Black Christmas (2006) review

Dir. Glen Morgan

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

Remembering Michelle Trachtenberg

1985 – 2025

Black Christmas is a grisly and unapologetically gruesome remake emerging from the dark night of the soul, based on Bob Clark’s original 1974 controversial Christmas slasher. This one gets right what most remakes don’t. It’s not without flaws, but it surely pays more careful attention to the formula and smooths out some of, what looked to be, the inevitable rough edges.

For one thing, the film earns its R rating which is a blessing. I’m so very, very tired of PG-13 horror films and to see a remake of a violent slasher that was R rated be stamped with an R rating further shows that they didn’t want to cut out all the gore to try and market to the teen demographic. Second, Black Christmas is more concerned with establishing a creepy and uneasy setting better than any horror remake I’ve ever seen. The cinematography is enriching and part of the reason the film still surprises me today. The music, which was the final work composed by Shirley Walker before her death a month before the release date of the film, perfectly enhances and compliments the setting to further the eerie feeling we get diving into this film blindly.

The kills are some of the goriest in any remake I’ve seen. There’s one scene, during the murder of the family, that could go down as one of the most disturbing yet well crafted scenes in horror in the last ten or so years. Black Christmas is mean-spirited and utterly proud of it. I’ve never seen such a shamelessly gruesome horror remake like this. It follows up every disgusting scene with one more of equal or more quality.

The storyline is actually pretty well developed as well. It centers around Billy Lenz (Mann) who was abused and hated by his mother. After witnessing his father being brutally murdered then buried by his mother and her boyfriend, now his step dad, years later Billy, whom still scared, kills both of his parents and is now in a mental institution for the criminally insane. Every year he claims he’ll be home for Christmas and tries to escape, but is caught every time.

Now his home is a sorority house filled with foul-mouthed, attractive young women many of which you have to listen closely to pick up on their names. The actresses are played by Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Crystal Lowe, Katie Cassidy, Oliver Hudson, Lacey Chabert, and Kristen Cloke. Because James Wong is producer and many of the actresses were in Final Destination and Final Destination 3, films he worked on, I can only assume Wong was a big help when it came to cast this movie.

The sisters spend their night opening their gifts, drinking, subtly insulting one another, and swearing the night away. Over the course of the evening, a man persistently calls them leaving harassing and eerie messages on the receiver. You can see where this is going…

There is an involving story, some great cinematography, and a very interesting backstory. But the lack of character development is sad yet expected. The film doesn’t really seem to concerned about the teenagers and surprisingly, without spoiling anything, there is less people alive than one would believe at the end. Which is why I think James Wong’s role in this film was huge since the gory deaths and quick murders are very reminiscent of the Final Destination franchise. Black Christmas is brutal, vile, vicious, and true to its title, but also one of the artsiest horror films I’ve seen in quite sometime.

Starring: Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Oliver Hudson, Lacey Chabert, Kristen Cloke, and Andrea Martin. Directed by: Glen Morgan.