Billy (Black Christmas)

Billy is a fictional character and antagonist from the 1974 horror film "Black Christmas" and the 2006 remake of the same name. His full name is given as Billy Lenz in the remake.

1974 Original

In the original film, Billy is a rather mysterious character. He is usually either off-screen or in the shadows. The only parts of his body that are seen in the light are his jean covered legs as he's carrying Clare's body out of her bedroom, hands and his eye. He makes obscene phone calls and can change his voice with obvious ease. Although his back story isn't revealed, based on the phone calls and his dialogue before he kills his victims ("Agnes, it's me, Billy. Don't tell what we did.") it is likely that he killed his baby sister Agnes, possibly out of jealousy, when he was left alone with her and was then confronted by his hysterical parents.

In the film, Billy sneaks into a sorority house and makes his home in the attic, only going downstairs to use the phone to call the girls in the house (using its second phone line) or to murder them. He first kills a girl by wrapping a plastic bag around her head, asphyxiating her. He proceeds to kill three more girls and a police officer. After his phone calls are traced, he is confronted by a surviving girl – Jess Bradford – whom he chases around the house. Jess manages to escape and hides in the basement. She then sees her boyfriend Peter Smythe who went through the basement window. Jess mistakenly believes that Peter is the killer and impales him with a fireplace poker she armed herself with. The police arrive and conclude that Peter was the killer, not knowing that Billy is lurking in the attic.cite video|people=Bob Clark (Director)|title=Black Christmas|medium=DVD|location=United States|publisher=Warner Bros.|year=1974]

2006 Remake

In the remake Billy is given both a back story and a last name. Billy Lenz was abused by his mother as a child because he had a birth defect that left his skin slightly yellow. His mother killed his father one Christmas with a claw hammer right before Billy's eyes and kept Billy in the attic, while she started a "new" family with her lover. One night, Billy's mother raped him when she was unable to conceive a child with her lover, and she became pregnant with Billy's child. After 15 years, Billy escaped the attic and brutally murdered his mother and her lover while his sister/daughter, Agnes, looked on, using a cookie cutter to cut pieces of flesh from her corpse and baking it.

Years later a group of nine sorority girls and their house mother, who now live in Billy's childhood home, find themselves being harassed by threatening mystery phone calls during Christmas break. The girls are brutally murdered one by one until the surviving girl, Kelli, finds the killer, revealed to be Billy's sister Agnes, making a Christmas tree out of Kelli's friends' heads. Meanwhile, Billy returns and in the ensuing fight, Billy and Agnes are apparently killed while Kelli is rushed to the hospital with another survivor, Leigh, who suffered minor injuries.

In the hospital, Billy and Agnes are revealed to be alive, kill the morgue attendant and escape. Agnes kills Leigh by snapping her neck, but when Agnes attacks Kelli, Kelli kills her by electrocuting her and she pushes Billy over a balcony and impales him on a Christmas tree. cite video|people=Glen Morgan (Director)|title=Black Christmas|medium=DVD|location=United States|publisher=Dimension Films|year=2006]

In the version released in the United Kingdom, Billy does not awaken in the morgue, with it being stated he died from his injuries. Additionally, two alternate endings on the DVD release of the film imply that Billy is still alive.

Timeline

NOTE: This short timeline is based on the 2006 version

References