Black Christmas (2019) Universal/Horror RT: 92 minutes Rated PG-13 (violence, terror, thematic content involving sexual assault, language, sexual material, drinking) Director: Sophia Takal Screenplay: Sophia Takal and April Wolfe Music: Will and Brooke Blair Cinematography: Mark Schwartzbard Release date: December 13, 2019 (US) Cast: Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Lily Donoghue, Brittany O’Grady, Caleb Eberhardt, Cary Elwes, Simon Mead, Madeleine Adams, Nathalie Morris, Ben Black, Zoe Robins, Ryan McIntyre, Mark Neilson, Lucy Currey. Box Office: $10.4M (US)/$18.5M (World)
Rating: *
I like both earlier versions of the holiday-themed fright flick Black Christmas. The original 1974 version is a nifty, low budget Canadian horror movie in which a group of sorority sisters fall prey to a psychopathic killer whose identity and motive are never revealed. It’s actually one of the first slasher films predating Halloween by four years. The 2006 remake is a cool splatter flick in which the killer(s) actually deck the halls with bowels and entrails (fa la la la la!). It follows the same basic plot as the original, but expands on the killer’s sick, twisted backstory (it involves incest and matricide). I recently rewatched both as a double feature and it was great.
My feelings about the latest incarnation of Black Christmas are quite the opposite. Starting with the obvious, it’s a slasher movie and it’s PG-13. What’s wrong with this picture? Yep, you got it! A PG-13 rating definitely defeats the purpose. Then there’s the matter of the too-revealing trailer. Going in, we already know who the killers are; a group of frat boys in black robes and Eyes Wide Shut masks. We’re also given an indication of the why with the mention of the word “sacrifice”. Did we really need to know all this before seeing the movie? Not really. But that’s not what gets to me. What really gets to me about the new Black Christmas is the added supernatural aspect having to do with a bust of the college’s racist, misogynistic founder. It’s stupid and adds nothing to the movie. If anything, it derails it.
Once again, the main action of Black Christmas takes place among a group of sorority sisters at Christmastime. They’re being killed off and must fend for themselves. Any similarity between the new and the old ends here. The plot has been retrofitted for the MeToo generation. In lieu of rehashing the plot, I’d like to talk about the vibe of the thing. Imagine if Jane Campion (The Piano, In the Cut) directed a horror movie. It might turn out something like this. Director Sophia Takal makes no attempt to hide her disgust of the opposite sex; she depicts all men as either rapists or emasculated wimps. When one of the wimps grows a pair, the girls angrily reject him. I see what Takal is getting at here. She takes a genre usually defined as misogynistic and turns it around (the term is “misandrogynistic”). Fine, turnabout is fair play in cinema too. The question is does it belong in what’s supposed to be an entertaining holiday horror aimed at teens?
The protagonist of this Black Christmas is Riley (Poots, Green Room), a student at Hawthorne College, a hotbed of misogyny and sexual assault primarily at the hands of members of Delta Kappa Omicron, a fraternity of entitled creeps who belong in prison. She’s still coping with being raped by their former president (McIntyre) three years earlier, a trauma made worse by nobody other than her Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters believing her. It seems she’s destined to relive this nightmare after campus police dismiss her concerns over the disappearance of sorority sister Helena (Adams) shortly after she and her friends perform a number blasting rape culture and naming Riley’s rapist at the DKO talent show. The guard on duty says she’s probably with her boyfriend like 90% of the girls reported missing this time of year. So how does that explain the threatening DMs from a mysterious account?
Meanwhile, her super-feminist friend/sister Kris (Shannon, Charmed) has drawn ire due to her petition to have popular lit professor Gelson (Elwes, Saw) fired for not teaching books written by women. She’s also the one responsible for having the bust of founder Calvin Hawthorne removed from the main building. Is it any wonder they become targets? Given the movie’s decidedly feminist slant, sisters from different sororities band together and fight back against the male villains in the climax.
The whole idea of female characters taking the reins of a slasher flick isn’t a terrible idea in and of itself. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing a movie where college girls turn vigilante and take down fraternity rapists officials refuse to punish citing lack of evidence or some “he said, she said” BS. In Black Christmas, any attempted message about rape culture on college campuses comes off as crass and tasteless. This is mainly due to the idiocy of the black magic subplot. It feels shoehorned in. I might not have minded it so much if Takal remained true to the genre- Black Christmas in particular- and gone for the R with a lot of gore. A slasher flick without blood is like an oatmeal cookie without raisins. What’s the point? I get that PG-13 horror movies exist because they’re accessible to young teens and will make more money for the studio. The problem is that PG-13 remakes of horror movies originally rated R never work. I give you Prom Night, When a Stranger Calls, The Stepfather and now, Black Christmas.
I don’t even know what to say about the acting in Black Christmas. Is it even worth the time and effort to comment on this aspect of a basically worthless movie? If pressed, I suppose I could say Poots is an engaging young actress. Elwes overplays it as the professor who makes clear his feelings towards women, especially ones who make trouble for men.
As for what else, I don’t think there’s anything to say other than the characterizations make perfectly clear the director’s favored gender. All men are villains or wimps; all women are fighters. It’s a generalization and an oversimplification. But why am I even talking about this? Black Christmas is supposed to be fun entertainment, counterprogramming for those who don’t like feel-good cheery Christmas movies. Instead, it’s a message movie undone by stupidity in plotting. It should go in the trash instead of under the tree.
