PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Black Christmas, also known as Black X-Mas, is the 2006 remake of the beloved 1974 Canadian proto-slasher of the same name. Apart from a few similarities, the two films don’t have much in common. While the original relied heavily on suspense and imagination, the remake relies heavily on shocking the viewer with its plot and gore. While many critics felt this harmed what could’ve been a potentially unnecessary remake, I was in absolute awe by what was on display!
While people prefer to watch holiday movies around their specific dates, horror is an everyday affair for the right crowd. If Halloween (1978) can do it, then so can everyone else! Granted, it does help to have external aesthetics match the film to enhance the experience, it doesn’t harm it to watch it on a Wednesday night in April!
Featuring once-rising scream queen, Katie Cassidy, Black Christmas follows a group of sorority sisters during their winter break as they are picked off one by one by *spoiler alert* a father-daughter duo with a connection that even Maury Povich wouldn’t touch. Through the use of increasingly violent and wildly festive methods, everyone is either maimed, sleigh-n, or eaten; sometimes all three! Christmas hasn’t celebrated this much senseless violence since Grandma got run over by a reindeer. T
he movie also features a trendy cast that has been in some horror favorites in their own right. Michelle Trachtenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2000-03), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Final Destination 3 2006), and Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe (Wrong Turn 2 2007) play the sorority sisters just waiting to be dissected and strewn across the tree like fleshy tinsel.
Growing up in a small Midwestern town, it took little controversy to send the 1.29 square mile area into pandemonium. Deciding to release the film on Christmas Day had drummed enough moral panic to make sure viewing this slasher was at the top of my wish list. Video games and toys be damned, I knew what I wanted! Unfortunately, it appears that I was too naughty for Santa to help me out because I wasn’t able to go.
Luckily for me, YouTube was the Wild West for copyrighted content in its infancy. I remember watching the entirety of the movie through a camrip split into a multitude of parts lovingly titled “Black Xmas (Part X/9)”. As I watched each 9-minute segment, I would share them on my social feed and demand my friends watch it. While children were posting unbridled thoughts littered with typos to their social media, my account was dedicated to terrorizing my classmates! This would lead to comments ranging from interest to general disgust of wanting to share this type of movie with them.
Good times!
It’s hard to pinpoint my favorite moment of the movie, but I would have to say it’s where Michelle Trachtenberg’s character attempts to escape the killer only to be caught off-guard and scalped by a flying pair of ice skates. Ironically, the blades were without skate guards. Truthfully, my enjoyment of this scene could be influenced by my belief that the Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1996) show was ruined by Dawn Summers (also played by Trachtenberg). Her character had an alternate death scene that was shown in European theaters. Shockingly, this scene was more graphic as it featured her being dragged across the floor by her eye sockets after having her eye plucked out of her head and eaten. While I prefer the alternate scene, I am still happy with what was included in the North American release.
Keeping in line with the good ole American tradition of excessiveness, Black Christmas features an absolute eye-watering (melting, smashing, eviscerating, etc.) amount of violence and gore. It’s hard to not be impressed by how every scene manages to include the full holiday color spectrum of red, white, and green. Scenes that only feature white or green are soon awash with red as an excessive amount of blood begins to flow. Just like the whites of the victim’s eyes, the snow soon becomes encumbered by the blood of the unlucky girls.
Apart from the film itself, I was obsessed with the trailer. It contained some amazing shots of creative carnage that truly added to the overall atmosphere. While the hand-breaking through the ice scene surprised me, the snow-blower/Christmas lights combo will always be my favorite. A shocking coincidence that nobody seems to mention is that this scene was “remade” (more so ripped off) by another horror remake, Child’s Play 2019. Almost beat for beat, both scenes feature the victim getting tangled in Christmas lights as they roll off the roof. Cut to the string of lights being pulled into machinery as they struggle against their cheerfully lit fate. While part of me was excited to see this death finally come to fruition, I was partly salty as this favorite concept of mine was meant to be exclusive to Black Christmas.
Unfortunately, it is hard to watch in its full unrated form. The movie did receive an unrated DVD in North America, but the fully uncut version never made the proper leap to HD. Only recently has there been a Blu-Ray release of the full film, but this was only in Germany. There is still no word yet if it will become available in the States. I had the tragedy of buying the DVD on multiple occasions. My first disc was misplaced, the second was scratched, and the third copy was just right! I have zero hesitations to purchase a fourth one if it finally gets a proper Region A release!
My only wish this year is for a boutique film label to have enough holiday spirit to make sure this disgustingly underappreciated slasher ends up under the tree of all horror fans!
