PHENOMENALITY: (1) *uncanny,* (2) *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: (1) *fair,* (2) *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
Since I didn't regard Bob Clark's 1974 BLACK CHRISTMAS as any sort of major classic despite its place in horror-history, I didn't have any objection to writer-director Glen Morgan choosing to revise the original story. The nebulous stalker in the sorority house at Christmas break becomes more fully fleshed out, and this might have worked had Morgan been less over-the-top in his approach.
I expected the remake would dump the subplot in which one of the sorority sisters wants to terminate her pregnancy over her boyfriend's objections, and my hunch was confirmed. I also guessed that, although the salty language was NOT left out, the spectacle of fresh young women being potty-mouthed didn't carry the same anomie I mentioned in my review of the 1974 film. I also expected that the kill count would be elevated to suit modern audiences. So the element of how Morgan reworked the serial killer was of paramount interest.
The 1974 stalker is never seen fully on camera and the audience never knows his identity, though when he's making obscene phone calls to the college women he alludes to a "Billy" which may be the stalker himself, and also to someone else named "Agnes." From these fragments Morgan tries to craft a figure along the lines of Michael Myers. In current times, Billy Lenz (a clever touch, referencing the "lenses" of the eyes with which he scopes out the women) has been institutionalized since slaying his mother and assaulting his sister Agnes. All these crimes rather improbably took place in the same building that has now been transformed into a college sorority house, and once Billy (Robert Mann) escapes he makes a beeline for his old haunt.
An extended flashback explains Billy's dark past. Born with yellowish skin due to liver disease, as a child he's rejected by his trashy mother Constance. As a child he witnesses Constance and her lover murder Billy's father, but to keep Billy quiet Constance imprisons the boy in the attic, feeding him but not allowing him any freedom. To compound her crimes, one night Constance's lover can't satisfy her, so she goes into the attic and compels her son to have sex with her. She becomes pregnant and bears Billy a daughter/sister named Agnes, who becomes Constance's favorite. Years later Billy breaks free and commits the acts that land him in the asylum.
I revealed all of this simply to make clear that up to this point, Morgan set up a formidably nasty human monster. However, when we get into his stalking of the sorority sisters, Morgan totally loses control of his narrative. It's just one hyper-violent scene after another, with less emotional nuance than one finds in any of the original FRIDAY THE 13TH sequels. Worse, for some reason Agnes, now a grown woman, has become Billy's ally even though he mutilated her when she was a child. One writeup asserts that the script suffered many rewrites, but I'd say that just proves that Morgan didn't craft a hole-proof story in the first place.
For all the flaws of the 2006 remake, though, it's Horror Gold compared to the 2019 reboot. I saw this piece of crap over a year ago and hadn't planned to review it at all, and I include this abbreviated review just for contrast. The 2019 CHRISTMAS is a prime example of an indie director/writer, one Sophia Takai, trying to rework a horror-movie narrative to promote a political agenda. In place of a stalker, the campus menace this time is an "old boys' club" that likes to rape and murder independent young women, and whose members may be possessed by some spirit of toxic masculinity. It's a thoroughly moronic movie, incoherently scripted and poorly directed, with the exception of one early scene in which a young woman is murdered while making a snow angel.
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