Black Christmas (2006)

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Black Christmas (2006)

August 29th 2008 04:42

As my True Believin’ regular readers will be will aware I’m not that fond of the remake. Of course there are exceptions, but they are generally far and few between. Off the top of my decapitated head the truly great remakes number less than five; John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead (2004). Gee, that’s all I can think of. I’m a little fuzzy-brained this week, got a nasty head cold.

Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974) is a seminal modern horror movie. It pre-dated the birth of the slasher genre by several years, if you count Halloween (1978) as the date stamp for the stalk’n’slash flick, although arguably Mario Bava’s Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971) is the true bloodied blueprint.

Black Christmas 2006 Kristen Cloke, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Michelle Trachtenberg, Katie Cassidy

Kristen Cloke as Leigh, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Heather, Michelle Trachtenberg as Melissa and Katie Cassidy as Kelli

Screenwriter and director Glen Morgan, who along with James Wong created the hugely successful (and entertainingly visceral) Final Destination series, has produced a worthy remake to Clark’s original. Black Christmas (2006, Black X-mas as the promotional abbreviation), captures much of the original’s disturbing tone and content, and is just as stylishly shot. The eye candy – eye being the operative word – is delectable, just as the killings are vicious and horrific. Squeamish beware: the horror movie that presents the audience with ocular violence ticks my red box of wincing fun.

Black Christmas 2006 Andrea Martin and Lacey Chabert

Andrea Martin as Mrs. Mac and Lacey Chabert as Dana

The girls of Sorority House Alpha Kappa Gamma are preparing for snowbound Christmas celebrations, however one of them Clair (Leela Savasta) has just been murdered upstairs in her room as she was writing a Christmas card to her older half-sister Leigh (Kristen Cloke). The others, Melissa (Michelle Trachtenberg), Heather (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Dana (Lacey Chabert), Megan (Jessica Harmon), Lauren (Crystal Lowe), and house mother Mrs. Mac (Andrea Martin, from the original movie), are all downstairs, while Kelli (Katie Cassidy) is outside in a car talking with dodgy boyfriend Kyle (Oliver Hudson).

Crystal Lowe as Lauren

Meanwhile at the local insane asylum Billy Lenz (Robert Mann) is being served his Christmas dinner. Billy is serving time for having killed his drunken homicidal mother and her lover when he was twenty, after years of abuse; including incest and witnessing his mother murder his father. Billy even cannabilised on his mother’s flesh, baking cookies from her skin. Billy escapes and returns to the family home, which happens to be the sorority house, but not before he learn he has an in-bred daughter, Agnes (Dean Friss), born from his mother’s abuse.

Robert Mann as Billy

Black Christmas is a tale of Noël noir revenge, as each of the sorority sisters are picked off in gruesome fashion, most of them losing their eyes in the process. But is it just the work of twisted Billy? Will any of the poor girls survive the night and make the dawn of Boxing Day? In Glen Morgan's screenplay there is much exposition on the backstory of Billy, which only adds further darkness to the current festivities.

Karin Konoval as Billy's mother

Black Christmas features fluid camerawork and striking cinematography, a hallmark of director Morgan’s visual style; most of the movie, much like the look of Dario Argento’s witchcraft flicks Suspiria (1977) and Inferno (1980), is shot in primary colours – blues, reds, yellows – often provided by the Christmas decoration lights. The cold snowy exteriors creates a palpable sense of claustrophobia, which in turn is heightened when Billy infiltrates the sorority house and hides under the floorboards and up in the attic (where he was imprisoned as a boy by his mother and lover).

The acting is solid for a movie of this ilk, with notable performances from Karin Konoval as Billy’s mother in the flashbacks, Kristen Cloke as Leigh and Dean Friss as Agnes. Also memorable is Crystal Lowe (Wrong Turn 2: Dead End) as sourpuss Lauren, but (ahem) they may have something to do with her having a shower scene. Shame Mary Elizabeth Winstead, from Final Destination 3 (2006) and Death Proof (2007), wasn’t given more to chew on, while Lacey Chabert and Michelle Trachtenberg have certainly grown out of their adolescent television roles.

Black Christmas didn’t receive very good reviews, but I think the movie is definitely a cut above the rest of the contemporary slasher movies, partly because Glen Morgan chooses to stick closely to the tone and execution (pun intended) of traditional slasher flicks, rather than opting for that oh-so-annoying post-modern self-referential bullshit a la Wes Craven’s Scream(1996). The version of the movie available on DVD in Australia is the UK cut. I plan to purchase the US “unrated” version which features alternate death scenes and a wholly different ending. Why the filmmakers opt for this kind of wayward delivery of a movie is beyond me. Are the Brits and Yanks sensibilities really that different when dealing with horror movies??

Here's the trailer:

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

10 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by JohnDoe

August 29th 2008 04:56

Film & TV on DVD

Really?!?!? A remake that is worth looking at, I do dig on the original.

Comment by David O'Connell

August 29th 2008 05:15

Screen Fanatic

I'm probably the only one but I actually loved their remake of Willard a few years back with its brilliant Shirley Walker score and the always odd Crispin Glover perfectly cast I thought.

I've been meaning to see the original of Black Christmas for a while but it hasn't happened yet. Must look out for this remake too Bryn.

Morgan and Wong both did some excellent work on the X-Files too as writers.

Comment by JohnDoe

August 29th 2008 05:36

Film & TV on DVD

Hi David,

You are not alone, I too LOVED the Crispin Glover remake of Willard, tremendous atmosphere and Glover is sublime. One of the exceptions to the rule for sure!

Comment by cassiekins

August 29th 2008 16:11

I saw this a while back. I have never seen the original but i thought this was ok.
I thought some of the lines the girls came out with were quite funny and i didn't find it scary.
there was an alright twist at the end if i recall correctly - although through the movie i did have my suspicions!

I would be interested to see what the original was like I will have to look out for it.

Comment by Bryn

August 30th 2008 02:33

Horrorphile

David and Cassiekins, I forgot to include the link in my post, check out my review of the original here

Comment by Bryn

August 30th 2008 02:35

Horrorphile

Doh! I did include it, this cold is playing havoc with my head

Comment by Damo

September 2nd 2008 08:14

Icky Icky.
Talk about keeping an eye out for someone.

I don't know about this.
The original has been canned all over the place. Remakes usually bug the hell out of me, with few exceptions.

Comment by Bryn

September 3rd 2008 00:33

Horrorphile

Damo, I might be out on a limb here, but I really rather enjoyed this remake. I agree though, that remakes generally bug the hell out of me. I'm particularly perturbed by the remake of Suspiria in the pipeline. And the re-remake of The Thing.

Comment by Bethany

September 13th 2008 23:58

you must have caught the cold I had two weeks ago... through the internet. Somehow. I'm sure. Hope it's better now.

I have heard, and agree to an extent, that this movie did so poorly due to the season it came out in. I need to catch this flick, keep meaning to.