Movie Review: Black Christmas - Page 2

This sensibility extends to the film's death scenes as well. Those watching Black Christmas solely for gore will find little in which to be disappointed, especially in regards to the unrated cut on the newly-available DVD. The red red krovvy flows like a river after a spring thaw; vicious stabbings are the order of the day, but there's also decapitation, dismemberment, impaling, an unexpected brain avulsion, and enough eyeball violence to make Lucio Fulci wet himself. Say what you will, but Morgan's Black Christmas is everything we've been told a late-wave slasher ought to be - mean, nasty, callous and willing to cheerfully dispatch anyone in horrifying ways.

It's in the getting, though, that one realizes how pitiful and unsatisfying the "ideal" slasher film is. The flavor-of-the-week actresses who essay the unfortunate sorority sisters (including Michelle Trachtenberg, Lacey Chabert and Mary Elizabeth Winstead) are given no distinct personality traits by Morgan's script with which to set themselves apart from their compatriots. This is, on some level, out of necessity, as nearly all of these girls are going to die and emotional investment presumably would be a waste of running time. Thus, the film becomes a pure expression of the term "meat movie" - these women are merely walking sacks of meat, fonts for bad dialogue whose purpose is to be ogled and then destroyed.

If the majority of the cast is then filled out by sacrificial zeros, the scales are rebalanced by giving way too much characterization to rampaging maniac Billy. A good third of the film is spent explaining his back-story when a five-minute campfire story would do just as well. Billy's horrendous upbringing, detailed as thoroughly as it is, puts the viewer in the odd situation of being pushed to sympathize with a character that is clearly not intended to be sympathized with. Morgan's decision to follow this is puzzling - we don't need to care about our slasher characters beyond caring about how well they can swing implements of death. While I can appreciate the perversity of a film which explains its psycho and leaves its protagonists blank, such a gambit destroys any sense of proportion or pacing. Especially since said back-story is parceled out in increments throughout the film's first forty-five minutes.

Article Author: Steve Carlson

Steve Carlson, the proprietor of The Ongoing Cinematic Education of... since 2002, neither conducts electricity nor talks to reptiles. However, he knows someone who does both.

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