RIP Bob Clark

By now you've probably heard that director Bob Clark, the man behind the seminal 1974 slasher film Black Christmas, was killed yesterday in a Los Angeles car crash. Both Clark and his 22-year-old son Ariel were killed when their sedan was struck head-on by an SUV...driven by an intoxicated man. Who was driving without a license. And who only sustained minor injuries. To call this incredibly depressing is a gross understatement.

If you've been here a while, you know how very much I love Black Christmas, but I also have a huge soft spot (as do most people I know) for Clark's other Christmas film, A Christmas Story. Then there's the campy '70s zombie flick, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, a film whose title alone was enough to incite terror in me when I was young. Clark, in fact, was in pre-production on a remake of Children at the time of his death. I was looking forward to his return to horror after years spent creating mediocre family fare such as Baby Geniuses. His career was nothing if not varied, however, as he brought us everything from horror (Black Christmas, Deathdream, Children...) to frat-house comedies (Porky's) to an excuse to get Dolly Parton and Sylvester Stallone on-screen together at last (Rhinestone) to beloved family films (A Christmas Story) to something called The Karate Dog which probably isn't as cool as I want it to be.

Read more about his sad passing here.