Black Christmas

Black Christmas was initially developed by Canadian screenwriter Roy Moore, who wrote the screenplay under the title Stop Me. Inspirations for the film came from the urban legend known as "The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs", which had become widespread during the 1970s. Moore also claimed to have been inspired by a series of murders that occurred during the holiday season in the Westmount area of Montreal. As noted in an article for The Telegraph, the murders, which occurred in 1943, were perpetrated by a fourteen-year-old boy who bludgeoned several of his family members to death. Film producers Harvey Sherman and Richard Schouten had Timothy Bond rewrite the script to give it a university setting. Clark, who had felt the original script was too much of a straightforward slasher film, made several alterations in dialogue, and also incorporated humorous elements into the film, particularly the drunkenness of Barb, and Mrs. Mac, who Clark based on his aunt. Clark felt that college and high school students had not been depicted with "any sense of reality" in American film, and that he intended to capture the "astuteness" of young adults: "College students—even in 1974—are astute people. They're not fools. It's not all 'bikinis, beach blankets, [and] bingo'."