Billy Lenz
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Billy Lenz
Billy is a fictional character from the ''Black Christmas'' film series. He first appeared in '' Black Christmas'' (1974), as a deranged murderer who taunts and kills a group of college students during the Christmas season. Created by Bob Clark and A. Roy Moore, the character was partly inspired by the urban legend "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs", as well as a series of real murders in Montreal during the 1943 holiday season. Several members of the cast and crew would portray and voice the character in the original film, such as Nick Mancuso, who performed the voices for the phone calls, while cameraman Albert J. Dunk performed Billy's POV shots and director Clark portrays both the villain's shadow and the phone voices. Neither the character nor his portrayers would be listed in the end credits. In the years following the original film's release, fans and media outlets have often cited the character's name as Billy, and director Clark has himself referred to the charac ...
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Black Christmas (1974 Film)
''Black Christmas'' (originally titled ''Silent Night, Evil Night'' in the United States) is a 1974 Canadian slasher film produced and directed by Bob Clark, and written by A. Roy Moore. It stars Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin, Lynne Griffin and John Saxon. The story follows a group of sorority sisters who receive threatening phone calls and are eventually stalked and murdered by a deranged killer during the Christmas season. Inspired by the urban legend " the babysitter and the man upstairs" and a series of murders that took place in the Westmount neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, Moore wrote the screenplay under the title ''Stop Me''. The filmmakers made numerous alterations to the script, primarily the shifting to a university setting with young adult characters. It was shot in Toronto in 1974 on an estimated budget of $620,000, and was distributed by Warner Bros. in North America. Upon its release, ''Black Christmas'' received mixed reviews, bu ...
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Slasher Film
A slasher film is a genre of horror films involving a killer stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed or sharp tools like knife, chainsaw, scalpel, etc. Although the term "slasher" may occasionally be used informally as a generic term for any horror film involving murder, film analysts cite an established set of characteristics which set slasher films apart from other horror subgenres, such as monster movies, splatter films, supernatural and psychological horror films. Critics cite the Italian ''giallo'' films and psychological horror films such as ''Peeping Tom'' (1960) and '' Psycho'' (1960) as early influences. The genre hit its peak between 1978 and 1984 in an era referred to as the "Golden Age" of slasher films. Notable slasher films include '' The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' (1974), '' Black Christmas'' (1974), '' Halloween'' (1978), '' Friday the 13th'' (1980), '' A Nightmare on Elm Street'' (1984), '' Child's Play'' (1988), '' Candyman'' (1992), ...
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Novelization
A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent of home video, but continue to find commercial success as part of marketing campaigns for major films. They are often written by accomplished writers based on an early draft of the film's script and on a tight deadline. History and purpose Novelizations of films began to be produced in the 1910s and 1920s for silent films such as '' Les Vampires'' (1915–16) and '' London After Midnight'' (1927). One of the first films with spoken dialogue to be novelized was '' King Kong'' (1933). Film novelizations were especially profitable during the 1970s before home video became available, as they were then the only way to re-experience popular movies other than television airing or a rerelease in theaters. The novelizations of ''Star Wars'' (1977) ...
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Keir Dullea
Keir Atwood Dullea (; born May 30, 1936) is an American actor. He played astronaut David Bowman in the 1968 film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' and its 1984 sequel, '' 2010: The Year We Make Contact''. His other film roles include '' David and Lisa'' (1962), ''Bunny Lake Is Missing'' (1965) and '' Black Christmas'' (1974). Dullea studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City. He has also performed on stage in New York City and in regional theaters; he has said that, despite being more recognized for his film work, he prefers the stage. Biography Early life Dullea was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Margaret (née Ruttan) and Robert Dullea. His mother was of Scottish descent, and his father was a second-generation Irish-American. He was raised in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, where his parents ran a bookstore. He graduated from George School in Pennsylvania, attended Rutgers University and San Francisco State University, the ...
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Final Girl
The final girl is a trope in horror films (particularly slasher films). It refers to the last girl(s) or woman alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in many films, including ''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'', '' Halloween'', '' Alien'', '' Friday the 13th'', ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'', ''Scream'' and '' Train to Busan''. The term was coined by Carol J. Clover in her book '' Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film'' (1992). Clover suggested that in these films, the viewer began by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experienced a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film. Usage of the term The original meaning of "final girl", as described by Clover in 1992, is quite narrow. Clover studied slasher films from the 1970s and 1980s (which is considered the golden age of the genre) and defined the final girl as a female who is the sole survivor of the group of ...
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Olivia Hussey
Olivia Hussey (born Olivia Osuna; 17 April 1951) is an English film, stage, and television actress. Her awards include a Golden Globe Award and a David di Donatello Award. The daughter of Argentine opera singer Andrés Osuna, Hussey was born in Buenos Aires and spent most of her early life in her mother's native England. She aspired to become an actress at a young age and studied drama for five years Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London. Hussey began acting professionally as an adolescent. She appeared in a 1966 London production of '' The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie'', opposite Vanessa Redgrave; this led to her being scouted for the role of Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film adaptation of '' Romeo and Juliet''. Hussey received widespread acclaim and international recognition for her performance. In 1974, she appeared as the lead character Jess Bradford in the cult slasher film '' Black Christmas''. This and subsequent horror films earned her the label of scr ...
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Margot Kidder
Margaret Ruth Kidder (October 17, 1948 – May 13, 2018), known professionally as Margot Kidder, was a Canadian-American actress whose career spanned five decades. Her accolades include three Canadian Screen Awards and one Daytime Emmy Award. Though she appeared in an array of film and television roles, Kidder is most widely known for her performance as Lois Lane in the ''Superman'' film series, appearing in the first four films. Born in Yellowknife to a Canadian mother and an American father, Kidder was raised in the Northwest Territories as well as several Canadian provinces. She began her acting career in the 1960s, appearing in low-budget Canadian films and television series, before landing a lead role in '' Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx'' (1970). She then played twins in Brian De Palma's cult thriller '' Sisters'' (1973), a sorority student in the slasher film '' Black Christmas'' (1974) and the titular character's girlfriend in the drama '' The Gr ...
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Obscene Phone Call
An obscene phone call is an unsolicited telephone call where a person uses foul or sexual language to interact with someone who may be known to them or who may be a complete stranger. Making obscene telephone calls for sexual arousal or other sexual pleasure is known as telephone scatologia and is considered a form of exhibitionism. Telephone scatologia is usually classed as a paraphilia from a psychiatric viewpoint. It is in the DSM-5 as an other specified paraphilic disorder. Related psychiatric terms (such as ''coprophonia'') were coined in Australia, the United States, and Germany; most of the pertinent literature is North American. From the viewpoint of the recipient of the calls, obscene calls may be considered to be a form of sexual harassment, stalking, or both. In some U.S. states, making obscene telephone calls is a Class 1 Misdemeanor. In the United Kingdom, obscene phone calls are punishable by a fine of up to £5,000 or up to six months in prison under the Crimin ...
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Sorority House
North American fraternity and sorority housing refers largely to the houses or housing areas in which fraternity and sorority members live and work together. In addition to serving as housing, fraternity and sorority housing may also serve to host social gatherings, meetings, and functions that benefit the community. History The first fraternity house seems to have been located at Alpha Epsilon of Chi Psi at the University of Michigan around 1846. As fraternity membership was punishable by expulsion at many colleges at this time, the house was located deep in the woods. Fraternity chapter housing initially existed in two forms: lodges that served as meeting rooms and houses that had boarding rooms. The lodges came first and were largely replaced by houses with living accommodations. Lodges were often no more than rented rooms above stores or taverns. The idea of substantial fraternity housing caught on quickly, but was accomplished with much greater ease in the North as sou ...
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Halloween (1978 Film)
''Halloween'' is a 1978 American independent slasher film directed and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with producer Debra Hill, and starring Jamie Lee Curtis (in her film debut) and Donald Pleasence, with P. J. Soles and Nancy Loomis in supporting roles. The plot centers on a mental patient, Michael Myers, who was committed to a sanitarium for murdering his babysitting teenage sister on Halloween night when he was six years old. Fifteen years later, he escapes and returns to his hometown, where he stalks a female babysitter and her friends while under pursuit by his psychiatrist. Filming took place in Southern California in May 1978. The film premiered in October, whereupon it grossed $70 million, becoming one of the most profitable independent films of all time. Primarily praised for Carpenter's direction and score, many critics credit the film as the first in a long line of slasher films inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's '' Psycho'' (1960) and Bob Clark's '' Black Ch ...
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John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer. Although he worked in various film genres, he is most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s. He is generally recognized as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre. At the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, the French Directors' Guild gave him the Golden Coach Award, lauding him as "a creative genius of raw, fantastic, and spectacular emotions". Carpenter's early films included box office and critical successes like ''Halloween'' (1978), '' The Fog'' (1980), '' Escape from New York'' (1981), and '' Starman'' (1984). His other productions from the 1970s and the 1980s only later came to be considered cult classics, and he has been acknowledged as an influential filmmaker. These include '' Dark Star'' (1974), '' Assault on Precinct 13'' (1976), '' The Thing'' (1982), ''Christine'' (1983), '' Big Trouble in Little China'' (1986), '' Prin ...
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Film Trope
In cinema, a trope is what ''The Art Direction Handbook for Film'' defines as "a universally identified image imbued with several layers of contextual meaning creating a new visual metaphor". A common thematic trope is the rise and fall of a mobster in a classic gangster film. The film genre also often features the sartorial trope of a rising gangster buying new clothes. Etymology The term has the same origin as that of "trope" in the sense of literature, and derived from this. In turn, this came from the Greek (''tropos''), "turn, direction, way", derived from the verb τρέπειν (''trepein''), "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change". Tropes and their classification were an important field in classical rhetoric. The study of tropes has been taken up again in modern criticism, especially in deconstruction. Tropological criticism (not to be confused with tropological reading, a type of biblical exegesis) is the historical study of tropes, which aims to "define the domin ...
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