Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Black Christmas (2006)
Director: Glen Morgan
Movie review
From Time Out London
A harbinger of the slasher cycle kick-started by ‘Halloween’ four years later, Bob Clark’s 1974 ‘Black Christmas’ coined most of the familiar conventions. This twisted remake retains the original’s Yuletide setting and basic set-up – housebound sorority sisters terrorised by obscene phone calls and violent attacks – but also attempts a postmodern riff. By incorporating the first film’s psycho killer mythology into the remake’s narrative fabric, writer-director Glen Morgan’s script both reprises and comments upon Clark’s cult horror classic. Sadly, by substituting clever-clever plotting, expository flashbacks and a shoal of red herrings for the original’s creepy, cumulative suspense, Morgan loses focus and deflates the tension. To compensate, he simply ups the gore and nastiness quotient, with a particular emphasis on the removal and display of eyeballs. There are some enjoyably knowing subversions of the ‘slay ride’ formula and a few nice touches, notably the casting of one of the original girls (Andrea Martin) as the sorority house mother. But a modern horror movie featuring a non-ironic shower scene is far less knowing than it pretends to be.Author: Nigel Floyd
Time Out London Issue 1895: December 13-20 2006
Cast & crew
Director: Glen Morgan
Cast: Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Lacey Chabert, Andrea Martin full cast
Duration: 84 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now