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| “ | I'm going to kill you. | „ |
| ~ Billy over the phone. |
| “ | I'll stick my tongue up your pretty pussy! | „ |
| ~ Billy harassing one of the girls over the phone. |
Billy, also known as William Edwards "Billy" Lenz in the remake, is the main antagonist of the 1974 slasher horror film Black Christmas, as well as it's 2006 remake of same name.
In the original, Billy is an unknown killer who taunts the sorority. In the remake, he was a deranged serial-killer who managed to escape a mental asylum while his half-sister/daughter Agnes (when Billy's mom raped him) started killing the girls in a sorority house which was his old childhood home.
In the original film, he was portrayed by both Bob Clark and Nick Mancuso. In the 2006 remake, he was portrayed by Cainan Wiebe as a child, and Robert Mann as an adult. In Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon, he is portrayed by the late Scott Wilson.
Biography[]
1974 Film[]
Billy's eye close up.
There is almost no information given about the killer in the original movie. All that is known is that a person climbs into a sorority house, and starts making obscene and sexual phone calls to the girls downstairs.
From the phone calls, the audience discovers that the man's name is Billy, and he obviously is mentally unstable. Billy routinely repeats phrases over the phone that give hints to his identity. It is assumed that he sexually abused his younger sister Agnes.
Billy goes on a killing spree killing the girls in a delusional rampage. He attempts to kill a girl named Jessica, but she manages to lock herself in the cellar. Her boyfriend Peter gains access to the cellar and believing he is the killer making the phone calls, ends up bludgeoning him to death in "self-defense" and she is later discovered by the police, making them believe Peter must have been the killer all along.
The police leave Jess to sleep and leave, while one cop waits outside for forensics to arrive. However, the camera pans into the attic where the two bodies of Billy's victims are still there, and he can be heard saying "Agnes, it's me Billy"; the telephone then rings. The ultimate fate of Jess is left ambiguous to the audience.
2006 Film[]
Much more information is giving about Billy's backstory in the remake. It's revealed that he has a rare liver disease that gives him jaundice. His mother Constance and father Frank hate each other, but his father cares about his son while his mother hates Billy because of his yellow skin.
One Christmas, Constance and her boyfriend Beauregard Rice murder Frank. They then bury the body under the house and lock Billy in the attic to make sure he would never tell authorities about what he witnessed and convict them.
Billy never leaves the attic and makes it his home. When Billy was twelve, his mother raped him, and became pregnant with his half-sister/daughter. She names her Agnes.
Agnes is treated like a princess and given the life that Billy never had. When Billy reaches adulthood, he goes on a killing spree one Christmas. He rips out Agnes's eye and eats it. Then he kills his step-father and mother.
When the police arrive, they find him eating his mother. He is declared insane and sent to an asylum.
During the events of the film, Billy's old home is turned into a sorority house. Billy escapes from the asylum and together with Agnes, kill many of the sorority girls in his former home. At the end of the film, Agnes is killed by Kelli, after a brief chase with Kelli, Billy and Kelli end up in the stairway of the hospital, Billy attempts to attack her, but Kelli grabs him and tells him, "Merry Christmas, mother-fucker", she then ends up throwing Billy off the stairway in which Billy falls and gets impaled on a Christmas tree, finally killing him and ending his killing spree.
Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon[]
In this movie, it takes place 30 years after the original black Christmas. Billy at this point has retired, and now goes by the name Eugene. He lives in a cabin with his wife Jamie in the town of Glen Echo. Eugene holds reverence for the most notorious serial killers in the past, such as Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and Jason Voorheees, as the killers that inspired numerous others.
By 2006, Eugene has been mentoring up and coming wannabe serial killer, Leslie Vernon. The two developed a father-son bond, and he helps him with planning his farm house massacre. He was interview by Taylor Gentry and her two cameramen. He is last seen saying goodbye to Leslie before he went to carry out his killings.
Personality[]
Original[]
In the original, little is known about Billy. What is known, however, is that he is a sick and cruel individual who likes to stalk women and harrass them on the phone with misogynistic messages. He also posesses some level of intelligence, as he made everyone think he was calling from somewhere in the town, when in reality, his calls were coming from inside the sorority house. He is cunning, manipulative and dangerous, capable of finding methods to continue doing what he likes the most and avoid justice for a very long time.
Remake[]
In the remake, Billy is given some redeeming qualities. Here, he was subject to frequent and severe abuse (both phisycal and psyhological) from his mother because she hated him due to his appearance, and it would last until his early-adulthood, giving him a deep hatred towards his mother and humanity. The only good influence in his childhood came from his father, who treated him with the kindness and love that his mother never gave him. Witnesing his father's murder, along with the imprisonment and eventual rape from his mother, completely shell-shocked Billy for life.
Since most of the horrific events in his childhood happened during the Christmas season, Billy became obsessed with the holiday itself, as evident when he revealed his twisted view on Christmas during a phone call because he equate it to all the suffering he endured. Billy also seems to have a complicated relationship with his half-sister/daughter Agnes. At first, he resented her for gaining the attention and love he never received from Constance, which is why he disfigured her to make her look ugly in the first place. After reuniting with her as an adult, however, he seemes to have let go of his jealousy and came to respect her, to the point he was upset when she died and attempted to avenge her death.
Quotes[]
Original[]
To Be Added
Remake[]
| “ | Where is Agnes? Billy! What your mother and I must know is where is Agnes? Merry Christmas, Agnes. You are in my house, I can see you. Everyone should be home for Christmas! Santa Claus is dead. | „ |
| ~ One of Billy's calls to his old home. |
| “ | She's my family now. | „ |
| ~ Billy mentioning Agnes to his shocked mother. |
| “ | I'm going to kill you! | „ |
| ~ An enraged Billy over the phone to the girls of the sorority house. |
Gallery[]
Images[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- After seeing the ending of the 1974 film, studio executives asked director Bob Clark to change the ending. The proposed idea was to have the police leave Jess alone with Chris Hayden, Clare's boyfriend. She wakes up and he says, "Agnes, don't tell them what we did." before murdering her. However, Clark refused and insisted that the ending be left up to the audience's interpretation.
- He supposedly suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obesessive-compulsive disorder (or, at least, the latter in the 2006 remake only), intermittent explosive disorder, and perhaps even from severe mixed personality disorder (it also thinks of some type of paraphilia). Probably, 2006 remake Billy is even autistic, given that he didn't understand his mom's intentions before the latter raped him, and he offered no resistance during the rape.
- It is implied through dialogue that Billy had committed other crimes before his initial killing spree, such as the murder of a local girl in a park and the rape of another young woman weeks earlier, according to Clare.
- It is unknown how long before the events of the film that Billy had been calling #6 Belmont Street.
- Bob Clark revealed a backstory for the character in a documentary for the original film; the character was the mentally unstable firstborn-son of two parents, whom he murdered on Christmas eve. He then locked his baby sister, Agnes, up in the basement, but she escaped and went to the police, resulting in him being sent to a psychiatric hospital.
- The Writers of Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon have explained that the character of Eugene was intended to be Billy from the 1974 film.
External Links[]
- The original film incarnation of Billy on the Black Christmas Wiki
- The remake film incarnation of Billy on the Black Christmas Wiki
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 Villains
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