There's a great many things that make me feel old these days, and I'm feeling quite ancient knowing that it was already SEVEN YEARS AGO that I spent a lonely afternoon away from the crappy apartment I was living in at the time taking this incredibly dark and incredibly gruesome flick in at one of the local multiplexes. Believe it or not, going in, I was pretty jacked. On paper, this was a movie that had everything going for it. It was directed by Glen Morgan, one of the gurus behind The X-Files and the creator of the Final Destination franchise. It promised plenty of good, rollicking, old-school slasher action - fitting since it was a remake of what some people consider the original slasher flick (and one that I've reviewed already, by the way).
And it featured this woman in a prominent role.
All that gushing aside, man, what is it about the Party of Five alumni that made them such great horror movie vixens? You've got Lacey here and in a recent SyFy flick called Scarecrow, you've got Sidney Prescott herself in Neve Campbell, and Jennifer Love Hewitt...if she had chosen to do more horror films aside from the I Know What You Did Last Summer films, she could have given Jamie Lee Curtis a serious run for her money as far as "greatest horror heroine of all time" goes. She had it all - hot, likable, and a FANTASTIC screamer.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the Black Christmas remake. Now that I've done my longest introduction since the "fun sizing" of these reviews, on with the show.
PLOT: This movie has a pretty nifty little "multi-timeframe" setup, with one storyline effectively taking care of the Bruce Wayne-esque origin story and the other giving us a whole lot of happenin' sorority sister action. Right before they all start getting butchered, of course. Through some lengthy flashbacks, we are shown the tender, tragic backstory of one Billy Lenz. If you want the short version, just picture a real-life version of That Yellow Bastard from Sin City. Yup, little Billy is born to one of those amazing horror movie psycho mothers (and, for the record, they are very prevalent), his liver disease that causes the aforementioned urine skin hue the source of her endless strife. So much that she murders her husband, locks the poor kid in an attic, and eventually conceives another child with him when her new husband can't keep it up long enough to give her the normal child she really wants. Seriously, that's a plot point.
Meanwhile, there's all sorts of melodrama - that is unfortunately very poorly developed - involving the members of a sorority house doing their gift/wine/catty dialogue exchange. Three guesses as to what house they currently reside in. Anyway, the way that this movie is laid out is admittedly fairly original. Color me old school, but I just prefer the tried-and-true slasher method, where we spend a lot of time getting to know the victim characters (even if they are as annoying as Shelly from Friday the 13th Part III, for Christ's sakes) and the villain's back story is only briefly touched upon. The movie really suffers for this reason, because we unfortunately don't give much of a s**t about any of the girls when the shockingly brutal and shockingly brief massacre sequence begins.
PLOT RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS: When I first saw the film in 2006, I knew two of the actors quite well - Lacey and Michelle Trachtenburg, she of the unbelievable "bending over" sequence in Eurotrip. Looking back, I was amazed at the unbelievable cast that this movie had. In addition to those two, you've also got Katie Cassidy as the "final girl" Kelly, and while her character is as deep as a Petri dish, she does her damndest to do some excavating (dodges tomatoes). I've seen Katie in other things now, and I appreciate the hell out of her, because she's the closest thing we've got to a modern day "scream queen," having also been the main heroine in When a Stranger Calls and the single most likable character in the otherwise forgettable-to-the-core Nightmare on Elm Street remake. Okay, brief aside. People tell me that Rooney Mara is better in other movies, and I'll take their word for it, but she took on that film with about as much energy as the remains of the cool ranch Doritos that are lying on my floor right now. Katie, despite that film's uninspired script, did her absolute damndest to make her character resonate. So three cheers for her.
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL (/salesman voice) - there's also Mary Elizabeth Winstead doing her best Southern accent as yet another sorority sister, who you no doubt recognize as Kurt Russell without the facial hair in The Thing version 2011, Ramona in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and John McClane's daughter. In other words, they've got some very talented people in this movie...so much like I said in the plot review, it's a shame that we don't get to know their characters on anything more than a cursory, catty level. There was INFINITE potential here to create some good, likable characters that sadly goes unfulfilled in a sea of Rob Zombie-style vulgar female dialogue.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: ** out of ****. An EASY **** for the actors but unfortunately a * for the characterization.
COOL FACTOR: I went back and forth about how to rate this movie in this regard. On one hand, there is a LOT of red stuff flying around in this movie, but it's not the kind of "gore movie" that makes horror fans want to stand up and cheer. Or maybe my stomach has just grown a little bit queasier for this stuff as I've crossed over into my 30s. I suppose that having so many hot, talented actors in one movie is admittedly cool, but as for the horror itself, there isn't any particular one thing about the kills in this movie that stands out as particularly memorable. Except for the "cookie cutter" scene. You know, one of my family's Christmas rituals (to this day) involves afternoon cookie making utilizing those damn things, and I think about that scene EVERY time I partake in this painful tradition.
COOL FACTOR: * 1/2 out of ****.
OVERALL: Looking back at this movie, it's not quite as bad as I remembered it. For starters, yes, I did make it through the whole thing this time, although I actually left the theater on that initial viewing with only five minutes remaining (I checked out when Billy and his accomplice - I'll leave it to you to brave this movie if you want that detail - show up at the hospital during the "all is well" false resolution). Without a doubt, this was a movie with a TON of promise, and I won't even throw a dagger at Glen Morgan too hard. It's clear from watching this movie that he had a huge boner for the 1974 original, much like Rob Zombie did for Carpenter's Halloween. Couple that love up with this cast and this should have been a great, memorable slasher flick for modern audiences. Unfortunately, much like ol' Robby Z's magnum opus, the absolute worst case scenario for it came true.
I just wish we could get a "Jon Lickness cut" of this movie, with much more smiles on the actresses' faces, a nice, long dinner scene between the characters where we find out their majors and their backgrounds, and a very brief (perhaps five minutes' worth) expository scene where the sorority mother tells us the legend of Billy Lenz before the slaughter starts. This slaughter, by the way, would be in more typical slasher fashion, where none of the victims are even aware that anything is off until right before they are offed to prevent this movie's amazing-in-the-wrong-way development where the sisters, having just discovered a dead body, won't leave the house because "it's snowing outside." In my humble opinion, these changes would make this movie very fetch indeed.
OVERALL RATING: * 1/2 out of ****. It's good for a viewing around this time of year just for the atmosphere, but as a whole it's a slasher that's light on both scares and substance.
Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, and to all a good fright! See you all in 2014!
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