Mary Elizabeth Winstead Movie:

Editorial Review:
Needless and unnecessary are two words that have little meaning in Hollywood, especially when you're talking sequels or remakes. Case in point: Black Christmas, the revisionist version of the 1974 horror thriller largely thought to be the proto-slasher movie (this was four years before the first Halloween installment). The original, from director Bob Clark, is still considered a masterpiece of tension, understatement, innovative camera perspective, economic efficiency (a polite way of saying "ultra-low budget"), and killing off pretty young girls in grisly ways without any cumbersome exposition regarding the psychopath's motives. This, by the way, from the same Bob Clark who would soon bring us the beloved Porky's franchise as well as Black Christmas's polar opposite, the sweetly nostalgic classic A Christmas Story. Anyway, as needless and unnecessary as this remake is, it certainly delivers the goods on 21st-century slasher conventions as the sorority sisters of Alpha Kappa are picked off during Christmas break in ever more gruesome fashion. There's nothing wrong with all of this, particularly for fans of impalements, crushed skulls, ripped-out eyeballs, and some good old-fashioned Christmas cookie cannibalism. Writer-director Glen Morgan, who earned his own credibility as co-creator of the Final Destination series and the interesting 2003 remake of Willard adds a few clever visual homages to the original along with the amped-up extreme gore. Clark's device (was he the first to use it?) of creepy, mouth-breathing phone calls from killer to victim remains intact and creepy. He also resurrects Andrea Martin, one of the then-unknown actor victims who, now famous, plays the prim housemother. Another addition, which may not be so welcome to purists of the genre, is a load of exposition and backstory for the killer. Disturbing as these flashback set pieces are, they're also somewhat distracting to the foreboding tone. But you get what you pay for, and lots of people are going to pay dearly to dream of the shocking frights another Black Christmas will bring. --Ted Fry

Black Christmas Reviews:
Fair but un-needed remake of a horror classic!
2009-10-23 -

Bill Lenz (Robert Mann) was a psychopathic child who would love to murder and had a rare skin disease that made him yellow like a Simpsons character. He molested his mother and she had an inbreded child that would become his sister/daughter and years later he gets locked up in a mental ward where he now escapes to go back to his home. Soriety sisters Dana (Lacey Chabert), Melissa (Michelle Tracthenberg), Keli (Katie Cassidy) and Heather (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) are now owners of the house that belong to Billy's family once now purchased by the local university. It seems Billy is on a rampage making prank calls in the house and causing all sorts of gory mayhem to some of the sisters and guests.

Unneccesery remake of a brilliant 1974 Canadian horror classic from Bob Clark is quite a watchable and very violent one. James Hong ("Final Destination") directs this version with Clark as producer, the film co-stars Andrea Martin in an appearence who starred in the original movie. The original was more of a Hitchcock Psycho-esque thriller that inspired "Halloween" and many slasher movies for years to come, this one is more of a "Friday The 13th"-esque gorefeast of grueling scenes like cannibalism, eyeball mutilation that would make Fulci smile and more. The acting isn't too bad and it's a watchable remake but inferior to the original movie.

This DVD contains the unrated cut with more violence not shown in the theatrical version and has some decent extras like a featurette, a filmmaker's journal, deleted scenes and 3 alternate endings.

Sigh...
2009-09-05 - The original Black Christmas is one of my all-time favorite movies. The boogieman in the attic remained a fear of mine throughout the 70's after watching this show way too young. Sadly, and perhaps predictably, the remake is just a bunch of overblown violence, really terrible acting, and gore that is just too dumb to be scary.

I wish movie makers would get back to psychological, suspenseful thrillers and move away from this trend of mindless blood and guts crap. Today's "scary" movies give too much away. It's not about continuous slashing and screaming, it's about the creepy music and shadows slithering up behind you.

Black Christmas 2006 is perfect for the lazy viewer who can't be bothered with a good storyline or edge-of-the-seat suspense. For that reason, I'm rating it two stars. If you're more mature than that, however, stick with the original. You'll probably hate this remake.

Couldn't sustain early success with atmosphere and setting.
2009-08-20 - Inferior remakes of classic horror movies are the reality of today's horror genre. Most of the remakes are terrible, but many of us horror film lovers go see them anyway out of curiosity. You know what they say, "curiosity killed the cat"--as well as my wallet. As we all know, the very idea of horror film remakes represents a lack of imagination on the part of today's Hollywood. The horror genre obviously isn't what it used to be, and with movies being produced like the remake of "The Fog", it just can't get much worse...or can it?

Before I even begin to dissect this remake, I want to make it clear that I think that the original "Black Christmas" is one of the greatest horror movies ever produced. The remake of "Black Christmas" involves an insane killer (who killed certain members of his family) who escapes from a mental institution to go on another killing rampage. This idea is a bit different from the plot of the original "Black Christmas" in that the killer in the original film was very mysterious throughout the film, whereas the remake attempts to create a motive for Billy's insanity. I think the original is more with less. In other words, by keeping the audience in the dark, the original makes it that much more uncomfortable for the audience, and the killer is scarier that way as opposed to the "in your face" style of the remake. From that standpoint, as well as every other standpoint, the original is clearly superior to the remake.

Unfortunately, the liberties that the creators of the remake took with the remaking of this film were largely ill-advised. Comparisons aside, I must confess that I really disliked the twist in this remake as I felt that it was a rather rash and poorly concocted idea that was unimaginative, unnecessary and completely ineffective. As far as the good for the remake, the repetitiveness of the "Nutcracker" music was a plus in the way it was used insofar as it was effective at producing a creepy atmosphere during Christmas. I also liked the colored Christmas lights as I thought that this visual aspect along with the music made for an eerie little Christmas setting and an effective horror movie atmosphere; thus, the two stars instead of zero stars. It's amazing how colors and music can make a big difference in the setting and atmosphere for a given horror movie. However, with that being said, the creators of this flick really didn't do much with the horror film atmosphere they were able to generate.

In this movie, the kills were just okay, but nothing to write home about. Moreover, there was very little suspense or tension in the movie. In fact, the movie did not flow well at all, causing it to be boring at times. It almost seemed like the creators of this flick got lost or didn't know what to do shortly after the film started and, consequently, they tried to fill space with some flashbacks regarding Billy's upbringing, an ill-advised subplot regarding Billy's littler sister, and kills that seemed just thrown in there. The dialogue was absolutely pathetic, and the characters were largely undeveloped, unlikable and generic.

Another criticism of this remake is that the ending seemed forced and very unnatural, almost like they knew that the remake was so inferior to the original that they had to try something over the top. In short, this movie was unable to sustain any momentum or deliver any consistent horror whatsoever despite the early success with the setting and atmosphere. While it was set up fairly well, the remake of "Black Christmas never really got off the ground.

Overall, this was a rather disappointing movie. Still, there is a degree of entertainment value with this movie, but nothing to write home about. There are very few effective Christmas horror movies, and this one really isn't one of them, but the atmosphere and situation of the movie allows for an effective horror movie setting, but, ultimately, there's just no meat on the bones here. Indeed, the real losers in this movie were the script, the twist, the acting and the execution of this movie, all of which represent a serious step down from the perfection of the original classic. I feel like Santa Claus by giving this movie 2 STARS, but that's only for the good setting and atmosphere (which I'm very big on) the movie created along with a few decent kills indicative of a fairly decent slasher. These are the only qualities that make this movie consumable in any way. That being said, the remake of "Black Christmas" isn't a very scary movie at all, and, quite honestly, that's not nearly enough to make this into a good movie. My advice is to buy the original classic, but only rent the remake if that curiosity I spoke of above gets the better of you.


Incoherently Terrible
2009-05-07 - I can fully appreciate a bad horror movie, due to bad acting, a silly story, bad special effects, etc. Unfortunately, this movie has all of that, and an absolute lack of any cohesive element. Even good bad movies have some semblance of a plot and cinematic style that has some identifiable element. Not here. The camera work is horrible, the sets are terrible, the lighting is often so low that you can't really discern what's happening (and not in a good dreadful kind of way). Enough. avoid this movie.

Poorest of the remakes . . .
2009-05-04 - I was sorely disappointed with this, though not entirely surprised that it flopped, and would rank it one of the most ineffectual horror remakes of all the recent wave, and that's from someone who's always felt that the original left plenty of room for improvement at a later date. The visuals are there, and that's about it. There's one too many killers (and we see them way too early for a movie about "calls coming from inside the house!"), a bloated, ugly back story that wasn't really necessary (though it's good for a few uncomfortable giggles), and virtually NO tension. I found the girls--both as characters AND as characterizations--to be so absolutely interchangeable that I literally lost track of who was who, and worse, stopped caring about them very early on. Even the hairstyles didn't help me; how sad is that? I kept getting this vibe that the director (Glen Morgan) was TRYING not to utilize the cinematic "language" and touchstones that have come to define the slasher genre sparked in large part by the original BLACK CHRISTMAS, which begs the question: why bother? Interview bites in the supplementary material reveal that Morgan does indeed hate many of the tropes of the genre he's working in with this film and was often forced to use them, and he's clearly still sore from the sting left by the critical and commercial failure of his first film, WILLARD, to the point where even he figures his directing career might be over if BLACK CHRISTMAS doesn't make a lot of money. Big surprise that it didn't. Turning genre cliches on their ears (especially with a concept like this one), or avoiding them altogether, takes a much surer hand than Morgan's. His partner James Wong probably has that hand, but then again, there's that DRAGON BALL thingy, so . . . One piece of humor I found amusing in this otherwise humorless film: when dorky Eve (the only girl that didn't blend with the others) gives one of the other girls a gift of a glass unicorn because "I know you're into the bible 'n stuff." Now THAT's a keeper. Just too bad it had to be used in such a crummy movie.