By Geno McGahee
In 1974, the Bob Clark classic “BLACK CHRISTMAS” was released and is one of the most suspenseful and scary horror films ever created. The film relied on pacing and a less is more approach. It inspired HALLOWEEN. It was that good. So, after 32 years, Hollywood decided to give it another go and do it better. Well, that might have been the idea.
In the early 2000s, there were a lot of remakes. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003), HOUSE OF WAX (2005), THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005), THE FOG (2005), THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006), WHEN A STRANGER CALLS (2006), THE HITCHER (2007), PROM NIGHT (2008) and APRIL FOOLS DAY (2008) were just a handful of remakes or “re-imaginings” that were unleashed on the public and the public was eating them up, for the most part.
Written and Directed by Glen Morgan, BLACK CHRISTMAS starts off in your face. The iconic scene of the woman with the plastic bag placed over her head as her life escaped was replaced with a plastic bag placed over a victim’s head for about a second before a corkscrew gets driven through their head. We then go to Clark Sanitarium and I was wondering why it was so dark. You’d think that hospitals are always bright, but I guess they wanted the criminally insane to also be depressed.
Morgan was the writer of WILLARD and a couple of the FINAL DESTINATION films. I guess that qualified him, sort of and I’m guessing it wasn’t his fault on this one. I can imagine the producers coming to him and saying “you have to keep it simple for the audience. They’re not very smart and they need constant action.”
After only 10 minutes, Billy (Robert Mann), escapes the sanitarium by killing a guard with a candy cane. He also kills a Santa that showed up at the Sanitarium and also another sorority sister in the most brutal of fashions, once again using the plastic bag and then ripping out her eyeballs. Billy in the original made creepy phone calls and occasionally killed somebody. This Billy is going on an all-out killing spree, looking for a record is seems.
I have to give some credit to Karin Konoval, Billy’s mother in the flashbacks. She is hilariously over the top evil. She tells young Billy that the Russians killed Santa. She also kills Billy’s dad, screws another guy and they have a young daughter named Agnes. Agnes gets treated well and Billy is locked in the attic. The overacting by Konoval is glorious and I do appreciate her love of the holiday, answering the phone “Merry Christmas”.
I have to say that the phone calls that Billy makes in this one aren’t nearly as scary as the ones from the original. I’m not sure why they didn’t have people listen to them and say “how was that? Was it scary?” They just went with it. Perhaps Glen Morgan shat his pants when he heard and it said “we got it.” Different things scare different people I guess.
One of Billy’s phone calls he notes that “I’ll be home for Christmas and I’m going to bury the hatchet in your head.” That’s not scary. I often say that to family members on the rare occasion when they invite me to a family Christmas party. I don’t’ really mean it most of the time.
I learned a lot about Billy in this one. I found out that the family was inbred and that Billy killed his mother and made Christmas cookies out of her body. I’m not sure if seeing your father killed and being locked in an attack would make you a killer, but when you add in the inbreeding, it’s a definite probability. This is why I have stopped hanging out with all of my inbred friends that were locked in attics. I’m not taking any chances.
I was happy to see Michelle Trachtenberg in this. I loved EUROTRIP and she always had this charm about her and it’s even evident here with not such great material. She doesn’t do much now. Perhaps those Hollywood creeps scared her out of the game. I hope not, but this film was made by the Weinstein Company and we know about that fat creep.
The characters in this are so interchangeable. There is a lot of talent here to, but it’s not utilized at all. Lacey Chabert that does so many holiday films and can act has nothing to work with. This might be one holiday film she might not put on her resume. Katie Cassidy is a great actress that was in TAKEN deserves better than this, but then again, she opted to do the remake of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Perhaps she deserved such crap. Then again, work is work.
The kills continue and there are no scares or suspense here. Billy sneaks a peek through holes in the floor at women showering and doing other creepy things. I’m guessing he was jacking off. That’s pretty scary. Wouldn’t you be scared if a guy was jacking off inside your walls?
A severed head is found and the group and they elect to stay in the house with the exception of Ms. Mac (Andrea Martin) and Heather (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). They decide to do the smart thing and try to drive to the police station, but Billy was apparently ready for that shit. He is once again peeping. I am not sure why the producers of this film think that a random eyeball staring at you is terrifying, but it’s not. It was iconic in the 1974 original because of the buildup to it.
I’m not happy with how Trachtenberg is killed in this. The killer, (spoiler) , that can be Agnes or Billy, throws ice skates at her from short range and it chops off her entire face. I don’t think that’s possible at all. I could see it hurting or maybe even causing a bad bruise or cut, but chopping up an entire face is bullshit.
You get the answer you were all waiting for. Billy was jacking off. When Lauren (Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe) is killed, Billy found time to jack off next to her. I always felt that was missing from the original. I kept telling everyone that the film was good, but it needed an inbred guy that jacks off next to people when they sleep. I felt that it belongs in most movies. Imagine how it would improve a film like BREWSTER’S MILLIONS. It was the first film that popped in my head.
OK, so Billy and his sister/daughter, Agnes, are finally exposed and I wondered why they made a six hour horror film. I then realized that it was only a 90 minute film that just really dragged.
BLACK CHRISTMAS is a terrible film that has zero character development, zero scares, zero tension and it’s a shame because the cast is so solid. The fault here lies with the writing and development of this film. I’m guessing that there was pressure on those involved to make another remake of ANYTHING and it didn’t have to be good. The people were making the studio a ton of money off of horror remakes and this one didn’t score, but it doubled its budget.
The original BLACK CHRISTMAS is easily one of my favorite horror movies. This film captures none of that magic. It is just a bad slasher film with no soul. I cannot recommend this one even though I was amused here and there.
