My future husband started school a few weeks ago and has a lot of studying to do, which gives me the perfect opportunity to hog up our shared Netflix queue with all the stuff I want to watch and he doesn't. First up was the original, 1974 Black Christmas, which I've been wanting to see since I caught the remake with my friend and usual-horror-movie-watching partner Rob over Christmas vacation last year. It starred Party of Five's Lacey Chabert and Michelle Trachtenberg, who, in my head, I always call Harriet the Spy, as girls you don't care about getting killed by a guy who not only uses eyeballs for tree ornaments, but eats them (prompting an 8-year-old who totally should not have been in our theater to ask his mom if they were having eyeballs for dinner.)
I suspected that the original, often touted as the first real slasher movie and a godfather to Halloween, would far surpass the eyeball movie. And, mostly, it did. The film, about a group of sorority sisters picked off one-by-one by an unseen killer, established the through-the-eyes-of-the-stalker perspective so common in modern horror. Though Black Christmas is extremely dated, what with all the horrible 70s fashions and hairdos, it's also much more vulgar than the relatively bloodless--literally and figuratively--Halloween. Everyone boozes it up, especially the housemother, who says of her charges "These broads would hump the Leaning Tower of Pisa if they could get up there." One of the girls-Barb, played by Margot Kidder-calls her mother a gold-plated whore, notes that "you can't rape a townie," and gives beer to a kid at a community Christmas party. Jess (Olivia Hussey) is dead-set on an abortion, no matter how much her boyfriend tries to talk her out of it.
Whereas the remake has almost no character development, the original is 95 percent character development. That part of the movie is compelling and fun--but when the killer shows up, it's just not scary. I actually dozed off, which, though most of my friends will tell you is a common occurrence with me during movies, it usually doesn't happen at 3 p.m.
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3 comments:
You can remake "Black Xmas" as much as you want...just don't remake the greatest horror films of all time (Psycho, The Shining, and Carrie, etc.).
I think many [unfortunately] tend to forget about the original "Black Christmas." Remakes never live up to their originals and I have a feeling this is also going to be the case when they remake "Silent Night, Deadly Night," which is scheduled to come out next year. If you haven't seen the original I recommend it.
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