Directed by: Glen Morgan
Runtime: I saw the 90 minute unrated cut
Starring: Quite a few pretty young ladies
From: Dimension
I experienced this on Christmas night; "experience" really is the best term:
NOTE: As several versions have been released, I saw the unrated cut.
My Christmas turned out fine; while different from the usual in a multitude of ways, at least it was spent w/ the family I have in Florida. The evening wasn't as fine as I had to see this for the first time... sorry, those here and on old messageboards who unironically love this. Of course, in the past I've viewed the proto-slasher classic that was released in '74 & last year was the film that might as well have been called BLACK WOKEMAS due to its preposterously over the top far-left and man-hating viewpoints. For a long time now I've known of the small cult of fans this has earned in the time after it was released to much critical and audience derision. Last night seemed like the best time to finally take the plunge...
Unfortunately I can't share the love that others have for this iteration of the property. There's still a sorority house, vulgar phone calls, and a villain named Billy-otherwise this is an over the top wacky film which is stump-dumb. At times that would be a positive for me; I mean, at times I did scoff and laugh at the stupidest and most illogical moments, almost as if I was watching an Italian genre exercise from decades ago. There is no shortage of gore, OOT deaths or graphically gross moments for those that love such things.
Thing is, I need more than just graphic gore to be entertained and personally, the story was just too ugly, dour, and no fun to watch. Others will disagree but not even the sorority girl leads were enjoyable so there wasn't much holiday joy for me. In addition, they really screwed up the character obviously based on Barb from the original... the loud often intoxicated lady who was delightfully brought to life by Margot Kidder. Here, this film's sauced dame was just dumb & irritating.
I get why some love the film to death... it's loud and weird-there's graphic moments, and it has some nice Christmas lighting. IMO, it wasn't a holly jolly motion picture for me. Even the absurd film from last year was unintentionally hilarious... possibly it was written at absurd satire but that was not how it was presented. Funnily enough, the 2019 Black Christmas has received some love this holiday season on Letterboxd; that at least had some good intentions and it is easy to mock if you so desire. Post-Christmas, now I can go back to watching all sorts of random motion pictures-whatever strikes my fancy.
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