ann hale has a black christmas…
Back in 2006, I took my friend Stephanie to see Happy Feet in the theater as she loves penguins. That’s an understatement. She doesn’t love penguins, she LOVES penguins. Apparently, I took her to see it too close to Christmas because it was all sold out. Taking advantage of the only thing she loved more than penguins, namely Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I asked if she wanted to see Black Christmas because it had Michelle Trachtenberg in it. I walked out of that theater beyond angry that I had spent so much money for us to see it. The movie was ridiculous and nothing like the original. However, I spent months thinking about the movie after that and when it came out to buy on DVD, I picked it up to give it another try. I’m not lying when I say that I watched it every day for probably two weeks straight. Ever since, Black Christmas has been my go to Christmas Eve horror movie.
Billy is born in 1970 with a liver disease that causes his skin to be colored yellow. His mother is disgusted by this and wants nothing to do with him. Only his father takes care of him. When he witnesses his mother and her boyfriend murdering his father, he is locked away in the attic until 12 years later, on Christmas, when his mother is drunk and horny and comes to visit. The result is his daughter/sister, Agnes. One year, on Christmas, Billy escapes the attic and murders his mother and stepfather, making their skin into cookies, which he dunks in milk and eats. He also stabs Agnes in the eye. He is sent to an institution for the criminally insane and Agnes is sent to an orphanage.
In present day, Billy’s house is now a Delta Alpha Kappa sorority house and it’s Christmas. A few sorority sisters remain in the house for the holidays in lieu of going home. Meanwhile, Billy escapes from the mental institution to return home. One by one, the sisters are taken out and they have to find a way to survive before Billy gets them.
I like this version better than the original (sacrilege, I know) because it is more violent. The story of Billy is more descriptive, the deaths are much cooler and the chicks are hotter. Sure, Olivia Hussey was smoking hot in the 70’s but this version has Lacey Chabert, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Katie Cassidy, Crystal Lowe, Michelle Trachtenberg and more.
Billy has a strange obsession with eyeballs, which he, for some reason, eats and decorates with. That’s pretty nasty. I enjoy the part where he uses Christmas cookie cutters to cut little Christmas skin cookies out of his mother and eats them with milk. That shit is just messed up. Plus, there are cool deaths involving an ice skate, an icicle, and a glass unicorn. I guarantee that you will never be able to hear Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite ever again without thinking of this movie.
This Christmas, treat yourself to some cookies and gore with Black Christmas. You won’t regret it.
