We haven't mentioned Andrea Martin much, and I really think we should.

She's one of the Second City TV OGs.

You may have seen her from

Big Fat Creek Wedding.

Like, she's so funny.

I thought for sure that she was the killer.

Like, for sure.

She's the nerdy girl in the swordy house.

Everything pointed to her.

And

I just,

for me, when she was piled up with Barb, aka Margot Kidder, I thought she was faking it.

Like, because a lot of the phone calls, the creepy phone calls, there is the mention of Billy.

There's this idea of Billy, where's Billy?

And then there's a female voice or a feminine voice and a masculine voice.

They're suggesting that Jess, there's some suggestions of the abortion, like the, what did you do with the baby?

Clearly, the person person who's in the attic has been listening to everything,

but it sounds like there's more than one killer.

There has to be more than one.

And I think that is kind of also, that's also kind of a scream reference.

So, the one of the killers in Scream is Billy, Billy Loomis.

I think that's one, that's a bunch, that's one of the many references to the movie in Scream.

Wait a minute.

In Scream, the dude's name is Billy.

Yeah, that's

Jughead's dad.

What's that actor's name?

No.

Matthew Perry?

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

What's his name?

Archie's dad.

You're talking about Jughead's dad.

Jughead.

Yeah.

Like, okay.

No, the actor who plays.

Skidoric Skidoric.

Skidorik.

No, shit.

So that is a reference to this movie?

Yeah, and the phone calls at the beginning.

So yeah, this is.

This was a sick movie.

This is so cool.

I didn't even think about that.

But yeah, so Billy is this name they keep referencing.

And so you think that it's Jess's boyfriend who doesn't want her her to get an abortion, right?

But yeah,

oh, so he's so he's he's the guy who like so he is like creeping around outside while the killer is also creeping around.

We just see one shot of a weird red eye through a door.

That's like the most of the killer we ever see.

Yeah, don't know.

And so, but Angle Face, 45-year-old oldest teen Angle Face, he like breaks into the house and she kills him with the fire poker.

So, she thinks he's the weapon.

Great weapon.

Great way to kill.

Two different points and a hook where you can rip.

I'm going to get one for my bed.

Yeah, grab it.

And, you know,

you could use it to poke a fire if you ever get a fireplace for the apartment.

I will never afford that.

A house with a fireplace, but I will afford a murder weapon.

Oh, I have one in every room of my apartment.

You got it.

You must.

You must.

So this guy breaks in.

He dies.

So they assume they got the killer.

So she's just like

up in her room recovering in the clothes she was wearing when she murdered the guy.

We get these very creepy shots of all the like bedrooms, all the like empty bedrooms from the like dead characters, and then a long shot of the house and the fucking phone starts ringing.

So yeah, the implication being that that guy, you know, maybe was one of the killers or not the killer.

And whoever this Billy character is or characters is just still fucking out there making gross calls and putting people in attics.

That's okay.

So the last shot was

so full of suspense for me because you do go up into the attic, you see the bodies that are still up there.

Like, no one has found them still.

Like

these are the same.

Yeah, that is strange.

Like, the police are now there.

And they're still like, well, case closed.

This is another movie where it's like, the police don't believe women, you know?

Yeah, right, of course.

And an old man who is the father of the daughter.

The fun thing about this movie is they dropped a lot of characters where you

had the fun.

opportunity of who done it.

Like you kind of went, ooh, this girl's dad who thinks, oh, this sorority house is slutty, or like, we've got the house mother, we've got the nerdy girl.

Like, there was a lot of it.

And then they gave us fucking nothing, and it made me want to die.

But

the final scene where they all left our final girl sleeping peacefully in a bedroom and then scanned into the darkness

over so fucking slowly, by the way, which killed me.

I was, because Jordan, you warned me how scary this movie was.

So I was sitting there biting my fucking nails.

Yeah.

And it pans so slowly and then up into the attic.

And then you see lights and things flickering in that fucking attic.

You can hear things moving around and then you see the bodies and the rocking chair.

And then you can kind of hear his voice.

I was like, Are you fucking kidding me?

We still ain't got this guy.

I'm so mad.

Like,

and then the phone is ringing, and I'm like, Okay, 1974 call waiting is a thing.

And I was told in the 90s that we couldn't get call waiting, and I'm mad at Lois and Mike Fleming.

Yeah, that's why Lois and Mike.

That's why you hate musicians so much.

That is the conclusion.

If my dad was a CPA, we could have gotten call waiting.

He was a fucking touring musician.

Okay, we are going to rank Black Christmas on its sale of 1 to 10 Super Loud commercials.

But first, we have to do our fan favorite segment, Hunk Watch.

It's Hunk Watch.

Okay, I've got a non-traditional hunk for this movie.

Not really a Rex Manning, but kind of a more, you know, Joe Schmo working class hunk.

The guy tracing the phone calls, running back and forth between the supercomputers.

Honestly.

He's got a nice plaid shirt.

You know, he's working hard.

He's one of the competent characters in this movie.

You know, maybe he's, maybe he's not, maybe, maybe you're not looking at him at the singles bar, but I think he's a hunk.

Jordan, you have completely swayed me.

Oh, wow.

Did you have another hunk?

The detective.

I mean, of course you did.

I don't think anybody else had the guide.

No, I didn't.

I honestly didn't think about him at all.

I thought that was so funny watching him run around

stressing out.

And I also thought, like, why are we looking at this?

There's killers to look at.

But the detective, I kind of like, he was the one who actually listened to them a little.

He was still kind of a dick, but like,

yeah,

I like him too.

You're right, Jordan.

Matt,

do you have a hunk?

Yeah, and it's controversial, but the killer.

Here's the thing.

You're a big billy guy.

He likes choking.

Just the way he talked on the phone, like at first I was like, oh, what a disgusting pervert.

And then after a while, I was like, ooh, yeah, damn.

Okay.

That honestly.

He said he would lick my pig clit.

So, you know, he's a giving crazy person.

Can I tell you?

Yeah.

So I'm not very well versed in doing live stream on TikTok.

This is truly like the first time I ever tried to do it.

And you kind of have to be sensitive about language when you do this stuff.

So I was just playing the audio from the movie.

And as soon as I was playing, I had no

idea what to expect.

And that first phone call does not let up.

It just doesn't.

It's like pink.

Fuck.

Look at them going.

Like, it just goes and goes.

And I was like, okay, we're going to,

we're going to mute that.

Sorry, guys.

Like, and I was like, for the first time ever, it's not my mouth that's the problem.

It's literally what.

Sorry, TikTok.

Maybe flip over to some people pointing at ADHD symptoms.

If you like that for some reason.

Honestly, the scariest part of this movie for me was those phone calls.

They were so disturbing.

I

don't understand who Billy is.

I'm so frustrated that I don't know who Billy is.

Well, yeah,

we got to take another break.

Why don't we, uh, why don't we do that and then we'll come back for final thoughts and ratings.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Long.

I'm Caroline Roper.

And on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

We're back.

It's Free With Ads.

We're going to rank Black Christmas, the original, from 1974 on a scale of 1 to 10 super loud commercials.

Emily, I think you're going to smash this one like so many Christmas ornaments underneath feet,

like the wet bandits crunching on Christmas ornaments.

How dare you?

I'll make a little case for this movie first and then let you nail my little coffin.

So, I, again, this is maybe not the fun, campy Christmas movie you think it's going to be.

There are a lot of fun Christmas horror comedies.

Krampus from a couple years ago, I like a lot.

David Pipper's in that.

Love that guy.

This is like a gritty 70s-ass horror movie.

And I think if you're like into horror history, it's a very cool watch.

I really like thinking about horror movies

in terms of like what was going on at the time?

What were we afraid of as a people?

So I think this one's kind of cool.

I want to explain why

it will require me to make a few points about feminism.

I'm sorry.

No one wants to hear it.

What are you talking about?

This movie is the year before.

I want to hear.

So Roe v.

Wade was the year before this movie.

It is a movie about,

or, you know, it's a movie that has a lot of like

men wanting to control women's sexuality.

Yes.

Whether it's the guy with the phone calls, whether it's the guy who wants to, you know, say whether or not his girlfriend can have an abortion.

So like, that's the horror, the horror of like men being in a world where women can do what they want with their bodies and the solution of this killer is to kill them.

So as far as like, like horror movie with social commentary, I think this is really cool.

I do think it is for like serious horror people only because it's like not fun.

It's like gross and weird.

But I'm a big horror person and I like all the references and stuff.

So for me, it's a seven.

But I understand that in many ways this movie is no fun.

Matt, what'd you think?

I listen, I agree with...

all of the things that you just said, including a woman's right to choose, obviously.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I like good.

Good opinion.

You're good and I'm good.

Because I agree with you being good.

You're good.

good takes

and and also um you know i i i do think you're right in that it is um interesting to look at the you know political context of the time and so that obviously paints what the uh villain is of the movie um

but

uh

i was having trouble following it i had

everyone

The men in the movie look the same, so I didn't know who was the boyfriend.

A lot of similar men.

a lot of similar men and

to this very moment uh i still do not know who the killer ended up being or who they thought no one

no one does matt wait but doesn't it end where that you think it's the boyfriend but then it turns out it's the no okay no one we don't know yeah well who's some person we've never met who is she stabs her boyfriend but it wasn't but her boyfriend's not the killer but we know it's not him

okay

yeah so it's i'm it just was i give it a five

a five is is is me being generous um uh i thought it was really cool i thought i was like oh that's that's cool that they're swearing so much and uh i love there was some proper swearing

and i love margot kidder um playing this role because she was not the lead she was instead like the uh you know mean sorority girl which i thought was an amazing role for her so

totally i think she she was wonderful.

She lifted it up to a five.

Emily?

Okay, so as frustrated as I sounded about this movie, which Jordan,

the context that you,

you know, brought forth, it definitely changes the way I think about it.

Now that I think about it, it is a very feminist horror movie.

It is like

drunk women getting drunk and saying, fuck you.

And I love that.

The house mother is a drunk motherfucker.

Margot Kidder is a drunk motherfucker who mouths off to people.

Yeah, it's like fun as that.

It's women acting like society says they shouldn't act.

Exactly.

And then a girl.

So we got a mouthy, cool girl like Margot Kidder.

We got a mouthy house mom who doesn't care that the girls have hippie posters in their rooms and they're

sexual and everything.

And

then we have our final girl who wants to get an abortion because she's married to a musician.

I'm sorry.

Or she's not married yet, but you know.

Little musical kid, little musical failure.

You know, who wants to be married to a musician?

Mom.

Anyway, no, I'm kidding.

But also, like,

I didn't really think about it that way, Jordan.

That's really cool.

I was angry that we didn't know who the killer was.

I was originally angry, and now I fucking love it.

I love it.

Wow, you sold her on the hunk and you sold her on the whole movie.

Wow, I'm convincing.

Well, okay, so send me 20 bucks.

It's a good idea.

So here's the thing.

When I watched the movie, I was frustrated because I kept wanting a climax to happen.

I wanted there to be this slasher fucking bloodbath.

I wanted there, but the biggest kills happened in the first half of the movie.

There's not, and then one of them happens not even on camera.

It's just people find a body.

Yeah.

So the way I'm used to slashers happening is there's a crescendo of a lot of kills, but this was so full of terrifying tension that,

And it's a house full of girls that are supposed to feel very safe and intimate and everything for there to just be this person that you don't know where he is, why he's there.

And he's been in the same place the whole fucking time, which is so frustrating.

But

also, the house is so beautiful.

It's a great house.

It's a great house.

I want to be in that house.

Great bedrooms, great posters.

So, what would you give it?

I'm giving it a nine.

Wow.

Okay.

Okay.

Surprise.

Sneaky nine.

You've made me so angry, but now I'm going to think about it all the fucking time.

I'm going to be thinking about this movie because my favorite horror movies are ones that make me obsess about it over and over again.

And after talking about it and hearing both of you talk about it, I'm going to think about it forever.

It gets under your skin.

It gets under your skin.

Yeah, this movie is like playing in theaters tonight.

Like this movie like stuck around.

When I was like Googling.

Why did they do so many remakes?

Because it haunts people.

Like,

Black Christmas.

Um, sneaky classic.

Hey, that's Black Christmas.

Something you can watch with the whole family round the hearth.

Yeah, grandma.

Got a nine-year-old.

Throw him in front of Black Christmas.

They can run

phone calls sometime.

Hey,

listen, if you turn off the podcast before the plugs, don't do it this week.

We got some exciting stuff.

My titties are out.

Don't

turn it off.

I can hear them.

You can hear the titties.

They're on the floor.

Thump, thump, thump.

Slap, slap.

Oh,

so

our merch will be up on the Max Fund store in perpetuity.

But if you want to enter our Godzilla remake contest, you have till the end of the year, here's what you do.

You go to maxfundstore.com.

You order some of our gorgeous merchandise.

We got a great t-shirt.

We got a pint glass.

We got a couple of hats that say the worst hat.

We even got a little sticker you can put on your laptop or wherever else you want to stick a sticker.

MaxFundStore.com, that's where you find the merch.

It supports the show.

It helps us keep going.

And we love that you get it.

If you want to enter our Godzilla Remake contest, here's what you do.

Take a picture of yourself with the merch.

Email it to us, freewithads at maximumfund.org, and let us know what song you want Matt to Godzilla Remix.

And we will do it during a show in January.

So get those contest entries in now.

Free with ads at maximumfun.org.

And hey, we got our first ever live fucking show coming up at SF Sketch Fest, January 23rd, 7.30 p.m.

at the Punchline Comedy Club.

We got a guest and we got a fucking movie.

Okay, our guest for the show will be the hilarious Shauna Christmas, a Las Vegas-based comic, one of Emily's pals.

She's hilarious.

She's going to be joining us on the show to talk about

Twilight.

Yes, I can't believe it!

Fucking Twilight.

I have never seen it.

I will be watching it for you.

I've never seen it either.

Really, Matt, Twilight?

I watched it on my honeymoon.

Oh,

what?

I had COVID.

Your wife was pregnant and you had COVID.

And my wife was pregnant.

I had COVID.

And we sat outside

and we watched Twilight.

We did have sex, too.

I just want to say.

Oh, that's.

Well, I didn't.

Okay.

Yeah.

I had sex with my wife.

Well, did the Lord, was he okay with that when you already did what the sex was supposed to do?

I think the Lord was mad and struck me down with COVID.

Yep, that's what I thought.

I was going to say, COVID mask sex, not fun.

No, I had a great time.

But no, I've seen it.

I've seen it once.

It was just kind of something we decided to put on because we thought it would be funny.

And it was, it's a great watch, even if you hate it.

And I can't wait to talk about it.

Oh, my God.

Okay.

Oh, I'm so stoked.

As of this recording, Twilight is free with ads.

Get out there and watch it.

We do not know if it'll be free with ads when we do our live show.

Heck, we don't even know if it'll be free with ads when this episode comes out.

Don't fucking yell at us.

Stop.

Don't yell at us.

Not very good at not yelling about us.

We don't know where the movies go.

We don't know where the movies go.

We don't.

We don't know where the gospel goes.

We're doing our best.

Also, the other show

airing at the same time as SketchFest is doing Titanic.

So you guys got to fucking give us a break.

We got to compete.

All right.

So yeah, get those tickets, sfsketchfest.com with our hilarious guest, Shauna Christmas, talking about Twilight.

We hope to see you there.

All right, tune in next week when our movie will be Bats.

Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artists-owned shows.

Supported directly by you.