Now remake's always have a hard time,
it seems that no matter what they do there will be a number of people
who hate them on principal, or complain that they changed too much from the original or
just did the same thing so whats the point? While I like to judge every film on
its own merits it can be hard with remakes because that comparison to
the original will still be there in the back of your mind. My
personal preference is for a remake to go in its own direction, take
the premise for the original and pay homage to it but try to tell the
story in a new way or look at it from a new angle, and 2006's Black
X-Mas is an example of doing this well.
The original Black Christmas followed
the girls of a sorority house as they are picked off one by one by a
serial killer, the remake follows the same premise (albeit over one
night instead of a few days) but unlike the original that told us
nothing about the killer other than his presumed name Billy this film
spends much of it's runtime to his backstory, a very creepy back story too. I really like this as
it really feels like we are looking at the other side of a coin and is a unique spin on the story.
In a nice bit of casting Andrea Martin,
who was one of the sorority girls in the original
plays house mother Barbara MacHenry in the remake, and she is just
the start of a great cast including
Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Oliver
Hudson, Crystal Lowe, Lacey Chabert and Kristen Cloke. All of which
are great and play very well off each other and they feel like real
people.
Though
reception was initially mixed when it first came out the film has
slowly started to become more popular over the
years, and I'm glad of that. Though many still hate it I personally
think this is a great horror film and a great remake.
One thing I don't think even the people
who dislike this film can deny is that it is beautiful, every shot
uses colour to great effect from the soft blues to the bright reds,
the Christmas lights that decorate both the inside and outside of the
house, and even the log fire that bathes the room in warm yellow. Joe Dante once said there are two types of colour films, ones that happen to be in colour and 'colour films', that use colour to help tell the story, this is a 'colour film' and really stands out from the dozens of horror films these
days that stick to grey, blue and otherwise dull colours.
Now it's worth mentioning that I
watched this on the UK DVD which is a different cut to what America
and some other places got, there are lists you can find online such
as at movie-censorship.com detailing the differences. But by far the
biggest change is the ending, my DVD included all four alternative
endings but my favourite and the one I wish they had used is the
mobile phone ending, which I have read was the original intended
ending, it's the least action oriented one and ends the film on
more of a chill up the spine moment which appeals to me so much more.
It is important to note that the film
didn't turn out exactly the way director Glen Morgan intended due to
producer and studio interference that forced him to add some more
gore and jump scares to the film, and while they don't detract from
the film in any major way they do in places feel unnecessary. But by
far the biggest way the studio screwed him over was by filming some
extra trailer only scenes without him knowing, they made the film
look more like a non stop thrill ride than the slower horror film it
was. Naturally as soon as the film was out word of mouth spread that
scenes from the trailer such as a girl been trapped under ice or
Lacey Chabert been dragged into a thresher weren’t in the film, how
the studio ever thought this kind of stunt would work is beyond me.
Despite studio interference the film
still turned out great and is well worth your time to check out, it's
a different beast to the original but is highly enjoyable and does enough different that you won't feel like you have watched the
same film twice. Check this one out.
No comments:
Post a Comment