Noël noir

Whoa. This is one of the gnarliest, nastiest, most gratuitous displays of violence I have ever seen! And I loved every minute of it! Going into this I was expecting very little due to the piss poor ratings, but the original is one of my favorite slashers of all time so I had to watch it. They absolutely nailed the Christmas vibe with the glowing lights, the booze, and the constant downpour of fake snow. As messed up as it is, I've always found the houses in both movies to be very cozy/comforting. The mid 2000's are on full display here as the blood and guts are amped up to highest degree. This movie has some of the most brutal, bloodiest, gruesome deaths put to screen. Unfortunately the ambiguity element is absent from this version and everyone involved knows who's on the other end of the killings. Did the backstory of billy need to be explained? Did he need to be yellow? Can we chill on the eye gouging? No, but I thought they did a decent job for what they were working with. From a film standpoint there are obvious gripes, but from a slasher perspective what's not to love?!

In 1974, Bob Clarke's Black Xmas kick-started the teenage slasher sub-genre. The seasonal slasher went on to leave an impression on John Carpenter, who years later gave us Halloween. So, do I expect to be disappointed with a remake of such an iconic cult classic? It is hard to get excited over teenage slasher films these days, but Glen Morgan reinstalled that excitement. Billy Lenz has just been released from a mental institution and is looking to find his childhood home where he was abused by his mother. However, the house is now occupied by the sorority sisters. With the students unaware of the troubled history of the house and a deranged killer seeking revenge, it's a race against time for the college girls to survive. An aspect of this movie that makes it stand out is that it delves into Billy's backstory and it gives the film more depth. The sorority sisters each have something different to bring to the table, this makes it easier to get a bond with the characters. As the producers were responsible for films such as Final Destination, I was hoping for gory scenes and I received them. Overall, yes, it is predictable at times, but it is worth the watch and has a decent twist at the end.

Some movies are very confident in their ability to do many things right, thus ensuring an intriguing experience. A movie like "Black Christmas," however, is mostly confident in its ability to do many things wrong, yet still remain watchable on some bizarre level. Needless to say, it's an overhaul of the seminal 1974 slasher of the same name, in which a lonely sorority house is besieged by a killer making obscene phone-calls from the attic over the holidays. The 2006 version takes this premise and attempts to build a backstory around murderer Billy Lentz, who remained a shadowy specter throughout Bob Clark's film. I have to give writer-director Glen Morgan credit: while this bit of character development is wildly uneven (including giving Billy a sister-in-madness), it is consistent with the wildly inconsistent rest of the film. Morgan brought a strong sense of macabre humor and visual style (I dare call it "Burtonesuqe") to his exceptional remake of "Willard" (helped by Crispin Glover's delightfully wacky performance), but his stylistic leanings are simply the wrong match for a "Black Christmas" remake. There is not a single suspenseful scene to be found, and the violence is so exaggerated that it defuses any horrific effect (seriously, a killer who eats eyeballs?); additionally, the characters are so ill-defined that it's hard to keep track of who's who (had the number of girls been whittled down the point where they had actual personalities, we might have actually given a damn about them). And, for a slasher film coming in the wake of "Scream" and its kindred, "Black Christmas" just shows a general lack of common sense when an obvious threat is lurking (can you really feel sorry for a security guard who lingers in a maniac's room long enough to get knocked off?). But in an odd way, "Black Christmas" avoids the oblivion of crappy horror remakes due to Morgan's impassioned, assured sense of visual style–that being said, it's nowhere near as good as its predecessor.

4.5 out of 10

Many years ago, a mistreated boy named Billy Lenz slaughtered his family in a one-house killing spree. Not surprisingly, this had him committed to an asylum. Since then, his house has been converted into a sorority house. And this Christmas, Billy wants to be home with his family to celebrate.

Let me say a few nice things before I start venting. First, I have to say I must have been a very good boy this year because I can't recall such an attractive cast in the recent past. Three of my all-time favorite young ladies show up here: Michelle Trachtenberg ("Eurotrip"), Lacey Chabert ("Pleasure Drivers"), and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (numerous recent horror films, including "Final Destination 3"). It was quite the visual feast!

I also enjoyed the inclusion of Andrea Martin as Ms. MacHenry, the house mother. Martin was one of the college girls from the original film and I think it's important to pay some sort of tribute like this (as well as the use of "Clark Sanitarium"). She was a good pick, better than Margot Kidder.

And the use of incest and cannibalism is always a plus (both of which were absent in the original)... and the gore was decent (though not great) with the constant eye-gouging thanks to a glass unicorn. I do love unicorns, as my embroidered unicorn pillow might suggest. While I do not think it was intentional, I appreciate how the unicorn reminded me of another great classic, "The Abominable Dr. Phibes".

But let's start the ripping: Glen Morgan was probably the wrong guy to direct this. He brought along cast members from his prior films (again, such as "Final Destination 3") which was fine, but seemed to put very little thought into any of this. And his films have more of a teenager quality to them, making even the gore, incest and cannibalism seem very youth-oriented, if that makes any sense. R-Rated or not, this was meant for teens to watch. He could have really stepped it up a dozen notches.

The girls get little or no personalities. I don't think I learned half of their names and had difficulty keeping them straight. Maybe reduce the number by one or two so we could at least see them for ten minutes? On the flip side, the film focused almost entirely on Billy Lenz, providing his entire back story. The original never touched on this at all, which made him creepier and more mysterious. Here, there's nothing strange about him (besides the yellow skin and eyes, which play no importance). Obviously, Morgan never learned the secret of good horror: don't show the killer.

Furthermore, they wasted the character of the boyfriend Kyle (who was named Peter in the original). Here, he is briefly thought by the girls to be the killer, but the audience knows the whole time that he's not. In the original, you never know whether or not Peter is the killer (in fact, many people who watched all the way to the end still aren't sure). If Kyle isn't a red herring, and his only purpose is to bring up some sex tape which was not important to the story (despite being shown again and again), then what the hell was he doing in the movie at all?

Other great elements from the original were toned down: the police station scenes, the drunk girl (who now passes out right away). And a shower scene was added, but no explicit nudity, making it almost a complete waste of time.

I'll stop before I start frothing at the mouth. Because, seriously, I was let down. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this movie, but it was clearly the teen remake (not unlike the newer "When A Stranger Calls"). If you need a fix of girls getting strangled with a plastic bag and stabbed in the eye (and that's really all you'll see), check this out. Otherwise, you'll find plenty of great slashers out there on the video shelf. And, of course, you simply cannot beat the original "Black Christmas", one of the best horror films ever made.

I had very high expectations for this film. I thought that this might be the one "Re-make" that is the exception because of the involvement of the original film maker, Bob Clark, serving as assistant producer. BOY was I wrong!!! There are some exceptional murder sequences in this flick but that is not enough. Once again, as is the case in so many "Re-makes" the storyline has been almost completely changed! The producers do not seem to realize the elements that made the original film scary in the first place which are now missing! Such as the fact that, in the original you were never quite sure who the killer was and they never revealed it. Now not only do they reveal it, but they add an entire background that is so laughably unbelievable that it dilutes the film's ability to frighten the viewer. The over-the-top gore sequences alone do not make for a frightening movie and the "twist" ending is quite laughable! What they add to the ending of this movie is utterly ridiculous and absolutely unnecessary! Aside from exceptional gore effects, the only other saving grace is the presence of Andrea Martin from the original film as Mrs. Mack but they should have really tried harder to make the characters from the original more like those in the original...and the phone calls, a crucial element to the terrifying experience of the original, are absolutely laughable! Skip this one and watch the original.