Black Christmas (2006) - There are many times when a sequel comes out that you realize how unnecessary it really is. I put the 2006 and the 1974 original Black Christmas movie in a very small venn diagram of commonalities and I get a love/mostly disdain for this sequel.
In this film we see a new group of girls inhabit the sorority house from the first film and once again, Billy is crank calling after 34 years and thus they are thrust into the legend of the past.
Here we go. First off, the girls are a bit like knock off versions of the first film. You have the alcoholic, smack talking sister reminiscent of Margot Kidder but without the star power or the charm. They kind of just sit around the house the whole film talking to each other until the phone rings. There also isn't a whole lot going on in their lives. The first film handles young melodrama with such gravity and weight but this one struggles with its subplot of a cheating boyfriend without any emotions or length. It seems like such a brief happenstance that it was just a reason to introduce the boyfriend as a possible suspect to throw you off the scent. These types of red herrings were very prominent in the era of the next gen slasher boom with the likes of Scream; even the original had its red herring, but was done so much better. This just seemed like a chance to cash in on the Scream craze while also rebirthing a licensed property in order retain the rights.
Lets talk about our protagonist, Billy. In the first film, we only see through the eyes of the killer and some brief shots of his eye as he peers in on his victims. We hear conversations about Billy and Agnes, and even the original's director, Bob Clark has confirmed Billy and Agnes were siblings. But the film largely left this backstory up to the audience's imagination. It lends to the creepiness of Billy's ramblings and manic phone calls. But The 2006 sequel decides that's just not good enough and needed the most disgustingly elaborate story for Billy that it errs on the side of unnecessarily gross.
I'd imagine to do this sequel it would be hard to find a plot to drive the first film forward, which is why it works so well as a standalone film. But the sequel takes so many flashbacks to tell Billy's history that it subverts exactly what made Billy so scary. The mystery. By knowing Billy's gross out childhood we teeter on the edge of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot or the Hills Have Eyes. I understand that monsters sometimes are created by childhood trauma and family history, but this takes a VERY serious subject and cheapens it for some skeezy and slimy shock value. I'd have much rather just had a Billy reveal that he is just born into evil, much akin to Michael Myers than this. It took, out of context, Billy's phone calls from the first film to craft a backstory that painstakingly goes to great lengths it shouldn't go.
I will say that I do quite like the look of this film. It does manage to capture the neon hazy glow of the first film by stringing the house in C9 bulbs and to that credit the film looks great. I do enjoy the title cards during the flashbacks as well because, even though the film is modern, it does retain some of that nostalgia element. But overall, the film is very forgettable, even at its time, it didn't make any significant waves and I had this on long list of films to revisit until I forgot it even existed until recently as it's now appearing on multiple streaming platforms.
To its credit, as well, the practical effects are fun and gory. There are lots of heads rolling and gooey bloody goodness abound, and for that I recommend giving it a watch for managing to give you some great, gruesome slasher film laughs.
The original, as I explained in last week's post is, in my mind, a masterpiece of suspense. But, 2006's Black Christmas tosses the suspense out the window and just places a whole unwrapped gift under the tree with a post it note saying who it's from. The anticipation and buildup to the climax just doesn't muster up to the same feelings of anticipation you have for Christmas day.