1974’s Black Christmas is an absolute classic of the horror movie genre. It’s widely considered one of the first actual slasher films, in addition to being some genuinely good, scary fun. The 2019 remake attempts to be scary and fun in the same way, and it achieves that in a certain light, but falls short in other ways.
As much as we wanted another remake of this classic film to be great, we’ll deconstruct it here and see where it may fall. At the very least, it can’t be worse than the 2006 remake, can it? Maybe… Let’s see!
Great Remake: It Attempts To Cover Feminist Themes
The themes it attempts to cover are numerous. There’s talk of gaslighting, rape culture, issues with frat boys, institutionalized misogyny, and tons of other issues that legitimately matter to tons of people, and should. The only issue is that it gets to the point where it feels unnatural and kind of stilted, like these topics aren’t really cared about so much by the characters, but by the people who wrote them, and that doesn’t work in the film’s favor. There’s nothing wrong with covering these themes, especially taking hints from the first Black Christmas and importing them into 2019, but it wasn’t handled with much poise. Either way, it’s great to see these talking points in horror.
Not As Good: It Doesn’t Do Much Other Than Give Us The Horror
While it wants to talk about the issues facing women as a whole and specifically the issues that younger women face, it really doesn’t spend too much time doing that. It definitely doesn’t spend much time doing that in a way that doesn’t feel contrived and written by a bunch of people who feel like writing an essay on gender politics and not a horror movie. It just gets to be distracting when it happens, and it doesn’t happen very often considering this is a horror movie with an entire plot to get through.
Great Remake: It’s Better Than 2006
The remake that came out in 2006 was an absolute disaster. It strayed from the original a ton, just like this one does, to be honest, but in a way that was neither fun nor entertaining. The 2006 remake of the classic film was scary, disturbing, and probably even gross pretty often, but its main issue lies in it being so mean-spirited. The characters weren’t likable in any sense of the word. They were just things that existed for the sake of being killed in increasingly gruesome ways.
Not As Good: It’s Not As Scary As Either Of The Others
While the 2006 remake was extremely mean-spirited, it was also scary. The kills were ruthless and legitimately disconcerting to watch. The original film had the iconic plastic laundry bag kill, and the ending set a blueprint (along with the rest of the film) for how horror should be made in the decades to come. This film doesn’t have any originality, lacks creativity, and doesn’t even attempt to draw very much from the framework that was left for it by the original, without many of the redeeming qualities the earlier remake had.
Great Remake: The Women Talk About Issues Important To Women
The women of the sorority featured in the film aren’t scared to talk about things that men stereotypically don’t care about, which works in its favor since almost all films, especially horror, are made with the male gaze impressed onto them by the director. This director being female, it’s obvious that she wanted to make this movie for the empowerment of women, especially during a time in which it appears that male oppressors are getting away with more and more without being reprimanded. They cover tons of topics that most men in the theater most likely couldn’t care about, but it still gets covered up in horror so much so that the film seems more concerned with hitting a wide demographic.
Not As Good: The Characters Have No Depth
The characters in this film don’t have personalities, they have quirks. One of the girls is athletic. One of them is interested in cuisine. There’s the shy one with the troubled past. These aren’t characters, these are archetypes made so that girls in the audience can say “Hey, I played soccer in high school! I’m that one!” They’re purely made for projection.
Great Remake: The Premise Is Fresh
The idea of a horror movie that isn’t so much a slasher as an all-out war between a frat and a sorority is kind of new and it makes sense given that relationships between men and women of college age are contentious since everyone’s still kind of figuring out how interpersonal relationships work in general.
Theoretically speaking, the premise that the film presents works because it feels unique.
Not As Good: The Premise Isn’t Believable
Theoretically. While the premise makes sense and could potentially happen in a society full enough of men who hate women, but in the real world, the idea that an entire fraternity at a college would wage a murderous war on a sorority is almost laughable. These kids all have bright futures ahead of them and probably wouldn’t risk putting that in jeopardy collectively to feed their weird complexes.
Great Remake: It’s A Complete Reworking Of The Original
There aren’t many elements taken from the original film other than the sorority setting and the fact that it takes place during Christmas time. In fact, it doesn’t even need to be a horror movie. It could have very easily been branded as an action movie, and with a few changes in editing and music, it might work better that way. It’s interesting to take a concept and break it apart into something new.
Not As Good: It Isn’t Black Christmas
The film doesn’t feel like Black Christmas. Not in tone or writing or atmosphere or characters or anything. Given the low name recognition of Black Christmas in the target demographic, unless they’re huge horror nerds, the name and the marketing of the film seem like a giant misstep. As mentioned earlier, either go all the way into absolutely terrifying R-rated horror, make an action movie out of this premise, or stay home and think something else up. It just doesn’t work.
