William Edward Lenz (also known as Billy Lenz) is the main antagonist in the 2006 remake of Black Christmas. The character is based on the unnamed main antagonist commonly referred to as Billy, from the original film. He is portrayed by Cainan Wiebe as a child and Robert Mann as an adult.
Biography[]
Tortured Childhood[]
Billy was born in 1970 to Constance Lenz and Franklin "Frank" Lenz under the name William Edward Lenz. Born with severe jaundice due to a rare liver disease that made his skin yellow, he was despised by his mother who psychologically and physically abused him. Billy's father, however, was very warm-hearted and pampered his son, and tried to bring happiness to him whenever his cruel wife tried ruining events like Christmas. It could be said that Billy's father was quite possibly the only positive influence in his life. This positive influence, however, sadly was not to last. Mrs. Lenz was unsatisfied with her husband, and at an unknown period of time, she took a new lover.
Whether Billy knew about the affair is unknown. Then on Christmas in 1975, when Billy was five years old, Mrs. Lenz and her lover murdered her husband with a hammer, which Billy witnessed while peeking underneath the door. While she and her lover were burying Billy's father under the house, they caught Billy watching and chased him up into the attic, which Mrs. Lenz then locked him up.
In 1982, Mrs. Lenz discovered that she was unable to conceive a child with her lover-turned-husband due to his impotency. Determined on conceiving a child, she entered the attic and raped Billy. Even though Billy was 12 years old at the time, Mrs. Lenz becomes pregnant with Billy's child and that same year she gave birth to a girl who she named Agnes, who, despite being inbred, was treated like a little queen by Billy's mother and her lover, the love that Billy was denied by his mother. Mrs. Lenz would never tell her new husband about the "affair", making him believe that he was the child's father.
Murdering His Mother[]
Nine years later, on Christmas Day in 1991, all the years of pent-up rage from his abuse and neglect finally caused Billy to snap. Escaping from the confines of the dark attic, Billy viciously attacked Agnes while his mother was in the kitchen, covering her head with a plastic bag as he proceeded to disfigure her face with a knife. Hearing her screams, Billy's mother and stepfather rushed into the living room in time to witness Billy removing Agnes' right eye and devouring it.
Noticing his mother, Billy began taunting her by saying that Agnes was "his family now". His stepfather then charged at him but was quickly killed when Billy impaled his head with a sharpened Christmas decoration straight through his eye. Billy then turns to his abusive mother, as the source of all his years of suffering and unhappiness, wrapped Christmas lights around her neck and dragged her across the kitchen. Grabbing a rolling pin, Billy then proceeded to viciously beat her to death with it, 13 times. The source of his fury now dead, he then proceeded to tear off chunks of his mother's flesh with a cookie cutter, placing the pieces in the oven.
A little while later, the police broke into the house, revealing the carnage that Billy had caused. They found Agnes crying in pain in a pool of her own blood, surrounded by the mutilated corpses of her mother and "father", and nearby Billy sat cheerfully eating the freshly-baked "cookies" made from his mother's flesh and some milk.
Incarceration[]
Arrested for his crimes, while Agnes was sent to an orphanage, Billy was later found by the courts to be criminally insane and was sent to a psychiatric facility where he remained for the next 15 years. During his stay there, Billy underwent thirteen failed escape attempts from the psychiatric facility, all of which took place on Christmas Eve. Sometime during this span, the Lenz home was sold and turned into a sorority house. The new inhabitants of the Lenz family house knew about the Lenz family and the murders committed by Billy and for reasons unknown they began regularly and unwisingly sending him presents each Christmas.
Escape and Killing spree[]
On December 24, 2006, approximately fifteen years after murdering his mother and stepfather, Billy finally managed to escape the facility, killing one of the security guards with a candy cane in the neck, which he had sharpened into a shiv. As he made his escape Billy came across a man dressed as Santa who regularly made visits to the facility in order to cheer up the places residents. He slaughtered the man and stole his clothes, walking out of the facility undetected, and throws the body into the dumpster.
After his escape, Billy began his trek back home. Managing to get to a phone, he called his old home, rambling and harassing the house's new residents until one of the sorority girls, Lauren Hannon taunted him. Enraged, Billy threatened to kill them all before hanging up. Arriving at his childhood home he proceeded to murder one of the house's inhabitants, Heather Fitzgerald, right inside the car after Mrs. MacHenry cleans the front car window's windshield with a snowbrush, and killed shortly after by a falling icicle as she fumbles. Entering the house, Billy made his way to the attic, the place he was imprisoned for most of his childhood.
Emerging in front of the house's sole survivors Kelli Presley and Leigh Colvin, reuniting with Agnes, who is revealed to be just as murderous and insane as her father/brother as well as the one responsible for the murders of most of the house's inhabitants. Both Agnes and Billy then converge on Kelli, with Agnes managing to knock herself and Kelli into the empty space between the walls of the house. Before Billy is able to finish her off, Kelli is saved by Leigh, while the attic is set on fire, leaving both Agnes and Billy to burn to death in the blazing inferno.
Death[]
Billy and Agnes manage to escape the burning house, with Billy left seriously burnt from the fire. Together, the two make their way to the hospital, where Kelli and Leigh were staying. Entering the hospital, Billy slaughtered the morgue attendant with an electric bonesaw, leaving Agnes to kill the two survivors. After Agnes murders Leigh with a neck snap, she attempted to kill Kelli but was subsequently electrocuted by Kelli with the defibrillators to the face, killing her.
Entering the room shortly after this, Billy, enraged by the death of his sister/daughter, pursued Kelli through the hospital hallway. Seemingly cornering her at the stairwell, the two engage in a brief fight, with Billy taking the lead by slashing Kelli with a scalpel, but Kelli overpowers him and manages to toss Billy off the railing, knocking him down a few stories and, plummeting to the ground below, Billy is impaled through the back on the tip of the top of a Christmas tree used to decorate the facility, finally putting an end to his serial killing spree rampage.
Legacy[]
His bloody rampage which started on December 25, 1991, and ended with his death on December 24, 2006, at the age of 36 years old, during his killing spree Billy Lenz brutally murdered six individuals and horrifically disfigured his daughter/sister Agnes on Christmas in 1991, this incident left Agnes psychologically imbalanced and disturbed so much that this would also lead to her becoming a serial killer like her father/brother, which ended in her death on December 24th in 2006.
Personality[]
From an early age, Billy Lenz was subject to severe physical and psychological abuses at the hands of his mother, who hated him due to his appearance. This abuse would last into Billy's early adulthood, and as a result, gave him a deep-seated fury towards his mother and humanity. The only positive influence on the young Billy was his father, who treated him with the kindness and love he would never receive from his mother, after witnessing his mother and her lover murder his father. The resulting imprisonment, and the later rape he suffered at the hands of his mother deeply shell shocked Billy.
Most of the horrific events in Billy's childhood occurred during the Christmas season and, as a result, he became obsessed with the holiday itself, which he equated to all the suffering he endured. This is best shown during the phone call sequence where he reveals a very twisted view on the holiday itself.
Billy also seems to have a complicated relationship with his sister/daughter Agnes, though he does display something resembling jealousy at the love and attention she was given as a child by his mother, which resulted in his disfiguring her to make her look as ugly as what their mother thought of him as. However, after reuniting with her as an adult, they both display mutual respect for each other to the extent where Billy is visibly upset when she is killed.
Quotes[]
- "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