Sunday, December 15, 2019

(2019) Black Christmas - A Disappointing Failed Attempt in Reviving the Slasher Genre

This movie's trailer was already shown many times before and I was getting familiar after watching it several times. As it was released while I was away on business trip, I only saw this with my wife last night though it was a bit more challenging than I expected as not a lot of theaters were showing it. The film itself was shown the same day as in the US so it's pretty brand new. OK let us get started with the movie.

Brief Story Line

In Hawthorne university, a group of college students including Riley (Imogen Poots - 28 Weeks Later, Need for Speed etc) and some of her MKE sorority sisters Kris (Aleyse Shannon), Marty (Lily Donoghue) and Jesse (Brittany O'Grady - Star TV series etc) stayed over during the Christmas holiday at their sorority house.


Meanwhile Riley who was trying to let go of her past which involved Brian (Ryan McIntyre) the president of male sorority house called AKO met with a student named Landon (Caleb Eberhardt) who seemed to take an interest in her. Things would start to get scary for Riley and the rest when one by one of their friends started to disappear.

So what would happen to these girls? Find them all in this slasher movie.


End of Brief Story Line

Well this was a bit disappointing. At first I thought this would be a well crafted slasher movie and could revive this genre like in the 90s when Scream (and its sequels) or I Know What You Did Last Summer were a major hit then. But when I saw this movie, it was not as entertaining as those movies.

First of all, the movie had an interesting opening but then it turned to a more dramatic story focusing on a quite relevant issue with current situation but problem was it made the movie having very inconsistent pace. The story development took too much center stage to my personal liking, making the suspense and thrill felt too little to make an impact. Not until almost two third of the movie that it started to feel more suspenseful.

Now worst of it all was the climax. My wife and I were truly disappointed with the way they made the ending. It made the movie felt unrealistic. I won't go into detail as it would give spoiler, but suffice to say it was totally unexpected not in a good way. Again my wife and I were not very particular in intelligent writing or anything, however this time it was a let down, especially after the build up which almost felt like forever.

As a slasher movie, this one did have the classic various jump scare scenes with few of them successfully shocked some of the audience (including my wife), but it was pale in comparison with those movies I mentioned above. Those scenes were the only highlight of this movie to my opinion as not even the climax helped in making this movie satisfying for us. The practically unknown actors and actresses did not help either with the only familiar names for me were the main female lead Imogen Poots and Cary Elwes (Billionaire Boys Club, Robin Hood: Men in Tights etc). The rest did not leave a really good impression for me.

From what I understand, this movie was a second remake of 1974's Black Christmas and another 2006 with same title. Critics were saying that this one is superior than the 2006 version which made me wonder just how bad that one then. Overall I consider this movie to be a failed attempt in reviving the slasher genre which was a real pity. Btw, there was a brief rather comical mid end credit scene to see. So if you want to enjoy an entertaining slasher movie, my suggestion would be to watch other movies through online streaming rather than going to the theater to see this one. Of course if you still want to give this a try, the choice is yours but do it at your own risk.

Mike's movie moments rating: 2 out of 5 stars 

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