As the horror genre barreled its way through the great remake goldrush of the 2000s, virtually every famous and half famous fear flick managed to score itself a redux that, for about 92% of the time, was completely worthless – so it was only going to be a matter of time before some bright spark was going to latch onto Bob Clark’s seasonal shocker, Black Christmas. While rather unfairly eclipsed by John Carpenter’s Halloween, in my mind Black Christmas still stands as the Christmas season horror film to beat, so the only true surprise is that it took so long for someone to select it for a reboot.
However, if a decade of remakes taught us anything, it’s that if something isn’t broke, you probably shouldn’t try to fix it and considering that the 1974 original has some of the most skin crawling imagery imaginable. Could the team behind Final Destination and the Willard remake manage to do the concept justice while delivering some brutal, Xmas executions?
It’s (obviously) Christmas time and the last members of the Delta Alpha Kappa sorority house who haven’t yet left for the holidays snuggle down in anticipation for secret Santa. But while housemother, Mrs Mac is giddy with seasonal cheer, the students tend to be somewhat cynical and act out accordingly. While Kelli is having issues with her unfaithful boyfriend, Kyle, Heather, Melissa and Dana seem content to dole out bitchy comments when they are starting at their phones, which leaves Lauren seeming content to drink herself into oblivion. But while the girls are just trying to make it to midnight, unbeknownst to them, two of their sorority sisters have already fallen to the malevolent stalker who appears to have been living in their sizable attic.
It seems that whomever this killer is, they have some connection to Billy Lenz, a boy born with severe jaundice who used to live in their sorority house and suffered years of horrific and varied abuse at the hands of his impressively shitty mother due to his appearance. However, when his normal looking sister/daughter Agnes is 8 (told you Mrs Lenz was shitty), Billy escaped the attic, disfigured his “sister” and murdered his mother and her boyfriend, ultimately getting sent to an asylum for his crimes. However, while we watch him break out of the hospital and make his way back to his former home, the sorority sisters soon realise that there is a killer somewhere in or around the premises that’s gradually picking them off one by one like the doors of an advent calendar. But if Billy has only just escaped, who’s lurking in the attic and what’s their beef?
As the two lunatics converge, all will be revealed, but who will still be around to witness it and who will find themselves placed by the Christmas tree to stare lifelessly at the blinking lights forever?
One of the easiest ways to properly judge a remake is to try and put the original completely out of your mind while the filmmakers take some of the most recognisable imagery and reconfigure it to deliver something that tries to be both similar and completely different. However, it’s tough to do that when you find being impartial to source material virtually impossible, so when I first saw Black Christmas ’06 (or Black Xmas, if you go by the poster) it just seemed like a frustrating box ticking exercise that tried to cram in as many memorable moments from the original as it could before drowning them in an avalanche of sub-par slasher antics. The sorority setting, the voyeuristic eyeballs and the plastic bag/rocking chair kill were all present and correct, but anything approaching that creeping, clawing subtlety had all but flown the coop as the flick rattled along like an MTV music video. However, sometimes the years can be kind, and I have to say that after a rewatch, my opinions of Black “Xmas” gave softened slightly.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. Glen Morgan’s attempt is woefully inadequate compared to Clark’s and all that creeping dread has vanished in favor of distractingly edgy editing and a more extravagant tone. But the thing moves like lightning, the deaths are plentiful and gruesome and it has a nice crack at trying to amass a familiar female cast to try and measure up to an original line-up that included Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder. In fact, having such a recognisable cast as Katie Cassidy (Arrow), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Death Proof), Lacey Chabert (Mean Girls), Michelle Trachtenberg (Buffy The Vanpire Slayer) and them watching the vast majority of them meet truly brutal ends proves to be oddly unpredictable and adds to the mean spirited fun. Similarly, when it comes to movies that positively radiate the Christmas period, the film manages to create a genuinely cozy/threatening atmosphere by having around 85% of its scenes seemingly lit entirely by the flashing warmth of multicoloured Christmas lights.
However, where the remake stumbles is that while it’s brief and speedy runtime may feel like a fun house ride at best, at worst the film has all the lasting impact and longevity of a stick of gum and any time it tries to deviate from the 1974 path and forge something new, it just feels kinda lame. For a start, virtually all the girls are borderline interchangeable other from the fact that you can tell them apart solely by watch film or TV show you’ve seen them in before – but while the actresses admittedly look like they’re having a Christmas cracker of a time getting chased and murderlized, things start to go array when it comes to the villain – or villains – of the piece.
Back in the 70s, Billy was treated like a horrific enigma. We never really saw his face other than the occasional rolling eyeball that goggled at his victims from behind a door and a shadow and other than the completely crazed phone calls he made that didn’t even sound human, we didn’t even get a feel for him as a character, leaving him to be nothing short of terrifying. However, as per most modern remakes, we get a detailed history of his traumatic childhood all the way up to his jail break – but all it really does is just create plot holes and dilute the fear. While the flashbacks prove to be weirdly glib about the psychical horrors infected on young Billy (did Agnes really have to be his sister/daughter), the desicion to make him bright yellow due to his jaundice is just strange for the sake of strange. Not to make light of anyone struggling with a liver deficiency, but having your killer look like he’s just walked out of an episode of The Simpsons is probably one of the weirder choices when it comes to making a distinctive villain. But while this Billy and his one-eyed sister certainly get a lot of screen time this time out, it’s nowhere near as effective as the void of a human we got around 30 years before.
Fast paced and deliberately pretty silly, those not beholden to the original may find there’s a fun ride here if you remember to turn off your brain. However, despite all those enthusiastic kills and a refreshing lack of respect for how familiar an actor may be (I don’t care what show I know you from, you’re still getting a glass unicorn in the eye socket), Black Christmas ’06 is ultimately a lame regifting rather than a thoughtful present.
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