When
is Black Christmas not Black Christmas?
When it’s Black Christmas!
The
genius of Bob Clark’s 1974 horror classic, Black Christmas was in its
simplicity. A crazy dude makes crank
calls to some sorority sisters who are stuck at school over Christmas break
before picking them off. The 2006 remake
overcomplicated things by giving the killer a gratuitous back story, but hey,
at least it gave us a wicked scene where he used cookie cutters on someone’s
back to make flesh cookies.
This
is the second remake and it pretty much jettisons anything having to do with
the killer. The premise is still the
same. A group of sorority sisters stuck
at school are menaced by a killer. Only
this time the filmmakers infuse the film with a lot of feminist touches,
commentary on the Me Too movement, and white male privilege. Which is fine. I don’t mind a movie that wears its passion
on its sleeve.
However,
once the big reveal of the killer occurs, it undermines the message
the filmmakers were trying to send. I
know the film was neutered by the studio to gain a PG-13 rating, and there are
several moments where the would-be gore is awkwardly edited out or the ADR is
obviously replacing harsher dialogue. (It feels like you’re watching the TV version
in the theater.) I don’t know if these
edits also altered the finale and somehow accidentally stripped the first hour
of its potential power, or if the ending just wasn’t thought through to begin
with. Whatever the case may be, when
Black Christmas shits the bed, it goes clear through the mattress and down into
the box springs.
Lest
I sound like I’m carving the flick up, let me state upfront I was with it from
the get-go. The opening sequence where a
victim’s death rattle results in a snow angel gone horribly wrong sets the tone
nicely. There were also several
instances where the cinematography was pitch perfect. (I think my favorite use of lighting was the
scene in which the sorority sister looked for her cat.) I also liked that the filmmakers hired
actresses that physically resembled Olivia Hussy from the original and Mary
Elizabeth Winstead from the remake.
To
really get to the problem of the movie, I have to head to spoiler city, so
anyone who doesn’t want the film spoiled for them, make a U-Turn now.
Okay,
so in the middle of the movie, the killers are revealed to be frat boys in
black cloaks who wear Dr. Doom rip-off masks.
That would’ve been fine, I guess.
The problem is that they are all mind-controlled by this black goop that
emanates from the founder of the school’s bust.
During a black mass/hazing ritual, pledges are smeared with his stuff
and it “brings out their alpha” and causes them to be overly misogynistic and
even homicidal toward women.
Sure,
this Tommyknockers bullshit is dumb, but it causes the film to shoot itself in the foot. By attributing the boys’ criminal
behavior to the onyx ooze, you’re essentially letting them off the hook. Like the goo made them do it. Wouldn’t the satire cut deeper if the
fraternity brothers only had themselves to blame for their own toxic masculinity
rather than this Stepford Skulls malarkey?
Maybe
I’m just overthinking the implications of the big reveal. Maybe you’re not supposed to think when it
comes to this movie. If you ask me, it
was better when the sorority sisters had to fend off one crazy psycho and not a
bunch of Lovecraftian frat boys. Maybe
if they had called it anything but Black Christmas, I could’ve overlooked the
shitty third act, because there truly is some decent stuff in the early going.
But
let’s face it, “I’ve been getting some weird DM’s” is nothing compared to “THE
CALLS ARE COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!”