BLACK CHRISTMAS (2006)

The 2006 remake of Black Christmas essentially follows the plot of the original classic. A group of sorority sisters find themselves holed up in their sorority house when they begin receiving lewd phone calls, and the girls begin to be picked off one-by-one. When it was first released, Black Christmas (2006) received largely negative reviews, but with last year's Black Christmas remake, I figured it was time to look back at this forgotten horror flick and see if it really is as bad as people claimed it was.  

Well, at least this remake is trying to be a Black Christmas movie, and it does attempt some different things with middling results. It's certainly very stylistic, and it feels more like a bottle film. Most of the film takes place in the house, and it feels quite claustrophobic. It also tries to create an origin story for Billy and Agnes, but it just doesn't feel right and doesn't work.

There is a lot of blood and gore in this remake, but the kills aren't memorable or creative (Plus, you don't see much. This is a film where they use the bag-over-the-head from the original 6 times!). Our leads are forgettable, interchangeable and bland as well (I had trouble remembering their names), not to mention it never feels like we really have a main character here. (Maybe Billy and Agnes, but they are villains).

The villain design is very weak, it looks like Billy and Agnes are wearing masks most of the time (although they aren't supposed to be). It doesn't help that Billy isn't in this much.  For most of the film, Agnes is the one doing the killing. Billy does get a great entrance near the end though. In the end, Black X-Mas (2006) is a bad film, but it is entertaining (to a degree) and at least it's trying. It's a well-meaning but heavily flawed horror flick.

1 STAR