Black Christmas

Bob (A Christmas Story) Clark's original Black Christmas is a cult classic, with well-engineered shocks and a memorably ambiguous ending.

Watching Glen Morgan's loud and violent remake begs the question did any crew member even watch it?

Ruthlessly paring down characters from the original movie to the barest essentials (ie victims and killer) and having the action take place over a single night, Black Christmas is all about the stalking and slashing, paying begrudging lip service to annoying bores such as plot and character development.

When the menacing phone calls and grisly slayings begin, little sympathy is mustered for the underwritten gaggle of girlies, played with gusto but little focus by such neo-scream queens as Michelle Trachtenberg (of TV's Buffy) and Final Destination 3's Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

Whereas the original movie daringly left the killer's identity open to speculation, here flashbacks laboriously spell out what fuels the psycho's rage, and it boils down to that genre stalwart: the sadistic, incestuous mother.

Amazingly, the script is written by director Morgan, who came to fame along with producer James Wong penning episodes for The X-Files and hit big screen gold with the witty, smart Final Destination series.

Some nasty, imaginatively shot murders divert attention from the charms of the cinema Exit sign, and Robert McLachlan's handsome photography is a Christmassy bonus, but Black Christmas outstays even the brief 84-minute running time.

The original movie was a key influence on Halloween and is fondly remembered more than thirty years later. The remake is less likely to survive the holiday season than one of its unfortunate heroines.

Rob Daniel