Black Christmas

Black Christmas

Starring Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Lacey Chabert

Directed by Glen Morgan

The Story:
Sorority girls Kelli (Katie Cassidy), Melissa (Michelle Trachtenberg), Heather (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Dana (Lacey Chabert), and a few others decide to stay at their sorority house during Christmas break, along with their headmistress Barbara MacHenry (Andrea Martin).  The house is already the talk of the college as it's the same home of serial killer Billy Lenz (Robert Mann), who's currently in an insane asylum, but of course Billy escapes and makes his way back to his old home to murder the girls and reclaim what was once his.

The Synopsis:
The original "Black Christmas" - directed by Bob Clark, who also directed another Christmas classic, "A Christmas Story" - has been hailed as the mother of current slasher movies, and served as the film that inspired John Carpenter to write and direct "Halloween," which itself went on to spur other classic slashers like "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" to be made.  Essentially "Black Christmas" gave the world the perfect anti-Christmas gift, and without it the horror landscape would be irrevocably different.  So in honor of this beautiful angel at the top of the Christmas tree, director Glen Morgan decided to drop a big hefty stinky lump of coal underneath with his heartless, generic, terrible remake that should never be even uttered in polite company.

This film, as the original, follows the lives of several sorority sisters who remain in their sorority house during Christmas break, as an unseen killer stalks and kills them one-by-one.  That's basically the only similarity between this and the beloved classic, as this one has adopted the now-typical over-the-hill gore that the original didn't use at all, but instead relied on good old fashioned suspense and strong writing to deliver an unnerving film.  This one was just plain silly from start to finish, and provided absolutely no scares whatsoever - except the fear that this film was thought of in the first place.

As it does with remakes and sequels, this "Black Christmas" decides to give life to the original's killer, and I won't give anything away regarding the original, but there was never extended flashback sequences of Billy's childhood there.  But here we get to see Billy grow up in the home with a mother that would make Casey Anthony look like mother of the year, and throw in pretty much every dark, disturbing thing that could ever happen to a child, but this time it's more comedic than tragic.  We're not supposed to sympathize with the villain, and it looks like Morgan wanted us to feel bad for Billy's plight - but it's all but impossible due to the over-the-top nature of it all.

The girls this time around showcase absolutely no differentiation between them, and the only reason I remembered who was who was due to their famous faces, as this was one of the earliest films for these now-established stars.  Katie Cassidy ("Arrow"), Michelle Trachtenberg ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), Mary Elizabeth Winstead ("Scott Pilgrim vs. the World") and Lacey Chabert ("Mean Girls") all appear as the sorority sisters who basically serve as bodies for Billy's eventual return, and offer nothing else than that.  Somehow, they convinced Andrea Martin (who starred in the original as Phyl) to return as the new denmother, and only she seems to see the Christmas lights at the end of the tunnel.

The film relies heavily on its gore factor, and does so in a way that diminishes the importance of it.  I found myself laughing more than screaming as the girls were getting dispatched by ice skates, garden forks, and even an ill-placed icicle while showcasing extreme graphic gore that scientifically would never had happened.  When in doubt of a feeble script, rely more on the gore seemed to be the motto here, and not even that spares it from becoming something worse than generic - it's absolutely unnecessary.

The Summary:
The original "Black Christmas" was a slasher classic, and re-ignited the slasher genre for a new generation.  2006's "Black Christmas" was nothing more than a gimmicky cash grab, a soulless remake filled with over-the-top gore and an unnecessary backstory that no one asked for - and ends up as something worse than a coal in your Christmas stocking.

The Score: D-