Black Christmas (1974)

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Rating 3½


Directed by Bob Clark

Written by Roy Moore

Starring Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin, Keir Dullea and John Saxon


I recently watched the 2006 remake of this cult 1974 Canadian horror film and it was strongly suggested to me that I should watch the original, which is exactly what I have now done.

‘Black Christmas’ is sometimes cited as the first slasher movie and a direct precursor to John Carpenter’s classic 1978 film ‘Halloween’. It was made on a budget of $620,000, which is the equivalent of approximately $2.5 million now, still a very small amount. Director and producer Bob Clark went on to make the first two ‘Porky’s’ films, neither of which I have seen. He died in a car accident on 4 April 2007.

This is very much a film of its time, something immediately apparent in the look of it, the acting and the dialogue. The early to mid 1970s was a period that saw a new kind of filmmaking and filmmaker in America, one with a very distinctive style.

The narrative is a slow burn; many of the scares are achieved through suggestion, making them more frightening because what we are capable of imagining is far more genuinely shocking than a hundred buckets of offal and fake blood.

The first thing I thought when I started to watch the film was how much Margot Kidder looks like the one person minor crime-wave that is Debbie Dingle in ‘Emmerdale’, which was somewhat distracting for a time. I was then reminded how extraordinarily beautiful the Argentinean actress Olivia Hussey is, someone I had not seen in a very long time. It also took me back in time to see Keir Dullea again, an actor I will always associate with ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.

I didn’t like the character Mrs Mac, the sorority-house mother. I know the intention was primarily comic, but I just didn’t take to the alcoholic, borderline foul-mouth portrayal. Equally, I found it difficult to respond to Margot Kidder’s loud-mouthed alcoholic without some kind of explanation for her behaviour. Having said that, the “fellatio” joke was funny, and it’s never a hardship to watch the all too infrequently seen Kidder. It occurred to me that Cameron Richardson would have been a perfect choice to play Kidder’s character in the remake, a role that went to Crystal Lowe.

The juxtaposition between the celebration of Christmas and the horror unfolding in the sorority house is very well done, something that is noticeably absent in the remake. In terms of quality, there is little comparison between the two films, and I can understand the cult reputation this original has established over the years. In fact, I am surprised it is not more renowned.

For all that, in some ways I enjoyed watching the markedly inferior remake more.



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Black Christmas (2006)

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Rating 2


Written and directed by Glen Morgan, based on the original screenplay by Ray Moore

Starring Michelle Trachtenberg, Lacey Chabert, Katie Cassidy, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kristen Cloke and Andrea Martin


If my memory serves me well, I have never seen the original 1974 film, a cult Canadian horror directed by Bob Clark, who went on to direct ‘Porky’s’ - both I and II! Although the classic 1978 John Carpenter film ‘Halloween’ is routinely cited as the first modern day slasher film, a lot of people contend that the honour should go to ‘Black Christmas’.

The 2006 remake was written, directed and co-produced by Glen Morgan, a veteran of ‘The X Files’ and co-writer of the first and third ‘Final Destination’ films, alongside director James Wong, another ‘X Files’ veteran and one of the producers of ‘Black Christmas'.

I wasn’t especially familiar with many of the cast. Michelle Trachtenberg played Dawn Summers in the TV show ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and had lead roles in the films ‘Euro Trip’ and ‘The Ice Princess’. Lacey Chabert was one of the ‘plastics’ in ‘Mean Girls’. Kristen Cloke is the wife of Glen Morgan and Andrea Martin was one of the cast of the original film. Her role was originally offered to Margot Kidder, another actress who starred in the original.

Clearly, based on some of my other reviews collected on this site, I have a liking for rubbish films – or, at least, a certain kind of rubbish film, for example cheap and cheerful horror films. I don’t deny that. I would argue about the definition of “rubbish” in some cases. I do not consider ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’, ‘The Faculty’ or ‘The Grudge’ to be rubbish films by any stretch of the imagination, although others would certainly contend that they are.

In the case of the remake of ‘Black Christmas’ it most certainly is rubbish, but I enjoyed watching it, not once, not twice, but three times. Admittedly, on the second and third occasions I was doing something else at the time and it was largely just on in the background.

The plot is simple enough…

Christmas Eve: a group of sorority girls are snowed in at their sorority house and are half-heartedly exchanging presents. The house was the scene of a series of grisly murders several years previously and the killer escapes from a high-security facility. The rest is obvious, as one by one the girls are murdered.

A great deal of the short running time is taken up dealing with the back-story of the killer, a lot which is unpleasant and frankly unnecessary. There is no other attempt at any characterisation and the sorority girls are too 2-dimensional to be either likeable or dislikeable. Morgan seems to have attempted to employ the same quirky off-kilter comic approach that was used in the ‘Final Destination’ films, but it never really comes together. The various killings follow a quickly tedious one-note pattern and lack much inventiveness.

The acting was roundly criticised in many of the negative reviews of the film. Certainly, there are no award winning performances here and I’m not convinced about Kristen Cloke, but the standard of acting is generally adequate. Michelle Trachtenberg is marginally the best of the bunch, even if her character is given to blurting out variations of the word “fuck” at random moments, often for no apparent reason. She does get the best line - “I love you too, but honey, you're really, really smelly.”

Generally speaking, Trachtenberg and Lacey Chabert are probably worthy of better material than this.

As these things go, ‘Black Christmas’ is not a great example of the genre. It doesn't so much have holes in the plot as huge gaping craters and there are a few unpleasant bits that I could have happily done without. That said, it’s a different kind of Christmas film and quite fun in its own way.



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