Black Christmas 2006: Turn on a freakin' light!

 Black Christmas 2006 is the worst lit film I have ever seen in my life.  Apologies to the Cinematographer, Director of Photography, and the entire Black Christmas crew.  I am sure the Director told you to "keep it dark, make it creepy.  We will light everything with Christmas lights, it will be awesome!"  It wasn't awesome.  It was too dark to see what the hell was going on.  I was more confused than my 76 year old Father, who watched the film with me and had to tell me what was going on half the time.  Throughout the film I was screaming "there is a light switch!  Use it!"  During the scene when the "power" went out I almost died laughing.  How were they going to see without those Christmas lights?  Even during the final showdown AT THE HOSPITAL there were no lights.  What hospital is lit by tea lights? 

It is shame, because this had the potential to be a good film.  It is a remake of one of my favorite films, Black Christmas 1974.  Scroll down a few posts and you will discover why I loved that film so much.  Alright, I loved it for Olivia Hussey's hair (I'm obsessed.) 

This follows the original pretty closely.  Left-behind Sorority Sisters are spending Christmas together in their house.  Andrea Martin, who was in the original, plays the house mother.  Katie Cassidy, who I loved in Gossip Girl (don't judge) plays the Olivia Hussey role.  Her hair does not even begin to compare.  Dropped is the pregnancy/crazy boyfriend storyline in favor some back story about the killer in the attic.  In the original, we know nothing about "Billy Lenz."  Here we learn a lot, including the fact that he is yellow (!) and he had a baby with this mother.  Yes, we are delving into V.C. Andrews territory here.  That unholy union produced a daughter, who may be a member of the sorority.

Billy kills his parents, which was really the best decision for him, and gets put away in an asylum.  The house gets turned into the sorority house.  Billy breaks out, and the rest is rather predictable.

The girls are not nearly as interesting in this film.  None of them are as memorable as a drunk Margo Kidder.  There are a few good scares, and a nice "face in the Christmas Tree" creep-out.  I am sure the gore was impressive, but again, the film was so dark you can't really see any of it.  I mean, did anyone else have this problem with this film?  I didn't hate this remake but it won't be on my X-mas viewing list.

Black Christmas 1974

My life has been changed thanks to TCM.  For some reason, in the middle of June, they played Bob Clark's Black Christmas.  I was fortunate enough to see that it was playing and hit "record" on the DVR.  See, I had never seen Black Christmas despite it's reputation as "the first slasher" (debatable, I know) and the fact that it was directed by Clark, who made two of my favorite films, A Christmas Story and Porky's (don't hate: you love Porky's, you know you do.)

I have no good excuse for never seeing Black Christmas, I have just never gotten around to it.  Maybe I needed to be at the right time in my life, emotionally and intellectually, to appreciate the massive awesomeness of this film.  This film is so massively awesome on so many levels I need to resort to my favorite lazy writing technique: the list.  Here we go...

1.  Olivia Hussey's hair.  I almost could not pay attention to the plot due to the magnificence of Ms. Hussey's hair.  It's so shiny and beautiful.  She must have washed it in baby tears to get it that soft.  Seriously, I have a serious girl crush on Olivia Hussey circa 1974!  She plays Jess, one of the sorority sisters who lives in this house that is targeted by a deranged killer hiding in the Attic.  Jess is the final girl but she is no saint.  She is knocked up and has decided to terminate the pregnancy.  Good decision considering the father is......   

2.  Keir Dullea!  I have been obsessed with Keir Dullea ever since I went through my "serious" film phase and watched 2001: A Space Odyssey 20 times.  What happened with him?  He should have been a bigger star.  Keir plays Peter, Baby daddy.  He is a music major and borderline psycho.  He does not want Jess to have an abortion, and goes ape shit when she tells him she is going to anyway.  He also wears a turtleneck throughout most of the film, so you know that he is disturbed.  Never trust a man in a turtleneck.  

3. The Killer hiding in the house.  Clark never shows us the killer.  We just get glimpses of him like the one seen above.  All we know is that he is hiding in the house, watching the girls as they prepare to leave on Christmas break.  He may also be making disturbing phone calls to the house, shouting nonsense about "Billy" and "Agnes."  He stalks and kills in interesting ways.  His first victim, Claire, gets asphyxiated and put in the Attic.  She is left facing the window, "watching" the action so to speak.  Another poor girl gets killed with a crystal unicorn.  It was the Seventies man.

4.  It was the Seventies man!  The fashions are so cool.  Look at this guy: he is wearing a fur jacket!  He wears it throughout the film!  Abortion is a hot topic and handled with sensitivity and from a woman's perspective.  Shit, that doesn't happen in today's films.  Margo Kidder is in it!  And she plays a sexually liberated woman who wants to drink and have fun and doesn't feel bad about it!  Yes, she gets killed, but not first!

Seriously, I loved this movie.  Great cast, damn good directing, and really good scares.  I found myself screaming at screen.  "Don't go upstairs Olivia Hussey!  He might harm your hair!"  I like that the ending is totally ambiguous, that nice people die, and that poor Jess, although a Final Girl, will be fucked up for the rest of her life.  Plus, the whole thing is so "Christmas-y."  Bob Clark really knew how to lay on Christmas.  Now, every December, in addition to A Christmas Story, I can watch Black Christmas and revel in the Yuletide joy.