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yendiBlack Christmas. 2006. Written and Directed by Glen Morgan.
Ah, the classic era of '70s blaxploitation horror flicks. There was Blacula, featuring a black Dracula; Blackenstein, with a black monster; Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, with a black mad scientist; and Black Christmas, with a black . . . wait, never mind. The original Black Christmas was one of the early slasher classics, and today's movie, the 2006 remake, is a surprisingly faithful and solid update.
We start in a sorority house, where a girl is busy wrapping presents. She hears a noise and checks out her closet, but doesn't find so much as a cat scare. She goes back to writing a card, but suddenly, without warning, someone sneaks up behind her and throws a plastic bag over her head! Before she can finish struggling, she gets stabbed in the eye with the very pen she'd been using! That'd be irony, if you were writing an Alanis Morissette song!
We cut to an insane asylum*. It's Christmastime, and even the inmates get a holiday meal. We see the guard, the orderly, and the other orderly (who dressed as Santa to entertain the residents, even though this is a maximum security place and the bad guys are locked up tightly). While we're getting some scenes of the assorted girls (I'll deal with those below), we see the really dangerous inmate slide a wrapped present out of the food slot of his cell. The guard opens it, sees a message saying that the inmate will be home for Christmas, and decides that he should single-handedly open up the inmate's cell. He then falls for the classic "make it look like the inmate escaped while really hiding under the bed" trick, and gets stabbed with a sharpened candy cane for his troubles.
Meanwhile, back at the sorority house, we meet a bunch of the girls, as well as their house mother. I won't bother going into details about them, as they're basically there to be killed. But we've got a lush, a Final Girl, a mopey girl (who has computer porn of herself having sex with Final Girl's boyfriend), a snarky girl (played by Michelle Trachtenberg), a bitchy girl (played by Lacey Chabert), a rich Southern Belle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and a vague and undefined girl who doesn't matter because she won't live that long. We get some character development for a while (including a digression on the pagan nature of Christmas) before we return to the plot.
Mopey Girl, while watching her homemade porn, hears a noise from the attic. She investigates, and sees that it's a snow globe. She investigates further, and finds that the girl from the opening scene is sitting in the rocking chair, dead as Dick Cheney's soul. Before she can say, "man, it was really stupid of me to come up to the attic all alone to investigate that noise," a bag is placed over her head, and the snowglobe is smashed against her skull. Then, as a bonus, the killer reaches through the plastic bag and plucks out her eye. And back at the least secure maximum-security asylum, the escapee kills the orderly who was dressed as Santa and waltzes out of the asylum in disguise before ditching the outfit**.
Now, because you demanded it, we get flashbacks and exposition! Turns out that a boy named Billy was born with a mild birth defect that gave him a jaundiced look. Naturally, her mom hated him because of it, and even though Billy's dad tried to protect him, it wasn't enough. Eventually, the mom had an affair, and she and her lover killed the dad by putting a bag over his head and then braining him. The mother and stepdad trapped Billy in the attic, because that's where material witnesses to capital crimes get stashed. However, the stepdad was shooting blanks, so the mother decided to have sex with Billy to get pregnant, even though the dumbest twisted movie logic in the world can't possibly rationalize that move. The resulting daughter, Agnes, is doted upon by the parents (by which I mean the mother and stepdad, not Billy), but Billy eventually breaks loose, stabs the stepdad (with the knife coming right out the back of his head, as if Stepdad's head were made of prop plaster instead of flesh and bone), beats the mom to death with a rolling pin, and plucks out one of Agnes's eyes. Billy then takes a Christmas cookie cutter and makes Mommy cookies out of his mom's corpse. Billy is sent away, and Agnes is sent to an orphanage and eventually lost in the cruel foster-child system, just like Sarah Sidle.
That story is presented over the course of multiple flashbacks, but I've consolidated it for your reading pleasure, such as it is. I'd also like to point out at this time that, even if you use a cookie cutter, pieces of flesh that are baked in the oven are generally best prepared as an appetizer or entree.
Back to the present, we get a bit more character development, including the reappearance of Final Girl's boyfriend and the revelation that he not only had an affair with Mopey Girl some time ago, but that he's a sexist pig who thinks all of the girls are "spoiled bitches." Charming. At least we know he'll die soon. We also get a crank phone call from the first victim's cell phone, and a visit from her half-sister. This is followed by the usual horror movie cliche of the power going out, combined with the horror cliche variant of a nasty snowstorm (which, to be fair, is more interesting than the traditional rainstorm). We also get a few creepy scenes of someone watching the girls from within the floorboards.
After bitching about the lack of power, Lacey Chabert finally goes outside and crawls under the house to try to fix it. She gets grabbed, and manages to stab the killer in the arm with an old garden tool***, but being a moron, she then lets go of the tool, and the killer uses it to stab her in the back of the head. The next scene features a creepy, threatening, and male voice making a crank phone call from Chabert's phone, which convinces the girls that something's up. They go outside to investigate, and see the car of that vague and undefined character I mentioned above. On opening the door, they find her severed head, and now they know that something's really wrong!
They run inside, thinking that's safe, and call the cops, but the storm means that it's almost impossible for the cops to arrive in less than two hours. So the house mother and Mary Elizabeth Winstead decide to run for her car, and they get there safely. Since Mary Elizabeth has never scraped ice herself, the house mother gets out to clear the windshield, and as she does so, she sees a yellow eye peek out at her. After a second, the still-frosted-over window gets covered in a huge splash of blood, and the house mom backs up into a wall, where an icicle falls and impales her.
I'll pause for a moment and note that director Glen Morgan also wrote the first and third Final Destination movies. We can safely assume that this scene features a crossover with the Rube Goldberg Death from those films, and that Death gets the credit for the kill here.
Inside the house, the girls can see that the car is still there, and when two of them go to investigate, they slip on some blood and are terrified. Inside the house, Michelle Trachtenberg is attacked from behind with a plastic bag by a blonde, and has her eye plucked out and eaten (all on-screen). She's then dragged away, still screaming, as the two girls outside attempt to bust through the fence (barricaded on the other side by the house mom's body). As they do so, we see the legs of a killer out there. Yes, as if there was any doubt, there are two killers operating here!
The two girls run back inside and barricade themselves inside the room of the drunk girl. Shortly after calling Michelle Trachtenberg's cell phone (and hearing a ring from the attic), they're surprised by the Final Girl's boyfriend, and they also realize that their drunk friend has had her eyes plucked out!
The three survivors (the Final Girl, the Half Sister, and the Final Girl's boyfriend) go to the attic entrance, and the boyfriend bravely goes up there, only to be grabbed and pulled in. After a struggle, he's impaled through the head with a unicorn statuette, and as the two girls (who follow him into the attic to rescue him) watch in horror, both eyes become munchies. They're soon even more horrified when they realize that all of their dead friends are up here.
After a struggle in which the half-sister falls through the floorboards, the Final Girl and Agnes struggle, knocking over candles, before Final Girl pokes Agnes in the eye with a poker (what else would you use?). Alas, she got her in the fake eye, and before she can do anything else, Billy makes his way into the attic as well! The next set of struggles is a poorly-directed clusterfuck, but eventually, Agnes falls (not fatally) into the basement, the Final Girl is on the verge of falling, and Billy is slowly coming after her. As they struggle in crawlspaces, the half-sister regains consciousness and rescues her friend just as the fire from above rages out of control. The two girls escape, locking the killers inside the burning house.
But that's no way for killers to die! At the hospital, the sister goes to look at Agnes's body, only to see that it's her sister (the first victim) who is in the body bag! When she goes back to Final Girl's room, it's Agnes who is lying in the bed, and snap goes the penultimate girl's neck.
Turns out that Final Girl has been out for some tests, and when she gets back, she sees her late friend's watch covered in blood. She tries to get out, but the door is locked, and we see Agnes slowly coming down from a ceiling panel. Fortunately, Final Girl is smart enough to know how to operate the room's defibrillator, and she defibs**** Agnes to death.
A quick editorial note: The Wikipedia entry for this movie lists scenes that were not in the version that somehow ended up on my computer, including one featuring another appearance by Billy, and one in which Michelle Trachtenberg gets decapitated. I'm guessing those are on the director's cut of the DVD.
As far as the Black Christmas I saw goes, I was pleasantly surprised. It does a surprising job of sticking to the overall flavor of the original, while adding some much-needed gore. Alas, it also does add a hefted dose of unnecessary stupid, largely in the forms of the flashbacks to Billy's youth and the ridiculous amount of strength the killers possess (Jason Vorhees would be impressed) as they cut right through skull after skull. Not to mention the worst insane asylum ever. Still, my expectations were low enough here that I find that I can enjoy this movie without worrying too much about its flaws. It's certainly not as good as the original, but it's a fun enough way to spend a couple of hours. The cast includes lots of talented folks, and Morgan's script is witty enough to keep things moving along.
*We never cut to sane asylums in these movies.
**Because if he committed any murders while wearing a Santa suit, everyone would think this was a remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night.
***A three-tined garden rake, alas. It would have been more amusing if she'd used a hoe. Even if it's tough to stab with one.
****Yes, I know that's not the proper verb form. But it sounds cool.
Ah, the classic era of '70s blaxploitation horror flicks. There was Blacula, featuring a black Dracula; Blackenstein, with a black monster; Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, with a black mad scientist; and Black Christmas, with a black . . . wait, never mind. The original Black Christmas was one of the early slasher classics, and today's movie, the 2006 remake, is a surprisingly faithful and solid update.
We start in a sorority house, where a girl is busy wrapping presents. She hears a noise and checks out her closet, but doesn't find so much as a cat scare. She goes back to writing a card, but suddenly, without warning, someone sneaks up behind her and throws a plastic bag over her head! Before she can finish struggling, she gets stabbed in the eye with the very pen she'd been using! That'd be irony, if you were writing an Alanis Morissette song!
We cut to an insane asylum*. It's Christmastime, and even the inmates get a holiday meal. We see the guard, the orderly, and the other orderly (who dressed as Santa to entertain the residents, even though this is a maximum security place and the bad guys are locked up tightly). While we're getting some scenes of the assorted girls (I'll deal with those below), we see the really dangerous inmate slide a wrapped present out of the food slot of his cell. The guard opens it, sees a message saying that the inmate will be home for Christmas, and decides that he should single-handedly open up the inmate's cell. He then falls for the classic "make it look like the inmate escaped while really hiding under the bed" trick, and gets stabbed with a sharpened candy cane for his troubles.
Meanwhile, back at the sorority house, we meet a bunch of the girls, as well as their house mother. I won't bother going into details about them, as they're basically there to be killed. But we've got a lush, a Final Girl, a mopey girl (who has computer porn of herself having sex with Final Girl's boyfriend), a snarky girl (played by Michelle Trachtenberg), a bitchy girl (played by Lacey Chabert), a rich Southern Belle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and a vague and undefined girl who doesn't matter because she won't live that long. We get some character development for a while (including a digression on the pagan nature of Christmas) before we return to the plot.
Mopey Girl, while watching her homemade porn, hears a noise from the attic. She investigates, and sees that it's a snow globe. She investigates further, and finds that the girl from the opening scene is sitting in the rocking chair, dead as Dick Cheney's soul. Before she can say, "man, it was really stupid of me to come up to the attic all alone to investigate that noise," a bag is placed over her head, and the snowglobe is smashed against her skull. Then, as a bonus, the killer reaches through the plastic bag and plucks out her eye. And back at the least secure maximum-security asylum, the escapee kills the orderly who was dressed as Santa and waltzes out of the asylum in disguise before ditching the outfit**.
Now, because you demanded it, we get flashbacks and exposition! Turns out that a boy named Billy was born with a mild birth defect that gave him a jaundiced look. Naturally, her mom hated him because of it, and even though Billy's dad tried to protect him, it wasn't enough. Eventually, the mom had an affair, and she and her lover killed the dad by putting a bag over his head and then braining him. The mother and stepdad trapped Billy in the attic, because that's where material witnesses to capital crimes get stashed. However, the stepdad was shooting blanks, so the mother decided to have sex with Billy to get pregnant, even though the dumbest twisted movie logic in the world can't possibly rationalize that move. The resulting daughter, Agnes, is doted upon by the parents (by which I mean the mother and stepdad, not Billy), but Billy eventually breaks loose, stabs the stepdad (with the knife coming right out the back of his head, as if Stepdad's head were made of prop plaster instead of flesh and bone), beats the mom to death with a rolling pin, and plucks out one of Agnes's eyes. Billy then takes a Christmas cookie cutter and makes Mommy cookies out of his mom's corpse. Billy is sent away, and Agnes is sent to an orphanage and eventually lost in the cruel foster-child system, just like Sarah Sidle.
That story is presented over the course of multiple flashbacks, but I've consolidated it for your reading pleasure, such as it is. I'd also like to point out at this time that, even if you use a cookie cutter, pieces of flesh that are baked in the oven are generally best prepared as an appetizer or entree.
Back to the present, we get a bit more character development, including the reappearance of Final Girl's boyfriend and the revelation that he not only had an affair with Mopey Girl some time ago, but that he's a sexist pig who thinks all of the girls are "spoiled bitches." Charming. At least we know he'll die soon. We also get a crank phone call from the first victim's cell phone, and a visit from her half-sister. This is followed by the usual horror movie cliche of the power going out, combined with the horror cliche variant of a nasty snowstorm (which, to be fair, is more interesting than the traditional rainstorm). We also get a few creepy scenes of someone watching the girls from within the floorboards.
After bitching about the lack of power, Lacey Chabert finally goes outside and crawls under the house to try to fix it. She gets grabbed, and manages to stab the killer in the arm with an old garden tool***, but being a moron, she then lets go of the tool, and the killer uses it to stab her in the back of the head. The next scene features a creepy, threatening, and male voice making a crank phone call from Chabert's phone, which convinces the girls that something's up. They go outside to investigate, and see the car of that vague and undefined character I mentioned above. On opening the door, they find her severed head, and now they know that something's really wrong!
They run inside, thinking that's safe, and call the cops, but the storm means that it's almost impossible for the cops to arrive in less than two hours. So the house mother and Mary Elizabeth Winstead decide to run for her car, and they get there safely. Since Mary Elizabeth has never scraped ice herself, the house mother gets out to clear the windshield, and as she does so, she sees a yellow eye peek out at her. After a second, the still-frosted-over window gets covered in a huge splash of blood, and the house mom backs up into a wall, where an icicle falls and impales her.
I'll pause for a moment and note that director Glen Morgan also wrote the first and third Final Destination movies. We can safely assume that this scene features a crossover with the Rube Goldberg Death from those films, and that Death gets the credit for the kill here.
Inside the house, the girls can see that the car is still there, and when two of them go to investigate, they slip on some blood and are terrified. Inside the house, Michelle Trachtenberg is attacked from behind with a plastic bag by a blonde, and has her eye plucked out and eaten (all on-screen). She's then dragged away, still screaming, as the two girls outside attempt to bust through the fence (barricaded on the other side by the house mom's body). As they do so, we see the legs of a killer out there. Yes, as if there was any doubt, there are two killers operating here!
The two girls run back inside and barricade themselves inside the room of the drunk girl. Shortly after calling Michelle Trachtenberg's cell phone (and hearing a ring from the attic), they're surprised by the Final Girl's boyfriend, and they also realize that their drunk friend has had her eyes plucked out!
The three survivors (the Final Girl, the Half Sister, and the Final Girl's boyfriend) go to the attic entrance, and the boyfriend bravely goes up there, only to be grabbed and pulled in. After a struggle, he's impaled through the head with a unicorn statuette, and as the two girls (who follow him into the attic to rescue him) watch in horror, both eyes become munchies. They're soon even more horrified when they realize that all of their dead friends are up here.
After a struggle in which the half-sister falls through the floorboards, the Final Girl and Agnes struggle, knocking over candles, before Final Girl pokes Agnes in the eye with a poker (what else would you use?). Alas, she got her in the fake eye, and before she can do anything else, Billy makes his way into the attic as well! The next set of struggles is a poorly-directed clusterfuck, but eventually, Agnes falls (not fatally) into the basement, the Final Girl is on the verge of falling, and Billy is slowly coming after her. As they struggle in crawlspaces, the half-sister regains consciousness and rescues her friend just as the fire from above rages out of control. The two girls escape, locking the killers inside the burning house.
But that's no way for killers to die! At the hospital, the sister goes to look at Agnes's body, only to see that it's her sister (the first victim) who is in the body bag! When she goes back to Final Girl's room, it's Agnes who is lying in the bed, and snap goes the penultimate girl's neck.
Turns out that Final Girl has been out for some tests, and when she gets back, she sees her late friend's watch covered in blood. She tries to get out, but the door is locked, and we see Agnes slowly coming down from a ceiling panel. Fortunately, Final Girl is smart enough to know how to operate the room's defibrillator, and she defibs**** Agnes to death.
A quick editorial note: The Wikipedia entry for this movie lists scenes that were not in the version that somehow ended up on my computer, including one featuring another appearance by Billy, and one in which Michelle Trachtenberg gets decapitated. I'm guessing those are on the director's cut of the DVD.
As far as the Black Christmas I saw goes, I was pleasantly surprised. It does a surprising job of sticking to the overall flavor of the original, while adding some much-needed gore. Alas, it also does add a hefted dose of unnecessary stupid, largely in the forms of the flashbacks to Billy's youth and the ridiculous amount of strength the killers possess (Jason Vorhees would be impressed) as they cut right through skull after skull. Not to mention the worst insane asylum ever. Still, my expectations were low enough here that I find that I can enjoy this movie without worrying too much about its flaws. It's certainly not as good as the original, but it's a fun enough way to spend a couple of hours. The cast includes lots of talented folks, and Morgan's script is witty enough to keep things moving along.
*We never cut to sane asylums in these movies.
**Because if he committed any murders while wearing a Santa suit, everyone would think this was a remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night.
***A three-tined garden rake, alas. It would have been more amusing if she'd used a hoe. Even if it's tough to stab with one.
****Yes, I know that's not the proper verb form. But it sounds cool.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 01:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 01:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 06:04 am (UTC)From what I got of your descriptions, they violenced it up alot. And eliminated the cops entirely; that station house humour made the movie awesome, to me.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 03:58 pm (UTC)Agreed about the station house humor, although I enjoyed the use of the storm to completely isolate everyone.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 02:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 03:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 03:53 am (UTC)SHUN!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 03:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-13 04:18 am (UTC)Personally, I was really confused as to why Agnes was played by a man, and why she was even killing people with Billy in the first place?