Black Christmas (1974), 98 mins
Another slow 70’s movie, but this time I was actually interested in the side stories and unique and comical characters. Picturing myself in the sorority girls’ house with a psycho in the attic seems incredibly frightening. Being from the 70’s there was a lot of totally rad fashion (the fur coats) and furniture, and I thought the movie itself had a nice flow to it. What I could have done without was the women hearing the slightest sound and then calling the cat, Claude, for half an hour. I don’t know about you, but I think anyone with a cat knows that you shake a bag of treats and it’ll come running. Also, how hard is it to just leave the house and follow instructions?? And why was the whole house never checked by anyone? Infuriating. I liked the ending, and am surprised there was no sequel, but I wish they would have explained the killer’s story at least a little bit.
Black Christmas (2006), 84 mins
Andrea Martin who plays Phyl in the original, comes back as Mrs Mac in the remake. I liked that the movie slightly followed the original (making a point to include details such as the glass unicorn) but focussed more on the story of the killer. It even made it more Christmassy (though I still don’t get where the ‘black’ comes from… the only black person in either of these movies is the asylum guard). I really wish it wasn’t so dumb, but that was a give-away as soon as I saw the actress from Mean Girls. You get to a point where you’re like “Are these bitches dead yet??” Some things in the movie are even just obviously wrong- *69 doesn’t call the number back, that’s redial, you bunch of baby-voiced sorority idiots! And what’s with the eyeballs and the girl who looks like she just came off the set of White Girls? I mean, it had potential, but the longer it went on, the more ridiculous it got.
Categories: 70s, 2000s, murderer, Christmas, Painful Movie Mondays
Verdict: It’s a shocker, I know, but the original is the winner. Simply for lack of stupidity.
1976 version: 6/10
2006 version: 3/10
photo credit: http://thatwasabitmental.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/black-christmas-pic-1.jpg