Directed by: Glen Morgan
Premise: A remake of the
1974 film. A killer (Robert Mann) imprisoned for murdering his family
escapes a mental institution on Christmas Eve and returns to his home, now a
sorority house, and begins picking off the college girls one by one.
What Works: The film does some interesting things
in its structure. The narrative jumps back and forth between the history of the
killer and the events of the contemporary Christmas Eve. The back-story of the
film is easily the most successful element and the picture creates an audacious
and interesting caricature of the killer’s family that would have been a more
successful film in its own right.
What Doesn’t: The original Black Christmas was not particularly good and aside from the back-story this film does not
improve on its predecessor. The editing cuts are sloppy and the special effects
are poorly done. There are few genuine scares in the picture, as nearly all of
the potential jump moments are spoiled by poor staging and plagued by slasher
film clichés. The film tries to get a Friday
the 13th style murder mystery going but the film
does not allow any of its leads to play out. Instead characters mysteriously
enter the film and then leave, only to pop in the revelation scene in the third
act. The ending is very poor as villains literally begin coming out of the
woodwork but its not clear who they are, how they got there, or why they are
after these girls. The heroines of the story are largely flat with little
positive or negative characteristics. Although they are not as ridiculous as the
cardboard pinups of films like Sorority
House Massacre 2, they do make stupid decisions (like discovering a dead
body and then running back inside the house) that defy logic or credibility.
Bottom Line: Black Christmas is a poor
remake of a film that was never that good in the first place. While this
presents an opportunity to improve the material, I suspect that the makers of
this film actually liked the original picture and were never compelled to apply
any real creativity to the remake.