Movie Review
Black Christmas
Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 9, 2007
Wow. Black Christmas. The original was pretty good, many consider it a new classic. Came out before Halloween so it was trend setting in many ways. This 2006 remake, helmed by Glen Morgan of Final Destination fame, is not so much. I feel bad because after watching some of the DVD extras, Morgan expresses the notion that if this movie fails so will his career. He maintains he tried, however, while watching his directing style and the way he acts it felt as if he had already given up. And it shows.
Black Christmas is one of the worst of the horror remakes to come out, and that’s saying a lot. There are more than a half-dozen super hot chicks in here and we barely get a tit-shot. We don’t even get sexy underwear shots. Plus, many of the girls don’t even get decent screen time. The severely lacking blood in this film falls solely upon Morgan who clearly states he doesn’t like all the blood splattering about. He wanted to make a thinking man’s horror film but he forget one thing - he was making a movie called Black Christmas about a bunch of sorority girls getting killed. The people that want to see this film want to see nudity and blood and gore. We get virtually none.
The movie fails on pretty much every premise. The killer is dumb. The back story is horrendous. The design of the killer is weak. The scares are lacking. All I can say is avoid this movie. The DVD comes with deleted/extended scenes and alternate endings that somehow succeed in being even worse than the movie, which I didn’t think was even possible.
Simply put, this movie is utter crap. I enjoy looking at the girls, but because they remain fully clothed and mostly unharmed, even in death, it fails to capture my attention. There was a lot of potential that glimmers through here and there and there is a fantastic movie somewhere within this idea again. However, this massive fumbling of a great premise and a superb cast has probably, and rightly so, killed this movie for at least another generation.
Skip it.
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One Comment
April 10th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Bob Clark, the director of the original Black Christmas (and Porky’s!) was killed a few days ago with his son when they were hit by a drunk driver. I don’t know what’s worse–that he died, or that someone remade/ruined this movie, one of the finest horror movies America’s ever seen! Scary as all hell!