Review: "Black Christmas" - Ho! Ho! Ho-rrible

In 1974 a horror movie named "Black Christmas" was released from director Bob Clark, who would gain his greatest fame directing "A Christmas Story." Many ardent slasher movie fans believe this film, and not 1978's "Halloween," was the birth of the popular genre. The simple story told of a killer stalking sorority girls in a sorority house over Christmas break. Though not as stylishly made as "Halloween," this film did provide some jolts and even an up in the air ending that today's audiences would never stand for.

On Christmas Day (?) the remake of "Black Christmas" opened in theaters and it is safe to report that this is a dull, sloppy and lifeless remake. Director Glen Morgan, who, along with writing partner James Wong, has created a nice canvas but put no life into the pictures he applied to it. The film is nice to look at but the characters are ugly and one-dimensional. We barely get to know any of them before they get knocked off.

Morgan chooses to concentrate more on the origins of the young boy who would grow up to be a maniacal killer. We first see him as a young boy on Christmas Eve who is largely ignored by his mother but is treated decently by his father. When the boy goes to retrieve a present the father has hidden for him, the boy overhears a commotion and is soon witnessing the murder of his father by the mother and her lover (and soon to be next husband). As they bury the body in the attic (apparently the husband had no friends or family as he is never checked on or referred to again) the mother sees the boy watching and forever banishes him to the attic. In subsequent scenes we see the mother seduce the son (which leads to a daughter who will be just as maniacal) and the eventual deaths of the parents at the hands of the son.

As the movie opens the son "cleverly" hides in his cell in an insane asylum in the one spot where the guard should look but doesn't. And it costs him big time. He then returns to his home, which is now a sorority house where he will go into action killing the young women one at a time. His preference is to remove an eyeball from each victim. Nice movie for Christmas huh?

The sorority girls and the den mother (Andrea Martin - a nice piece of casting. The former SCTV star was a sorority girl in the original) are stranded for Christmas due to a vicious snowstorm wailing away outside. We meet them briefly before they get knocked off in rather brutal fashion. If you are one (and I confess to be) that believes if you are going to make a slasher film you should go all out for an R rating, then this is the film for you. Morgan repeatedly gives us shots of women being brutally attacked.

Morgan, along with Wong, has had good success in the genre previously. Together they produced some of the better episodes of "The X-Files" and created a decent trilogy with the "Final Destination" movies. They stumbled with their remake of "Willard" and they completely fall (and fail) here. There is no imagination in the movie. They set-up the characters long enough to give them a few minutes of screen time before killing them off. The most interesting character is the killer and we barely see him, only what is happening to him. There are virtually no scares or suspense as Morgan prefers to shock with violence instead of wit and ideas. Perhaps they should stop doing remakes and concentrate on original material.

When the movie ended I felt dirty. I saw it just after Christmas and felt it was the wrong movie to see over the holidays. Maybe I was against the film from the start for that reason but now I think that's wrong. The first slasher movie to be a hit that opened at Christmas was "Scream" and I thoroughly enjoyed it (and, to a lesser degree, its two sequels) so I realized that if "Black Christmas" had some substance to go with its little style, I am sure I would have enjoyed it no matter what time of year I saw it.

As it stands now "Black Christmas" is just another lousy mad slasher movie. It depressed me to see talented filmmakers reduced to trashy material like this. When it was over I wanted to see something else to cheer myself up like "Platoon."