Black Christmas (2019)
Directed by Sophia Takal
If I said I was surprised by the internet’s response to this movie I would be lying. It was depressingly predictable that the internet would do everything in its power to vilify a movie that the director describes as ‘fiercely feminist’ and the internet has not disappointed, as Black Christmas has been review bombed on just about every website. It doesn’t help that the trailer was awful and spoiled THE ENDING OF THE FILM, but that isn’t the reason why anyone is actually mad. Whenever you say ‘feminism’ or ‘rape culture’ the bad side of the internet rears its ugly head. But this isn’t about the online presence of Black Christmas, this is about the movie, which, unlike many of the people tearing into it on social media, I actually saw.
The Story, Sans Big Twist
Black Christmas follows Riley, a college student struggling with the fallout of her rape by the head of a local fraternity and how no one but her Sorority sisters believed her. Following a performance in a talent show where they lambaste the members of the fraternity DIK for their various crimes, mostly sexual misconduct related, the group begins received threatening direct messages from a strange account. As her sisters begin going missing, Riley and the rest of her group try to figure out what is going on and how to stop it without the help of the useless Campus Security.
The Vision
This is a remake in a pretty loose sense, the actual plot is pretty different, particularly in a twist that shows up about halfway through which I mostly liked but won’t speak about too much so as not to spoil. A lot of the film is just updates on the original concept; instead of obscene phone calls we have threatening anonymous DMs, instead of incompetent police we have inept and complacent Campus Security, etc., and as far as that goes this all works, it feels like what the original Black Christmas would be like were it made today. The original Black Christmas was definitely feminist with its portrayals of abortion and many other points, so the, in the director’s own words, “fiercely feminist” vision for Black Christmas (2019) feels in line and appropriately different.
The Reality
All of that being said we must now get to the bigger question, is the new Black Christmas good? Yes…with some qualifications. I’ve heard some accusations that this movie is not a horror film and I have no idea what anyone is talking about, there is a tense atmosphere, not just from the threatening messages but also from mysterious robed figures and the struggle that Riley and her sisters go through to get people to believe them that things are going wrong. What works tends to be what made the original Black Christmas work, the threatening presence of an outside force mixed with the incompetence/dismissive nature of institutions put in place to protect them from these harms. That all works for me, it doesn’t light my world on fire or re-invent the wheel but this is a perfectly okay thriller with some alright kills and a good message.
Not Everything Worked.
There are some issues. The pacing felt a bit slow for me, this wasn’t a deal-breaker for me but things occasionally dragged a bit and it didn’t help that the kills weren’t super interesting. I understand that the issue is mostly an editing problem because this was edited down from an R to a PG-13. It probably would have been better if this was written as a PG-13 from the beginning but I don’t think that’s a huge issue, more a niggling annoyance. One big problem I had was with the ending twist which really undermines many of the messages that came earlier in a way that I don’t quite understand which also baffled the others I went to the movies with. There’s also a bunch of minor quibbles, mild continuity errors that pop up, and questionably deadly keys. It’s a bit rough around the edges.
You Could Do A Lot Worse.
Black Christmas is mostly okay, with some pretty good scenes thrown in. I might seem kind of wishy-washy in this review but that’s mostly because of issues I have with the marketing or with the intense public reactions to this film but I would still recommend it, particularly to young women. There’s a lot of good, relevant messages and some timely commentary on the state of campus security and related issues that I believe would and are resonating with a lot of women who have had similar experiences to this. Black Christmas isn’t perfect but it has its heart in the right place and sticks to its guns. That’s reason enough to like it.
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