Horror

Mystery

Black Christmas

Dimension Films

2929 Productions

Hard Eight Pictures

Adelstein/Parouse Productions

Hoban Segal Productions

Victor Solnicki Productions

Movie Central Network

Corus Studios

Canada

United States of America

English

Katie Cassidy

Kristen Cloke

Andrea Martin

Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe

Michelle Trachtenberg

Oliver Hudson

Robert Mann

Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Lacey Chabert

Dean Friss

Karin Konoval

Cainan Wiebe

Jessica Harmon

Leela Savasta

Christina Crivici

Kathleen Kole

Howard Siegel

Peter Wilds

Ron Selmour

Michael Adamthwaite

Peter New

Christian Sloan

Alycia Purrott

Juan Riedinger

Aaron Pearl

Peggy Logan

Jill Teed

Peggy Jo Jacobs

Jerry Wasserman

Derek McIver

Evan Adams

Jody Racicot

Anne Marie DeLuise

Greg Kean

Kent Kubena

Wendy Buss

Glen Morgan

Roy Moore

Shirley Walker

Robert McLachlan

Chris G. Willingham

James Wong

Krista Bell

Dino DiMuro

Dave McMoyler

Jon Title

Tim Walston

Michael Kowalski

Allan Magled

James Tichenor

Richard Brooks

Laura Lee Connery

Jennifer Mylrea

Kirk Caouette

Dustin Brooks

David Jacox

Danny Hospes

Sharon Simms

Jon Kralt

Tony Morelli

Rob Hayter

Anna Mercedes Mendez

Duane Dickinson

Dave Hospes

Chris Devitt

Paul Edwards

Geoff Redknap

Jack Hardy

Roger Scott Russell

Katharina Brand

Nancy Ford

David Hadaway

Catherine Ircha

Michelle Pitney

Nerses Gezalyan

J. Stanley Johnston

James Moriana

Patrick Ramsay

Jamie Ritharom-Umbras

Melissa Sherwood Hofmann

Jeffrey Wilhoit

Terry Hutcheson

Matthew Lynch

Paul Lavigne

Bruce Worrall

Peter Wilke

Matt Margolis

Burton 'Joe' Kuchera

Jason Dryden

James Bamford

Marny Eng

Crystal Dalman

Ogden Gavanski

Marty Adelstein

Marc Butan

Bob Clark

Mark Cuban

Steven Hoban

Scott Nemes

Dawn Olmstead

Noah Segal

Victor Solnicki

Todd Wagner

John Papsidera

Mark S. Freeborn

Tony Wohlgemuth

Mark Lane

Gregory Mah

Mike Upton

Eye eye, what we got ere then?

There's a running eyeball motif throughout this revamp/reimaging of Bob Clark's much revered culter of the same name (1974), after sitting through it you may, like me, feel like extracting your own eyeballs and playing ping-pong with them! 

Bunch of pretty sorority girls get menaced and mangled by a deranged killer who has come home for Christmas...

This lacks everything that made Bob Clark's film so effective. The less is more approach has gone, thus there is very little suspense, and in place is a gigantic back story for the killer. The characterisation of the girls, some acted by some very capable actresses, is practically non existent, so very little emotional heft to draw you into a state of caring for them. There's some good gore on show, but since tonally the pic is all over the place, it's never once scary or ironically funny.

A poor show all round. 3/10

Gimly

Obviously doesn't hold a candle to the original, and some of the acting is pretty genuinely bad, but it knows what it wants and it goes for it. What it wants, here being: To be hamstrung to keeping in step with its predecessor but also being wildly different enough to piss anyone off who was expecting an actual "remake".

_Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._

_**More entertaining than the original, but marred by a ridiculous tacked-on ending**_

During Christmas Eve at a sorority house in New Hampshire, the students & housemother are harassed by a killer who likes to gouge out eyes. For some strange reason the mad slasher knows all the inner rooms and crawlspaces of the house (attic, basement, etc.).

“Black Christmas” (2006) is the first of two remakes of the original film from 1974 (the other being released in 2019 and is a remake-in-name-only). This version is more colorful and entertaining than the original, but also more twisted, highlighted by a superior cast of women, including Michelle Trachtenberg (Melissa), Lacey Chabert (Dana), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Heather), Jessica Harmon (Megan), Leela Savasta (Clair) and Katie Cassidy (Kelli).

Written & directed by Glen Morgan, the film is inventive with its backstory and the way the killer haunts the innards of the house, spying & preying on the girls. This is genuinely compelling stuff. Unfortunately, the film's tone and ending were marred by the interference of studio exec Bob Weinstein, who wanted a more over-the-top horror flick with cartoonish embellishments. The preposterous ending in particular seems tacked-on and (almost) ruins the movie. Thankfully some versions of the film are closer to Morgan’s original vision, at least as far as the climax goes.

The movie runs about 1 hour, 30 minutes, with a couple other versions longer or shorter by 4-5 minutes (depending on which ending was used). The film was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, with the hospital scenes done at Riverview Hospital in nearby Coquitlam.

GRADE: B

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Katie Cassidy

Kristen Cloke

Andrea Martin

Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe

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