The original "Black Christmas" cut its way out of its native Canada and arrived on U.S. screens during the holiday season of 1974. Directed by Bob Clark, it was the original slasher film that set the standard to which gorier copycats failed to measure up. John Carpenter's "Halloween" spun out of "Black Christmas," and any film featuring a killer's-point-of-view camera angle owed a debt to Bob Clark's original classic. Forgotten by horror fans and overshadowed as a Christmas film by the notoriously bad "Silent Night, Deadly Night" and Clark's other Yuletide classic, "A Christmas Story," "Black Christmas" collected dust in the backs of most horror-fans´ minds for decades.
Since the current trend in horror is remaking any film with a familiar name ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "The Hills Have Eyes," "Halloween," "When A Stranger Calls," etc.) into an overproduced eyesore, helmed by a hack whose only experience behind the camera is shooting music videos, I was surprised when Dimension Films announced their plans to remake the rarely mentioned "Black Christmas." With most remakes having as much in common with their originals as Turkey does with Tofurkey, I was not pleased to hear the news. The attachment of Glen Morgan as director did raise my interest because his remake of the 1971 film "Willard" was inspired, while sadly unseen. But by the time Christmas rolled around and "Black Christmas" arrived in theaters, the reviews were so overwhelmingly negative that I decided to stay home and watch the original instead. Here we are a few short months later when a package arrives at my doorstep, delivered not by jolly Saint Nick, but my grumpy curmudgeon of a mailman. The package itself was a gift, indeed, and one I didn't even know I wanted.
The original theme of "Black Christmas" can be seen in films like the "Sorority House Massacre," "The House on Sorority Row," and even in the 1978 killings at FSU by serial killer Ted Bundy. A sorority house full of nubile young girls is terrorized by a killer that picks them off one by one. While the core theme of the "Black Christmas" remake remains intact, it's the new plot devices Morgan creates that elevates it out of the pool of remake dreck that most fans carelessly tossed it into.
The basic plotline of 2006's "Black Christmas" is similar to the 1974 version but only in its simplicities. Morgan adapted the screenplay from Roy Moore's original script but brought terrifying new themes and complexities to the characters. First and foremost, it must be pointed out that this is not you're father's "Black Christmas." Gone are the subtle chills and slow-paced scenes, but for once the ramped-up pace and current settings don't hurt the film's core. This is far less a remake and more a re-envisoning for today's less-cultured moviegoers, who need a little more bang for their buck. While it still revolves around a handful of girls that are trapped in their sorority with their house mother on Christmas while a killer stalks them, it's the attention to the killer that separates this one from the 1974 version.
In the original "Black Christmas" the identity and nature of the killer was never exposed, which heightened the tension and the eventual fan-favorite ending. The 2006 remake gives the killer a name, Billy Lenz, and a disturbing back story shown in well-produced flashback scenes. Just some of the events featured in Billy's flashbacks include watching his mother murder his loving father, ripping out the eyeball of his own daughter/sister (yes, I said daughter/sister), and using the flesh of his mother's back as "dough" for his Christmas cookie cutter. All of the flashback scenes are well shot and have a David Fincher feel to them, if Fincher had taken several hits of acid on Christmas Eve, that is as great as the Billy back story scenes are, the performances from the rest of the cast are as bad as one would expect. Rather than bog this down with names you've never heard of, I'll just cite the list of teen-centric television shows featuring these actresses that most have gone to great lengths to avoid: "7th Heaven," "Felicity," "Party of Five," "Dawson's Creek," the list goes on but suffice to say, I've skipped over most of those programs in the past in favor of whatever was showing on C-SPAN 2. As annoying as the actresses are, and believe me, they are, for a horror fan it just makes their eventual deaths that much easier to digest.
Since the current trend in horror is remaking any film with a familiar name ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "The Hills Have Eyes," "Halloween," "When A Stranger Calls," etc.) into an overproduced eyesore, helmed by a hack whose only experience behind the camera is shooting music videos, I was surprised when Dimension Films announced their plans to remake the rarely mentioned "Black Christmas." With most remakes having as much in common with their originals as Turkey does with Tofurkey, I was not pleased to hear the news. The attachment of Glen Morgan as director did raise my interest because his remake of the 1971 film "Willard" was inspired, while sadly unseen. But by the time Christmas rolled around and "Black Christmas" arrived in theaters, the reviews were so overwhelmingly negative that I decided to stay home and watch the original instead. Here we are a few short months later when a package arrives at my doorstep, delivered not by jolly Saint Nick, but my grumpy curmudgeon of a mailman. The package itself was a gift, indeed, and one I didn't even know I wanted.
The original theme of "Black Christmas" can be seen in films like the "Sorority House Massacre," "The House on Sorority Row," and even in the 1978 killings at FSU by serial killer Ted Bundy. A sorority house full of nubile young girls is terrorized by a killer that picks them off one by one. While the core theme of the "Black Christmas" remake remains intact, it's the new plot devices Morgan creates that elevates it out of the pool of remake dreck that most fans carelessly tossed it into.
The basic plotline of 2006's "Black Christmas" is similar to the 1974 version but only in its simplicities. Morgan adapted the screenplay from Roy Moore's original script but brought terrifying new themes and complexities to the characters. First and foremost, it must be pointed out that this is not you're father's "Black Christmas." Gone are the subtle chills and slow-paced scenes, but for once the ramped-up pace and current settings don't hurt the film's core. This is far less a remake and more a re-envisoning for today's less-cultured moviegoers, who need a little more bang for their buck. While it still revolves around a handful of girls that are trapped in their sorority with their house mother on Christmas while a killer stalks them, it's the attention to the killer that separates this one from the 1974 version.
In the original "Black Christmas" the identity and nature of the killer was never exposed, which heightened the tension and the eventual fan-favorite ending. The 2006 remake gives the killer a name, Billy Lenz, and a disturbing back story shown in well-produced flashback scenes. Just some of the events featured in Billy's flashbacks include watching his mother murder his loving father, ripping out the eyeball of his own daughter/sister (yes, I said daughter/sister), and using the flesh of his mother's back as "dough" for his Christmas cookie cutter. All of the flashback scenes are well shot and have a David Fincher feel to them, if Fincher had taken several hits of acid on Christmas Eve, that is as great as the Billy back story scenes are, the performances from the rest of the cast are as bad as one would expect. Rather than bog this down with names you've never heard of, I'll just cite the list of teen-centric television shows featuring these actresses that most have gone to great lengths to avoid: "7th Heaven," "Felicity," "Party of Five," "Dawson's Creek," the list goes on but suffice to say, I've skipped over most of those programs in the past in favor of whatever was showing on C-SPAN 2. As annoying as the actresses are, and believe me, they are, for a horror fan it just makes their eventual deaths that much easier to digest.
The original "Black Christmas" cut its way out of its native Canada and arrived on U.S. screens during the holiday season of 1974. Directed by Bob Clark, it was the original slasher film that set the standard to which gorier copycats failed to measure up. John Carpenter's "Halloween" spun out of "Black Christmas," and any film featuring a killer's-point-of-view camera angle owed a debt to Bob Clark's original classic. Forgotten by horror fans and overshadowed as a Christmas film by the notoriously bad "Silent Night, Deadly Night" and Clark's other Yuletide classic, "A Christmas Story," "Black Christmas" collected dust in the backs of most horror-fans´ minds for decades.
Since the current trend in horror is remaking any film with a familiar name ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "The Hills Have Eyes," "Halloween," "When A Stranger Calls," etc.) into an overproduced eyesore, helmed by a hack whose only experience behind the camera is shooting music videos, I was surprised when Dimension Films announced their plans to remake the rarely mentioned "Black Christmas." With most remakes having as much in common with their originals as Turkey does with Tofurkey, I was not pleased to hear the news. The attachment of Glen Morgan as director did raise my interest because his remake of the 1971 film "Willard" was inspired, while sadly unseen. But by the time Christmas rolled around and "Black Christmas" arrived in theaters, the reviews were so overwhelmingly negative that I decided to stay home and watch the original instead. Here we are a few short months later when a package arrives at my doorstep, delivered not by jolly Saint Nick, but my grumpy curmudgeon of a mailman. The package itself was a gift, indeed, and one I didn't even know I wanted.
The original theme of "Black Christmas" can be seen in films like the "Sorority House Massacre," "The House on Sorority Row," and even in the 1978 killings at FSU by serial killer Ted Bundy. A sorority house full of nubile young girls is terrorized by a killer that picks them off one by one. While the core theme of the "Black Christmas" remake remains intact, it's the new plot devices Morgan creates that elevates it out of the pool of remake dreck that most fans carelessly tossed it into.
The basic plotline of 2006's "Black Christmas" is similar to the 1974 version but only in its simplicities. Morgan adapted the screenplay from Roy Moore's original script but brought terrifying new themes and complexities to the characters. First and foremost, it must be pointed out that this is not you're father's "Black Christmas." Gone are the subtle chills and slow-paced scenes, but for once the ramped-up pace and current settings don't hurt the film's core. This is far less a remake and more a re-envisoning for today's less-cultured moviegoers, who need a little more bang for their buck. While it still revolves around a handful of girls that are trapped in their sorority with their house mother on Christmas while a killer stalks them, it's the attention to the killer that separates this one from the 1974 version.
In the original "Black Christmas" the identity and nature of the killer was never exposed, which heightened the tension and the eventual fan-favorite ending. The 2006 remake gives the killer a name, Billy Lenz, and a disturbing back story shown in well-produced flashback scenes. Just some of the events featured in Billy's flashbacks include watching his mother murder his loving father, ripping out the eyeball of his own daughter/sister (yes, I said daughter/sister), and using the flesh of his mother's back as "dough" for his Christmas cookie cutter. All of the flashback scenes are well shot and have a David Fincher feel to them, if Fincher had taken several hits of acid on Christmas Eve, that is as great as the Billy back story scenes are, the performances from the rest of the cast are as bad as one would expect. Rather than bog this down with names you've never heard of, I'll just cite the list of teen-centric television shows featuring these actresses that most have gone to great lengths to avoid: "7th Heaven," "Felicity," "Party of Five," "Dawson's Creek," the list goes on but suffice to say, I've skipped over most of those programs in the past in favor of whatever was showing on C-SPAN 2. As annoying as the actresses are, and believe me, they are, for a horror fan it just makes their eventual deaths that much easier to digest.
Since the current trend in horror is remaking any film with a familiar name ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "The Hills Have Eyes," "Halloween," "When A Stranger Calls," etc.) into an overproduced eyesore, helmed by a hack whose only experience behind the camera is shooting music videos, I was surprised when Dimension Films announced their plans to remake the rarely mentioned "Black Christmas." With most remakes having as much in common with their originals as Turkey does with Tofurkey, I was not pleased to hear the news. The attachment of Glen Morgan as director did raise my interest because his remake of the 1971 film "Willard" was inspired, while sadly unseen. But by the time Christmas rolled around and "Black Christmas" arrived in theaters, the reviews were so overwhelmingly negative that I decided to stay home and watch the original instead. Here we are a few short months later when a package arrives at my doorstep, delivered not by jolly Saint Nick, but my grumpy curmudgeon of a mailman. The package itself was a gift, indeed, and one I didn't even know I wanted.
The original theme of "Black Christmas" can be seen in films like the "Sorority House Massacre," "The House on Sorority Row," and even in the 1978 killings at FSU by serial killer Ted Bundy. A sorority house full of nubile young girls is terrorized by a killer that picks them off one by one. While the core theme of the "Black Christmas" remake remains intact, it's the new plot devices Morgan creates that elevates it out of the pool of remake dreck that most fans carelessly tossed it into.
The basic plotline of 2006's "Black Christmas" is similar to the 1974 version but only in its simplicities. Morgan adapted the screenplay from Roy Moore's original script but brought terrifying new themes and complexities to the characters. First and foremost, it must be pointed out that this is not you're father's "Black Christmas." Gone are the subtle chills and slow-paced scenes, but for once the ramped-up pace and current settings don't hurt the film's core. This is far less a remake and more a re-envisoning for today's less-cultured moviegoers, who need a little more bang for their buck. While it still revolves around a handful of girls that are trapped in their sorority with their house mother on Christmas while a killer stalks them, it's the attention to the killer that separates this one from the 1974 version.
In the original "Black Christmas" the identity and nature of the killer was never exposed, which heightened the tension and the eventual fan-favorite ending. The 2006 remake gives the killer a name, Billy Lenz, and a disturbing back story shown in well-produced flashback scenes. Just some of the events featured in Billy's flashbacks include watching his mother murder his loving father, ripping out the eyeball of his own daughter/sister (yes, I said daughter/sister), and using the flesh of his mother's back as "dough" for his Christmas cookie cutter. All of the flashback scenes are well shot and have a David Fincher feel to them, if Fincher had taken several hits of acid on Christmas Eve, that is as great as the Billy back story scenes are, the performances from the rest of the cast are as bad as one would expect. Rather than bog this down with names you've never heard of, I'll just cite the list of teen-centric television shows featuring these actresses that most have gone to great lengths to avoid: "7th Heaven," "Felicity," "Party of Five," "Dawson's Creek," the list goes on but suffice to say, I've skipped over most of those programs in the past in favor of whatever was showing on C-SPAN 2. As annoying as the actresses are, and believe me, they are, for a horror fan it just makes their eventual deaths that much easier to digest.
No comments:
Post a Comment