(Contains spoilers)
To start off, I am a huge fan of the original "Black Christmas", and hold it as one of the best slasher films of all time, so I was excited to see this remake - and it wasn't a letdown in the least. While it's much less serious and unsettling than the original, it's an excellent, bloody little holiday slasher film. The film opens quite quickly with the murder of a girl in her room at the Alpha Kappa sorority house. From there, we are introduced to serial killer Billy Lenz, who murdered his scummy mother and his stepfather, and gouged the eye out of his younger sister/daughter, Agnes, on Christmas Eve some years ago (yes, his mother and he produced a child). Now years later, his childhood home has turned into a sorority, and a group of girls are celebrating the holidays in the middle of a huge snowstorm. With an unknown killer already murdering girls within the house, Billy escapes from the mental asylum and goes back home for the holidays. From there, the onslaught begins, and the sorority begins receiving bizarre phone calls, and the girls begin to die one by one. Is it possible for them to survive the night while they are stalked and slashed by a maniac in the house?
"Black Christmas", is probably one of the best slasher movies from the past few years, easily - compared to most of the slasher junk that's been released lately, this was refreshing. Glen Morgan, who was behind the "Final Destination" films, directs this bloody slasher remake, and is very stylish with his work. Unlike the original film, this remake takes place all in one evening, which isn't a bad idea. And unlike the original, which gave the audience little to no background on the murderer, this film provides a rather extensive but interesting history on the killer, Billy, and his family, told through flashback sequences throughout the first 45 minutes or so of the film, which fall into the film pretty well. This remake adds some more sisters to the sorority, which provides a higher body count. The actresses who portray the girls are all actually very good in their roles, and some elements from the characters in the original movie shine through in a few of them. Katie Cassidy (daughter of David Cassidy) is the lead, and isn't bad at all. The rest of the cast includes Michelle Trachtenberg, Crystal Lowe, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Lacey Chabert, Kristen Cloke, and Andrea Martin (who played Phyl in the original movie). The entire cast performed well and I liked the characters. There is some characterization though with the sorority sisters, but it's still really easy to differentiate them. They are all individually interesting, and I personally cared whether or not they survived the bloody ordeal.
This remake (as I was expecting) has much more blood and gore to offer than it's predecessor, which was actually rather tame for a slasher movie. Turns out in this film that it's not just Billy who's slaying the sorority girls, but his little sister/daughter, Agnes, as previously mentioned, is helping him kill them off too. Both of these characters were actually really creepy (especially the Agnes character), but they're shown minimally until the last twenty minutes of the film, which is a good decision made by the filmmakers. Billy and Agnes both seem to enjoy killing their victims by suffocating them with plastic bags (which ties in with the first killing in the 1974 version), and Agnes has a strange fetish with eyeballs (we see her tear them out of some victims and proceed to eat them - yikes!). Along with the blood that runs all over this film, there are some really clever bits that I loved - particularly the flashback sequences of Billy's childhood, and everything that lead up to the finale, which was also great and very well written (I loved the bit where Kelli was trapped in between the walls, the entire attic sequence was great).
In fact, the entire film was really well written as far as I'm concerned, everything was very nicely put together and I spotted very few plot holes, surprisingly. The suspense factor isn't as intense in this remake, but it's still there, and the pacing is much more rapid, especially in the last half-hour. The dialogue was good too, and flowed naturally, with some witty moments. There is plenty of Christmas scenery thrown into the film, and the Christmas mood is much more obvious than in the first film - there's lots of holiday music used throughout, and the setting is decked with Christmas lights and tons of decorations. Like in the original, some dark humor is thrown into it, which, while it entices the viewer to take the film less seriously, does make it a much more fun experience. However, there are some fairly predictable moments throughout the movie and some of them are far-fetched, but I was expecting that. It wasn't a big deal at all, and didn't take away from the viewing experience - just don't take it too seriously.
Overall, "Black Christmas", while not on par with the excellency of the original film, is a highly entertaining and very fun (but sometimes predictable) slasher film. It has some nice touches, a creative and clever script that elaborates on the original story, and good acting to top it all off. I had a blast with this movie, and I think that most people will. I may be giving this a pretty high rating for what it is, probably because of how much I loved the original, and how much fun this remake was. If you're a horror fan, definitely check this out (but don't forget to watch Clark's brilliant original first). One of the funnest times I've had at the movies in quite awhile, almost as good as the original, but in a much different way. So sit back, have fun, and enjoy the slay ride.
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