Black Christmas (2019)
Directed by:
Sophia Takal
Written by:
Sophia Takal & April Wolfe
Based on “Black Christmas” by A. Roy Moore
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Runtime: 1 hour 32 minutes
Released on December 13, 2019 (United States)
Starring
Imogen Poots
Aleyse Shannon
Lily Donoghue
Brittany O’Grady
Caleb Eberhardt
Cary Elwes
and more…
There is not a lot of “Christmas” horror films, as far as I am aware. As a result, I wanted to see one that had the holiday literally within its title. The only thing I read about the film was that it was a remake of an original 1974 film, which is mentioned below. I made sure to verify if I needed to have seen that film to understand this one, which turns out I did not. So I watched it.
Wow, this film reminded me of “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” and so many other empowering female things. It had all these wonderful female moments that allowed this version of the film to soar. I have seen that some people did not like this version of it, but as someone not familiar with the other versions and have nothing to compare it to, I was pleasantly immersed in the narrative.
The film, of course, takes place during the holiday season and involves sorority girls meeting their untimely deaths. It is a horror film, so don’t expect anything too high brow in terms of the vast majority of the film. The ending though! That is sheer genius and probably would have been better suited in a film focused on college life, not called “Black Christmas”. The ending was still a great twist and really allowed the theme of female empowerment to shine through.
The acting is not anything to write home about, as no one is a true “stand out” in terms of acting. This, however, is a horror film and these are not known for their superb acting. Everyone serves their purpose. Only one character stood out to me, mainly due to the actress having to play multiple faces. I won’t go to deep here as it is a reveal in the film, but one of the actresses does a masterful job with the content given. I applaud her.
The film is 3 strawberries for me. It isn’t horror perfection, but it also isn’t so bad that I would not recommend it to anyone ever. I think the ending alone makes it a film worth seeing once. I just honestly still feel like it needed to be in a different film and this should have been better focused on the Christmas element that is contained within the title. It fell a little short for me, which is why the lower rating.
I AM POSTING THIS ON CHRISTMAS, SO MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!
This film is a “reboot”/”remake” of the 1974 film of the same name. I did watch that film, but I will not be reviewing it. One because I do not have to review everything I watch or see, but also because it wouldn’t be a nice review. I prefer positivity, but this was one of those films where I found little redeemable outside of the place it has in history of horror films. Outside of that I just overall was not impressed by this film. I will watch the second one at some point, which may make me review this one. We will see.
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