DVD: Black Xmas

Glen Morgan seems to have a penchant for remaking forgotten 1970s horror films. Such may be his undoing if he ever wants to break out as a director after this second failure.
Folowing up 2003’s flop Willard (worth a look) with a retread of Bob Clark’s 1974 proto-slasher Black Christmas must have seemed like a pretty safe bet. The concept is certainly far more commercial. But the result is a far more confused than his skillfully macabre debut.

This seasonal slasher set in a sorority house has all the gloss and gore conventionally required of Hollywood horror pictures these days but none of the charm. It also shifts uncomfortably between laughs and scares. Unlike the Final Destination films which Morgan wrote, the humour of Black Christmas seems entirely misplaced. You’re never quite sure which parts you should be laughing at, and this has less to do with ambiguity than poor filmmaking.

An attempt at marrying dark, tense scenes with extreme, cartoon violence is established in the opening sequence and it just doesn’t work. And you find yourself longing for the consistency of the aesthetically focused When a Stranger Calls remake. As terrible as that was it at least had consistency.

On the ‘making of’ documentary Morgan goes on record as saying that he added shock scenes, the kind he personally dislikes, because it’s demanded by the audience. Is it any wonder then that the film seems so messy when he’s making choices against his own instincts? The failure of Willard has made him cautious and that is the greatest tragedy of that unfairly overlooked film.

This DVD has lots to offer the genre cinephile. Alternate and deleted scenes enhance the documentary footage to further enlighten as to the indecision that is the heart of the problem with this film. There is even the option of viewing the film with the US theatrical ending.

In conclusion it has to be said that Black Christmas, which features an almost exclusively female cast, including one of the stars of the first film, is an interesting failure. Check out Willard instead. Richard Hawes

Interested? Black Christmas can be found here. Alternatively, give Willard a go instead.