Black Christmas (2006) Review

Written by: jamhorner   

Well its not the original but it is good gory horror fun. The plot is simple: psychopathic killer slashes a bunch of cute girls in a sorority on Christmas Eve. However, in this rendition we actually see who the killer is, where he came from and why he's so sick in the head. This movie is somewhat scary but lacks the originality its predecessor had, the mysterious killer you never see, the execution-style deaths and the whole concept of killing at Christmas. This remake was good but not new.

The "Scare Factor" was there but not enough. I guess some of the scares are cliché however they upped and twisted the whole creepy phone call. The intermissions that showed who the killer is were scary and very odd. I will give them credit for creating such a distrubing understory of how the killer became the person who he is. I will eleborate, you can't help, in some way, to feel sorry for this boy but in the same way, he seems to be selfish.

So there were new scares but not living up to the reputations of the original. The gore was there and a little silly but nonetheless scary. I jumped….once. But it was all in good fun and I appreciate that. Some of the scares were sort of silly (i.e. the christmas skin cookies). That was not disgusting, but rather silly and too much into the holiday spirit. The twist at the end was a twist, and I did not see it coming, but for some reason it reminded me too much of Sleepaway Camp and therefore, in the back of my conscience, I expected it.

The acting was bad, but like all other remakes of horror films, I'm not surprised. The teens seemed a bit more ditzy in this rendition than in the remake, and the teacher seemed a bit more professional in this one than in the original. However, that does not make up for cute and silly girls. It had a great cast of young females and the funny head of the sorority is priceless.

Overall, it's corny, cheese, fun, goofy, gory, scary and not bad for a remake. If you like seemingly good remakes, but still prefer the original, than you'll like Black Christmas, but it's not something to buy on DVD or dish out $6.00 to see in a big screen. For hard-core horror fans, this would seem a bit more PG-13ish than R. This movie is all in good fun and I'm pretty sure you'll have fun with this film.