Release: 2006 Written and Directed by: Glen Morgan Original 1974 Screenplay written by: Roy Moore
Starring:
Katie Cassidy as Kelli Presley Michelle Trachtenberg as Melissa Kitt Kristen Cloke as Leigh Crosby Colvin Crystal Lowe as Lauren Hanon Lacey Chabert as Dana Mathis Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Heather Lee
Black
Christmas, the original from 1974
Directed by Bob Clark, is often credited with being the original
slasher movie. Not the first movie to have someone slashed mind you,
but the film that defined the modern slasher genre that has a crazy
killer slinking around picking off the victims one by one in gross and
unpredictable ways.
When Black Christmas was slated to be remade and
released in 2006 at Christmas time I had serious doubts. How would it
be the same without Margot Kidder as the drunken sorority sister? How
could that creepy old sorority house be duplicated? Why was yet another
classic horror movie being remade in a desperate attempt to avoid
creativity and capitalize on the nostalgia of horror fans that love the
older brilliant fare?
Thankfully the worst of my fears did not become reality with Black
Christmas 2006.
Black Christmas 2006 begins in primarily the same
manner as the original from 1974. It is Christmas vacation and the
sorority sisters are preparing either to go home for the holidays or
settle in for a cold winter vacation on campus. Unbeknownst to any of
them there is an uninvited visitor lurking in the attic.
One of the sisters is busy wrapping gifts in her room and drinking red
wine when she hears a strange noise coming from the closet. She, of
course, investigates…but decides that it must be air from
the heating vent rustling her fresh-from-the-drycleaner clothing. She
returns to her spot on the floor and tries to continue her
gift-wrapping but, what? Her pen is not in the place where she left it.
Hmmm. Before you can say “get your butt out of
there” the pen becomes firmly embedded in her skull.
One by one the sorority sisters are lured to a spot where nobody can
hear them scream…and nobody does. Meanwhile there are
disturbing phone calls coming from the cell phones of their absent
friends, and an underlying story of a psychotic killer that once killed
and ate his mother in this very house.
Murder,
mayhem and the scattering of young lovelies ensues.
Whether or not you are a fan of the original Black Christmas,
I offer the following reasons why Black Christmas 2006
deserves to be seen:
•
The Gore - Black Christmas 2006
has some of the greatest gore I’ve seen in a while
– not specifically because of the content of the gory scenes,
but because of the quick and in-your-face nature of the scenes. All is
fine, Wham Bam nasty gut-wrenching gore in the blink of an eye and then
all is quiet. It’s quite wonderful.
• The Character Switch-A-Roo - Many of the
characters that were present in the original are present in the remake,
but they have an added edge to them. Okay, Margot Kidder as the drunken
sister is sorely missed…but that is made up for by the fact
that one of the sister’s boyfriends, a lame dancer in the
original, is a unscrupulous cad in Black Christmas 2006
that seduces several of the sisters and posts the film of his escapades
with them on the Internet…cool.
• Background - great pains are taken to
give we viewers a glimpse into the background of the killer.
“It doesn’t excuse what he does, but I think we
understand him a bit better.”
• Plot Twists - I don’t want to
give away anything from the first Black Christmas
if you have not seen it, but there are some minimal twists involved in
that story. Black Christmas 2006 assumes that we
already know those twists from the original and adds some extras that
not only give depth to the story but add elements that give the movie a
reason to have been made.
Remakes
are extremely common these days in horror. In a perfect world
every single new and great horror movie will have a completely unique
and never-seen element that causes the flick to go down in history as
one of the classics of the genre. If I can’t have that then
at least make sure that the remake adds something to the story and has
enough inherent value on their own to make me glad that I put out 7
bucks to watch it.
Thankfully, Black Christmas 2006 falls into this
second category. If you like fast action, intense “turn
around, turn around!” scenes, creative and “yell
out loud” gore and an interesting and compelling story-line,
the Black Christmas 2006 is worth your time and effort. Just watch out
for the icicles. Questions
or comments about Black Christmas 2006?
Contact us!
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Thankfully the worst of my fears did not become reality with Black
Christmas 2006.
• The Character Switch-A-Roo - Many of the
characters that were present in the original are present in the remake,
but they have an added edge to them. Okay, Margot Kidder as the drunken
sister is sorely missed…but that is made up for by the fact
that one of the sister’s boyfriends, a lame dancer in the
original, is a unscrupulous cad in Black Christmas 2006
that seduces several of the sisters and posts the film of his escapades
with them on the Internet…cool.
Blink
Del.icio.us
Digg
Furl
Google
Simpy
Spurl
Technorati
Y!
MyWeb