Created by A. Roy Moore Occupation College student Played by Olivia Hussey | Portrayed by Olivia Hussey Nationality Canadian Movie Black Christmas | |
Full name Jessica "Jess" Bradford Similar Barbara Machenry, Audra Denbrough, Ginny Field | ||
Jess is a fictional character in the Black Christmas franchise. She was created by A. Roy Moore and portrayed by actress Olivia Hussey. She is the primary protagonist of the 1974 original film. The character also appears in the novelization of the film. Black Christmas (1974) was praised for challenging gender roles with Jess receiving acclaim for the way she was written and the way that she was portrayed by Hussey.
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Jess, along with the other characters in Black Christmas, was praised for having characterization. She has been regarded as one of the most influential heroines in film and is considered to be one of the greatest final girls.
Olivia Hussey was set to reprise her role in a sequel to the original film shortly after the release of the 2006 reboot. However, the film was scrapped after the death of Bob Clark.
Appearances
In the original Black Christmas, Jess is a sorority member of the sorority house Pi Kappa Sig. Jess, along with her sorority sisters, began to receive disturbing phone calls from an disorientated man. During a Christmas party, Jess receives another obscene phone call and lets Barb, Phyl, Clare and several other girls to listen to the incoherent ramblings of the disturbed caller, who does several different voices within each call he makes. The next day, Jess meets with her boyfriend, Peter, to tell him that she is pregnant and getting an abortion which causes him to get upset. Jess later attends a search party to help find a missing girl. After the girl's corpse is found, Jess heads home and receives another phone call. She calls the police and, unaware that Peter is in the house until he startles her and argues with her. He leaves as the police come and tap the phone. She manages to keep the caller on the phone long enough for the police to trace the call and they tell her the man is calling from inside the house.
Jess calls for Phyl and Barb and grabs a fireplace poker and goes upstairs. She discovers the corpses of her friends and then sees the eyes of the caller who reveals himself as Billy looking at her through the door crack, telling her not to "tell what we did, Agnes..." before she slams the door on him. He then chases her downstairs and grabs her hair as she tries to unlock the front door. Jess manages to escape, fleeing to the basement with a fire poker for protection.
She locks the door just as Billy starts to bang on the door in rage. As Jess wanders the basement, she sees Peter looking into the window, and Jess kills him, believing him to be the killer. The police then hear her screams. They sedate Jess and unknowingly leave her in the house with the real killer, Billy, who is in the attic. Her fate is left ambiguous. Jess appears as the main character in the novelization of the film.
Shortly after the release of the 2006 reboot, Bob Clark began to work on a direct sequel to the original film. Olivia Hussey was set to reprise her role as Jess. In this film, Jess would have been the new house mother of the sorority house. The film was eventually abandoned after the untimely death of Clark.
Reception
In The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies, Peter Normanton praised the importance that Jess has on the film saying "Jessica Bradford (Olivia Hussey) has to confront a dilemma in her own life, one that will have a major bearing on the outcome of this film."
In Fright Xmas, Alan-Bertaneisson Jones stated that the plot of Black Christmas did not focus on the killer but rather on Jess and the other girls from the film, saying that "This is quite refreshing, because unlike in later movies where the victims (especially the female ones) are just a line of meat to feed to the grinder, in this film Jessica is a much more fully realized character; a character with great courage, intelligence and strength (more akin to Laurie from Halloween, Ripley from the Alien movies or Sidney from the Scream movies than most female victims of slashers, perhaps especially in the 1980s)."
In Son of the 100 Best Movies You've Never Seen, Richard Crouse praised Olivia's performance saying "Hussey brings a quiet strength to Jess that hints at a fountain of inner resolve." and noted the complexity around her character stating that "In Black Christmas Jess rebels against her boyfriend, planning to have an abortion. Clearly she is no virgin, and yet she is the sole survivor of Billy's rampage."