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.