Like every rabid buff, I well remember Canadian director Bob Clark's pivotal '74 horror film....an early attempt at what became a standard movie genre.....THE MAD SLASHER SLICING AND DICING HIS WAY THROUGH HORNY TEENS, COLLEGE KIDS, CAMPERS AND ASSORTED 20-SOMETHINGS......
While I consume what I consider a moderate amount of horror, it astounded me to realize I'd never laid eyes on the two separate remakes of Bob's sorority house splatterfest......each of them very different from the original but very much of their time......
Well hold on to your jingle balls, cause 'tis the season to wish one and all a gory, gory Christmas....
Black Christmas (1974).....right at the start launches into a soon to be carved in stone trope......the killer's eye view as he lurches toward the still fully populated sorority house on Christmas Eve. ,,(but not for long...heh, heh, heh...)
Most of the girls are one foot out the door, heading home for the semester break. Not all of 'em though. Barb (Margot Kidder, really going to town) sloshes enough whiskey to refloat the Titanic, exceeded only by the House Mother in liquor intake. The comely, genteel Jess (Olivia Hussey) has her hands full with her high-strung, temperamental music-major boyfriend (Keir Dullea), who won't let her abort the baby he planted in her. (Who can blame him? Maybe the kid's another Keir Dullea '2001' star child, floating in a big bubble??)
To add to the girls' stressful holidays, the mad unseen killer calls them up frequently, unleashing a wide variety of creepy voices that rivals Linda Blair's satanic riffs in "The Exorcist."
Pretty soon our madman gets down to business, piling up the bodies including that of a random high school girl, much to the displeasure of the local detective (John Saxon)
Without question, the film's an absolute must for anyone who dives into vintage slash-o-ramas.....and I spotted at least one telltale sign of Bob Clark's direction. One of Saxon's fellow detectives collapses into a fit of pre-pubescent giggles at the thought of Margot Kidder providing the word 'Fellatio' as the phone exchange for the sorority. Like one of Clark's 'Porky's' characters, he can barely contain his snickers even though the cops just discovered one of the killer's butchered victims.
But then again.....in a slasher film, who needs empathy? And in a somewhat daring move, "Black Christmas" also stays deliberately obtuse about the slasher's identity or motive. As we so often say today.....he is what he is ....and no more. (2 & 1/2 stars)
Black Christmas (2006) Wow, what a difference 32 years makes. We're back in the sorority house again but this time in full-fledged 21st Century, gore-drenched Multi-Plex mode.
So you know to expect a much higher body count and way, way more splashier, slash-ier kill scenes, with walls, furniture and bodies smeared with half-gallons of the red stuff.
Let's also mention that actress comedienne Andrea Martin, who played one of the ill-fated students of the '74 film is back.....as the House Mom (but unlike the first, not prone to gulp the sauce at every opportunity.... andthereby making her a sorority house slasher legacy....)
This first remake, in the "Scream" tradition, is far more polished and slick, so you won't find the antiquated charm of Bob Clark's raggedy hand-held camerawork and the first film's overall slapdash crudeness. The casting's a plus, populating the film with a full roster of the early 00's most high profile starlets - Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Lacy Chabert and Katie Cassidy.
The big difference here - unlike the Clark movie, the filmmakers go to great lengths to explain (and gruesomely depict) the entire blood soaked backstory of who's doing all the slaughtering.......and why. Not that anyone really cares but it does add to the movie's creepy quotient, not to mention jacking up the body count.
This one's perfect for current horror hounds who'd find the 1974 outing simply too tame, outdated and old fashioned. (***)
But hold on to your gingerbread cookies, cause the strangest, most off the rails and up-to-date (whether you like it or not) "Black Christmas" arrived only 13 years later......
Black Christmas (2019) Oh sweet chainsaws, where do I even start with this one.,,,,,,
First warning for hardcore horror completists......this 3rd version arrived as PG-13, so plenty of death, but no splatter.
Next warning for any slasher maniacs who watch these things solely for the sight of young women carved up like a holiday main course.....director and co-screenwriter Sophia Takai re-conceived the Clark film as an up-to-the-minute ultra-woke, fiercely feminist battle cry.....an all-out #MeToo war on misogynist bastards who believe in the patriarchy's natural right to rape whoever they want......
As far as I can tell, the film's only connections to the '74 original and the '06 remake are the title, the sorority house setting and the girls' house pet, a fluffy white cat.
In order to discuss the film any further, I'll have to reveal its major plot engine, so consider this a SPOILER ALERT announcement......
To visualize their 21st century battle-of-the-sexes, Takai and her co-writers create an entire frat house of cultish bros determined to put all uppity girls in their proper subservient place. They accomplish this by zombie-fying themselves with the satanic oozing goo they found leaking out of the bust of the college's founder....a guy so evil, he kept northern slaves during the Civil War.
Dressed up like mad monks and armed with bows and arrows, the frat freaks commence decimating the sorority membership........ until our lead girl(Imagen Poots) and her surviving sisters go all-out medieval on their entitled raping asses.
And if you're wondering if this finale, as described, looks as bonkers as it sounds......why, yes it does. I'm not complaining one bit, though.....as I watched the the girls spill out the boys' zombie-goo all over the floor and put these smug creeps to the torch, I couldn't help admiring the film's single-minded dedication to its loud-and-clear agenda.
More of an angry ripped-from-the-headlines editorial then an actual slasher movie, the film's certifiably screwball ending still earned it a BQ 3 stars (***)......but at least now you know that this "Black Christmas" is not your father's horror movie.
On the other hand, it came to me that watching all three movies in chronological order would give you a mini-history lesson in how films forever freeze the cultures that surrounded and informed their creation.
Triple feature, anybody? Don we now our slay apparel...fa-la-la-la-la....la-la-la-la......
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