(Ugh…)
CAST: Katie Cassidy, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Lacey Chabert, Crystal Lowe, Andrea Martin, Kristen Cloke, Michelle Trachtenberg, Oliver Hudson, Jessica Harmon, Kathleen Kole, Leela Savasta, Robert Mann.
DIRECTOR: Glen Morgan
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some very compelling reasons to get your ass on that first plane, train, bus, or car headed home - just as soon as finals are over, straight ahead….
IT’S LIKE THIS: In this lame remake of the 1974 proto-slasher BLACK CHRISTMAS, eight sorority sisters (Katie Cassidy, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Lacey Chabert, Crystal Lowe, Michelle Trachtenberg, Leela Savasta, Kathleen Cole, Jessica Harmon) and their dippy housemother (Andrea Martin) stay behind in their house over the Holidays. Normally, that would be sucky enough. But it turns out that a family massacre occurred at the house like, a hundred years ago or some shit, before it became a sorority house. And to further turdify the Christmas punch bowl, the whackjob maniac (Robert Mann) responsible has just escaped from his loony bin - and he wants to come home for Christmas. And he ain’t gonna be too happy to find out his childhood home has been taken over by a bunch of skanks. Guess they should’ve called it RED CHRISTMAS. Or better yet, they shouldn’t have made it at all…
THE DUDE (OR DUDETTE) MOST LIKELY TO SAVE THE DAY: Unlike the similarly-plotted but much, much better-executed SORORITY ROW, this flick is filled with chicks who have the survival instincts of moths - as in: instead of fleeing from danger, they run right into the goddamn thing. But if I had to pick one heroic gal, it would be Kelli (Katie Cassidy) - who is the only blonde in the cast, and is probably the smartest. Go, girl! Bust that “Dumb Blonde Stereotype!”
EYE CANDY MOST LIKELY TO FIRE UP A WOODY: All the girls are hot, especially Katie Cassidy, Crystal Lowe, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead - but I have to go with Oliver Hudson on this one, who plays Kelli’s unfaithful boyfriend Kyle:
MOST INTENTIONALLY SCARY SCENE: We’re picking for crumbs here, but I guess the scene where Dana (Lacey Chabert) does the “Dumb Horror Movie Chick” thing and crawls under the house to fix the power…. It’s really not even all that scary. But when you’re picking for crumbs, folks…
MOST UNINTENTIONALLY HILARIOUS SCENE: The stupid scene where these chicks FINALLY decide to leave the house - and STILL fuck up their escape. My. GOD. LADIES. What the HELL is your PROBLEM? It’s easy: open the door, then FUCKING RUN! And keep on RUNNING!. What the FUCK?
HOTTEST SCENE: Like I said, these chicks are all very hot. But they’re too busy being dense and getting killed to, you know, paw each other and shit. And Kyle refuses to prance around in nothing but a Santa hat and jockstrap, like I kept hoping for... Which is inexplicable since he’s supposed to be a frat boy. Why no skin? WHY!?!?! Another reason I hate this film…
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW: Will any of these lemmings survive? Who cares? Well, that’s not entirely true: I would like Kelli and Kyle to live. But everyone else? Fuck them.
WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH “BLACK CHRISTMAS”: If you like to watch thoroughly misguided, not to mention utterly ill-conceived and executed, remakes to classic horror movies. And if you don’t mind torturing your brain for 90 minutes. If so, God be with you…
WHY YOU MAY NOT ENJOY “BLACK CHRISTMAS”: If you like your horror flicks to, you know, actually be decent. And if you love the original 1974 classic, in which case this film will send you into paroxysms of rage and disbelief.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: When the original BLACK CHRISTMAS was released back in 1974, it paved the way for the rise of the Slasher Genre. HALLOWEEN (1978) is often cited as the Granddaddy of the Modern Slasher Film, but that is not entirely accurate. That title truly belongs to BLACK CHRISTMAS. While HALLOWEEN was the bigger box-office hit and is indeed a great film, it basically just took the tropes established by BLACK CHRISTMAS and turbo-charged them. The fact remains, however, that HALLOWEEN didn’t create them. BLACK CHRISTMAS did.
Those tropes are as follows: (1) an isolated setting; (2) a young cast of characters who are imperiled; and (3) a vicious killer who targets them one-by-one until only one (usually referred to as “The Final Girl”) is left to confront the killer. BLACK CHRISTMAS presented all these elements in such a scary, hypnotic way that the movie stayed with you long after the end credits stopped rolling. And its ending is one of the most unforgettably terrifying endings of all time, which is something that HALLOWEEN even tried to imitate but couldn’t top.
With the recent craze for horror classic remakes that eventually brought us new versions of PROM NIGHT, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, HALLOWEEN, APRIL FOOL’S DAY, and MY BLOODY VALENTINE, it’s only natural that the one that started it all in the first place would be given the same treatment. When I heard in 2005 that BLACK CHRISTMAS was being remade and had begun casting, I was thrilled. That excitement, however, was tempered by a certain apprehension. What if they screw it up? I comforted myself with the idea that the remake didn’t have to be as good as the original - just good enough.
Turns out I would be very disappointed. Put simply, the remake is terrible. It is staggering to note just how much the new film gets wrong compared to the original. Whereas BLACK CHRISTMAS 1974 was an unsettling exercise in mood, dread, and gradually-escalating terror, BLACK CHRISTMAS 2006 destroys any chance of decent atmosphere and suspense by revealing too much about the killer’s backgrond, giving us too many characters (flat ones at that), and going overboard with the gore. These are simply the major points the remake seriously fumbles, but I assure you there are many minor ones.
Whereas the original purposefully kept “Billy’s” history a mystery, and only gave us some disturbing clues to piece together, the remake practically spells everything out - leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. And what is left to the imagination can be more terrifying than anything overtly explained. This might have been tolerable or even forgivable if director Glen Morgan hadn’t concocted the most patently absurd backstory possible. It ends up being so over-the-top that it ultimately fails to be scary - and is just ridiculous. And this seriously neuters the killer, making him much less of a threat.
Then there are the characters. In the original, we had a total of four sorority sisters and the housemother. In the remake we have EIGHT sorority sisters PLUS the housemother PLUS the older sister of one of the girls who shows up unexpectedly PLUS the heroine’s boyfriend. So, basically, the cast more than doubles in number. Again, all this might be okay if Morgan and his writers had done a good job of fleshing them out and making them all distinct from one another. Unfortunately, they don’t - and it becomes difficult to tell the girls apart. With the exception of Katie Cassidy as Kelli, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Heather, and Crystal Lowe as Lauren, all the other girls look and sound alike. This was not an issue in BLACK CHRISTMAS ‘74, where the four main girls were all distinct and vivid enough for us to register as solid characters - which made us more concerned for their survival. In BLACK CHRISTMAS ‘06, we see most of them as interchangeable with each other - and we don’t care if they make it or not. Katie Cassidy, Crystal Lowe, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are likable, but they don’t get much help from the script.
Then there’s the gore. Now, let me be upfront and say I have a strong stomach, but that doesn’t mean I like gore in my horror films. If anything, I prefer the movies that try to frighten us through mood, suspense, and dread - instead of throwing gross stuff at us. And that is exactly what BLACK CHRISTMAS ‘74 did quite well. Even though the film has several murders, there’s only one that is somewhat bloody - and even then it is done with restraint. In the remake, however, we get explicit cannibalism, mutilations, eye-gougings, bludgeoning, etc. - and even more in the United Kingdom version of the movie. It’s just all so thoroughly unpleasant. Basically, what the original film only hinted at, the remake blatantly and repellently exposes. In the end, this movie leaves you with a sick feeling. Instead of the scary one that the original film did.
In the end, BLACK CHRISTMAS 2006 is a textbook example of how to take a beloved and formidable classic - and screw it up so thoroughly. And if there was a horror film that deserved a worthy remake, it was BLACK CHRISTMAS 1974. As it is, this remake is the second worse one I’ve seen, after the remake to APRIL FOOL’S DAY. Even the PROM NIGHT remake is better, and that is saying something.
