Black Christmas

Black Christmas

Starring Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Lily Donoghue, Brittany O'Grady

Directed by Sophia Takal

When people think of epic slashers in film history, some notable names come to mind: Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Chucky, Jason Voorhees...but hardly anyone thinks about Billy.  Who is Billy, you might ask?  He's the unknown stalker who's slowly killing sorority girls one-by-one in Bob Clark's classic "Black Christmas," a film that inspired John Carpenter to make another holiday-themed film: "Halloween," which then inspired the likes of Voorhees and Krueger...so essentially, without "Black Christmas," the slasher film landscape would be totally different.

The original film was one of the first female empowerment horror films that focused on a group of strong women who are ambushed by the deranged killer, and ultimately one managed to stand against him and fight back.  To this day it's one of the best slasher films out there, and in 2006 the film received a sleek, modern remake featuring some of the biggest up-and-coming stars of the big screen, but fell short due to an overuse of gore and violence instead of an actual story, and I felt that the "Black Christmas" legacy was tarnished for it.  Then Sophia Takal decided to re-reboot the film in 2019, and I was wrong - the 2006 remake didn't tarnish the legacy, this one did.  Not only did this "Black Christmas" tarnish the original's legacy, it completely de-valuated anything good the original had and turned it into a hackneyed #metoo movie that shoehorned in feminist ideologies in a completely overbearing way.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for #metoo and female empowerment, and I absolutely love it when men get their comeuppance by fierce femme fatales (so sorry, Elizabeth Banks, but not all men want to just see men kicking butt), but this film takes it to a whole new level by making the women completely insufferable due to their overbearing man-hate nature - which is ironic because the school they're attending was founded by an apparent woman-hating man and whose very essence degrades women left and right: be it sexist professors who blatantly say women need to stay in their place, or the gang of Abercrombie model men who assault women at will with no repercussions.

The film focuses on four sorority sisters: Riley (Imogen Poots), Kris (Aleyse Shannon), Marty (Lily Donoghue), and Jesse (Brittany O'Grady) as they spend the holidays at their sorority house, and are stalked by a gang of women-hating men with seemingly supernatural powers, or something like that.  The film's story is entirely convoluted and all over the place, and doesn't make a lick of sense.

The film is supposed to focus on female empowerment, but Riley was raped by one of the fraternity members before and he got away with it because no one believed her, and she's been carrying the survivor's guilt ever since, but seemingly receives little sympathy even from her sisters.  Kris is the most overbearing, who uses the female slang for manshaming every other line, and Marty and Jesse are basically blimps on the screen who do nothing but adhere to their stereotypical archtypes (Marty is pretty much defined by her boyfriend who's permanently attached to her side, and Jesse doesn't like conflict, gets nervous easily, and is unsure how to cook a ham).   The only character I cared about living or dying is the sorority's house cat (spoiler: she lives), and I couldn't care about anyone other than that.

There's hardly anything resembling the original that's used here, except for the one memorable kill involving Christmas tree lights, so the only reason I could think of for Takal to take on the title is to make people who are fond of the original see this one in hopes of reliving the magic, but that's not the case.  What we get instead if a heavily feminist set piece that's filled with plot holes, terrible performances, and most importantly the dreaded PG-13 rating, whereas the other two were rated R and allowed for the gory violence to be shown in all its glory.  It's watered-down, frustratingly annoying, and easily one of the worst horror films I've seen in recent memory.

Trading in the classic slasher excitement for a heavy-handed feminist message, "Black Christmas" doesn't hold a Christmas-strand candle to the original, and manages to insult pretty much everyone with its heavy-handed message over any cohesive storyline.

The Score: D-