Add to that a series of characters so unlikable that we wish for their imminent deaths the moment they appear onscreen, and this film is easily the nadir of new millennium horror. With 'Black Christmas,' director and screenwriter Glen Morgan ('Final Destination,' 'Willard') makes the same fatal mistake made by most of the new wave of remakes, giving the once-mysterious killer an "origin" story that takes away all of the creepiness that made the original so terrifying. It really amazes me that the fimmakers behind projects like these can be so completely clueless about what makes even a decent horror flick work. But while the original film managed to scare audiences silly with its slow mounting suspense and Hitchcockian camera angles, its reimagining once again goes for the jugular with copious amounts of off-putting gore effects, and goes on to further insult our intelligence with script that's utterly incoherent. Though it did little business in the United States upon its initial theatrical release, over the years the film has slowly earned respect on home video from a growing number of fans, turning it into a legitimate cult classic.Īs a result, I suppose it was inevitable that 'Black Christmas' would be remade. It also managed to wring plenty of icy suspense out of a now-stock situation (sorority girls terrorized by an unseen assailant on a famous holiday).
As directed by Bob Clark, this low-budget little sleeper of a Canadian horror flick was elegantly staged, immensely atmospheric and relatively restrained in its use of on-screen violence. The original 1974 'Black Christmas' is certainly not the most well-known of its slasher brethren, but it may just be the classiest. The result has been that most of the recent horror remakes ('House of Wax,' 'The Hills Have Eyes,' and the upcoming 'Halloween') have much more in common with the new 'Texas Chainsaw' and torture chambers like 'Hostel' than they do with films that supposedly inspired them. Since then, all of the major studios have raided their vaults for every last barely-identifiable '70s horror property to exploit with new, "hardcore" splat-aesthetics and a gleeful reveling in graphic sadism and mean-spiritedness. It all started back in 2003, when the grisly remake of 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' scored box office gold. Horror fans, it's finally happened - with the the 2006 remake of 'Black Christmas,' Hollywood's "reimagining" craze has hit rock bottom.
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