Deathdream
Bob Clark, the director who gave us unforgettable accounts of both sides of the Yuletide coin from mine to mint with Black Christmas (1974) and A Christmas Story (1983), was pledged to range. The best artists are. If you can describe what someone does in a stock phrase or slap on a one-size-fits-all genre label, their work won’t last, and nor should it.
Silent Night, Bloody Night
No one who made 1972’s Silent Night, Bloody Night had much of a clue what the story was supposed to be, which sounds like a massive impediment, but it’s all good here in what is tantamount to a progression of darkening images and moods spun around the bare bones of an early Christmas slasher with haunted-house elements.
Jaws
No other horror movie has ever matched the elemental perfection of Jaws. There are the other summits of the genre, for sure, but even such cornerstones of horror as Psycho, The Shining, Carrie, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre don’t quite attain the primal ingeniousness of Steven Spielberg’s shark tale.