Movie Review: Black Christmas (2006)
Synopsis: When crazed killer Billy Lenz escapes the mental institution on Christmas Eve, he makes a path straight for his childhood home. Unfortunately for the sorority sisters of Delta Alpha Kappa, his former house is now their sorority house. With police assistance at least two hours away because of the heavily falling snow, they are forced to find a way to survive on their own.
Who's in it? The movie stars Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenburg, Lacey Chabert, Robert Mann and Andrea Martin.
Review: While there have been exceptions to the rule, I've found most horror movie remakes tend to fall flat when compared to the original. There are some, however, that are still better than others and I would put Black Christmas in that very specific category of not living up to the original but still being watchable.
There were a couple things I found I liked about this movie. The main one was Mann's pretty convincing performance as the lunatic Billy Lenz. He had just the right amount of creepiness to keep his scenes interesting, especially since, at first glance at least, he really didn't look overly dangerous, providing a few surprises later.
That said, the biggest problem with the movie is it allows itself to get bogged down with too many details. One of the things I really like about the original is the movie tells the viewer very little about the killer, keeping him shrouded in mystery and allowing the movie to progress at a fairly fast pace and keeping enough mystery to make it easy to suspect everyone.
This film, in comparison, spends an extraordinary amount of time talking about (and showing via flashbacks) Billy Lenz's past, his family and why he became a killer. While there were, admittedly, some scenes that were pretty cool, including the one with the "Christmas cookies," the fact the writers choose to give too much information about the main bad guy lessened the overall impact. On top of it, the reveals also made the ending kind of predictable. Predictability is never a good thing in this genre.
I also thought the ending of this movie was dragged out a little too much. Well, actually, that, in itself, wasn't that big of a deal. However, as I said, the movie was starting to get very predictable by the end and the build-up to a "surprise" twist just didn't have the same impact I think the filmmakers thought it would. It would have been better to end the movie at the sorority house and leave the door open for a potential sequel.
Final Opinion: As I said before, the movie was better than I was expecting. It just failed to live up to the original because the constant flashbacks and exposition kept it at too slow of a pace and made the ending predictable.
My Grade: C
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Here are some reviews of other movies from 2006:
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