At this point, Bob Clark's Black Christmas has been elevated to known horror classic; you'd be hard-pressed to find a horror fan who hasn't seen it (and, presumably, loved it). But back in 2006 it was still somewhat obscure to all but the die-hard fans, and they were pretty protective of it. So much that even though Clark himself gave the remake - dubbed Black Xmas - his blessing, fans were outraged at its mere existence. That, along with a poorly timed release date (Christmas Day! It had a 24 hour expiration date!) and the usual meddling from Bob Weinstein, left the film DOA, with few defenders.
But I was one, and I'm happy to see that over the past fifteen years, I have found a few more. Now that some time has past (so much, in fact, that we've even gotten *another* remake in 2019), some folks have been able to see that Black Xmas, while not as good as the original, is a perfectly enjoyable slasher in its own right, as long as you can look past some icky story developments (the backstory involves mother-son incest AND cannibalism! Merry Christmas!). Director Glen Morgan (writing with his longtime partner James Wong) gave the film a meanspirited wickedness that has made it quite appealing to folks who share a twisted sense of humor; it's Black Christmas' plot, but the tone is closer to the whacked-out Silent Night Deadly Night series. It's also pretty action packed (especially compared to the more suspense driven original); the new Billy racks up an impressive body count over its breathless 90 minutes, with Morgan condensing the original film's roughly 24 hour timeline into a couple hours and then adding a raging snowstorm to drive up the tension even further.
And it positively BLEEDS Christmas. I don't think there's a shot in the entire film that doesn't remind you what holiday it is, with the production designers decking everything out with lights, ornaments, and other yuletide accouterments. This extends to its aural qualities as well; Shirley Walker's score invokes "Dance of the Sugar Plums" fairly often (OK, maybe *too* often), and all of the characters are named after famous Christmas crooners - Presley, Crosby, Autry, etc. Speaking of the cast, if anything the film's age has made it harder to tell who will live or die for a new viewer, as some cast members have gone on to bigger and better things and will thus be assumed "safe" only to be killed off relatively early.
So if you've stayed away over the years due to its undeserved bad rep, it's time to make amends. At this point I watch it almost as often as I do the original (i.e. annually), and I think it's possible that someday it's given the same turn of the tide that has allowed Halloween III and Nightmare on Elm Street 2 to find their own justice. It's not too late to be on the right side of history!
Brian Collins lives in Los Angeles, writes about horror, and is bothered by Kolleen almost daily. In fact, she bugged him to write this very essay.