Stars: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Michelle Trachtenberg, Katie Cassidy, Oliver Hudson, Andrea Martin, Kristen Cloke

Director: Glen Morgan

Summary: A handful of sorority girls remain at their house on campus after their school shuts down for Christmas break. An ominous snowstorm blows in, isolating them. At the same time, a killer breaks into the attic and begins making terrifying phone calls to the girls.

Though it was only a mild success upon its release in 1974, the original BLACK CHRISTMAS (directed by Bob Clark, who would go on to direct A CHRISTMAS STORY in 1984) has become a cult favourite among horror buffs since the dawn of the home-video era. An early example of the 'body count' genre, the film also predates WHEN A STRANGER CALLS (1979) in its use of a killer making threatening phone calls that originate within his potential victims’ own house. In this remake, writer/director Glen Morgan takes the basics of Roy Moore's screenplay for the original to create an elaborate and almost comically disturbing back story for Billy, the killer who previously remained a mystery. A handful of sorority girls remain at their house on campus after the school shuts down for Christmas break. An ominous snowstorm blows in, isolating them. At the same time, a killer--who in this version escapes from a mental institution to return to his former family home--breaks into the attic and begins making terrifying phone calls to the girls.
Stylistically, Moore’s remake avoids casting the film in the ironic post-SCREAM or streamlined, gore-free Japanese-horror-inspired fright films of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Instead he makes BLACK CHRISTMAS in the style of a 1980s slasher film. The plentiful blood and guts will please fans of that era, as will tributes to the HALLOWEEN films. This, along with a soundtrack that eschews holiday standards in favour of modern pop music, plus a dim lighting scheme that relies heavily on coloured Christmas bulbs, combine to create an atmosphere of holiday dread in this fun update of what has become a horror classic.

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Needless and unnecessary are two words that have little meaning in Hollywood, especially when you're talking sequels or remakes. Case in point: Black Christmas, the revisionist version of the 1974 horror thriller largely thought to be the proto-slasher movie (this was four years before the first Halloween installment). The original, from director Bob Clark, is still considered a masterpiece of tension, understatement, innovative camera perspective, economic efficiency (a polite way of saying "ultra-low budget"), and killing off pretty young girls in grisly ways without any cumbersome exposition regarding the psychopath's motives. This, by the way, from the same Bob Clark who would soon bring us the beloved Porky's franchise as well as Black Christmas's polar opposite, the sweetly nostalgic classic A Christmas Story.

Anyway, as needless and unnecessary as this remake is, it certainly delivers the goods on 21st-century slasher conventions as the sorority sisters of Alpha Kappa are picked off during Christmas break in ever more gruesome fashion. There's nothing wrong with all of this, particularly for fans of impalements, crushed skulls, ripped-out eyeballs, and some good old-fashioned Christmas cookie cannibalism. Writer-director Glen Morgan, who earned his own credibility as co-creator of the Final Destination series and the interesting 2003 remake of Willard adds a few clever visual homages to the original along with the amped-up extreme gore. Clark's device (was he the first to use it?) of creepy, mouth-breathing phone calls from killer to victim remains intact and creepy. He also resurrects Andrea Martin, one of the then-unknown actor victims who, now famous, plays the prim housemother. Another addition, which may not be so welcome to purists of the genre, is a load of exposition and backstory for the killer. Disturbing as these flashback set pieces are, they're also somewhat distracting to the foreboding tone. But you get what you pay for, and lots of people are going to pay dearly to dream of the shocking frights another Black Christmas will bring. --Ted Fry

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Alternate endings, Featurettes, Making of
Year:	2006
Release Date:	November 19, 2007
Runtime:	79 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	P 921701000
Keywords:	Black, Christmas, English, Horror, Occult
Genre:	Horror/Occult