WARNING: This Review May Contain Spoilers
Originally, this article was supposed to be a 3 way comparison between the 1974 version, 2006 and 2019 remakes. However, and not through lack of trying, it has been impossible to find a copy of the 2019 film ANYWHERE! Anyway, back to the point and as we know from previous articles, the early 2000s was populated with remakes of older horror films – well, here’s another to add to the pile…
When a Stranger Calls
It’s unbelievable that just the phone call the girls receive right at the beginning of the original film actually disturbs me quite a bit. And I don’t mean when he tells Barb he’s going to kill her. Now, the main reason I chose to call this section When a Stranger Calls is because it turns out that, like the film of that name, the calls they receive come from inside the sorority house in both versions of the film. The only difference however is that in the original they are coming from the landline and in the remake the killer is using his victims mobile phones. Now, I can hear the shouts of “Times change!” and I agree they do – but did we not still have landlines in 2006? With a mobile phone the killer didn’t need to remain in the house. In the original film, the first call comes prior to the first death, however in the remake at least two murders take place before the phone call happens which actually made it less creepy than I would assume it was supposed to be.
Skulking Shadow
I love the fact that for the majority of the original film, our killer is nothing more than a simple shadow. As the film goes on, we see a hand when he’s rocking Clare’s corpse up in the attic. The first time we even see him close to properly is when he murders Barb with the glass unicorn. Even when he is coming after Jess right at the end in the original film – we still never see him completely. This is also the case in the remake, but I think this is more a part of the attempt to lead the viewer down the garden path on the who the killer could actually be, which I will go on to mention later in this article (if you don’t want to know, you probably should have stopped reading at This Article May Contain Spoilers)
Not Your Typical Slasher
What’s interesting about the original film is that it spends the first 40 minutes focused on the disappearance, well more specifically the death, of Clare. Now, the viewer knows that she was killed right at the very beginning but you still kind of become invested in the search. Now, obviously that’s not to say other characters don’t die, because they do, but it is much more subtle and drawn out than maybe you would expect. Of course, there is a delay in the remake as well between Clair’s death and that of the next sorority sister but the fact that Billy kills his guard and Santa in order to escape, we lose that air of suspense that we have in the original. Along with this, all the murders in the remake are more violent than the original.
Incompetence of the Police
Now, this is nothing against the two detectives in the original film that actually investigate Clare’s disappearance but more about Nash. I think this is supposed to part of the comic relief of the film by making him such an imbecile – like the fact that he believed Barb when she gives their phone number as fellatio. Now, there’s no place for this in the remake as the girls never call the police following Clair and Megan’s disappearances, which I think is a little bit insensitive in my opinion. They wait until Dana is also dead and then they discover Megan’s body in her car and her head falls into the snow.
Red Herrings Galore
There’s two very clear similarities between these two films – neither of them make it obvious what our killer’s true motivation is and both of them lead us down the garden path on their identity. In the original film, as I believe I mentioned already, we never actually find out the identity of our killer at all BUT we are almost being led to believe that it is Jess’ boyfriend Peter – especially following the phone call referencing Jess’ potential abortion. Now, any Scream fan knows to never trust the boyfriend in these films but it turns out not to be the case judging by the end of the film. In the remake on the other hand, with all the information provided we are led to believe that the main killer is Billy Letz but it seems to turn out that it is actually his sister that ends up being the murderer. There’s a bigger twist about her character but I’ll leave that for those of you who choose to watch the film.
All a Little Bit Rob Zombie
So, I mentioned above about the fact that we have more information about the killer in the remake of Black Christmas than we did in the original. Well, with the amount of back story for Billy Lenz in this film, it reminded me a lot of Rob Zombie’s adaption of Halloween and the way he gave a lot more screen time to Michael Myers than in the John Carpenter version. Along with this, with this back story provided and the weird behaviour of Eve, I had a sneaking suspicion that she might actually be Billy’s sister Agnes. Now, clearly this didn’t turn out to be the case so it feels like a really weird addition for her to be in one scene and then die without anyone really mentioning her existence again.
Homage to the Original
Now, normally I have a couple of things to point out here but as it was “loosely based” on the original 1974 film, I can only really mention one and that is the gift of the crystal unicorn that Heather is give. This is very similar to the glass unicorn that Barb is killed with in the original film. Funnily enough, Lauren is also killed with the unicorn while in bed and her character is rather similar to that of Barb’s. Yes, I am referring to her fondness for alcohol.
In Conclusion
For a film that is supposed to be “loosely based” on its counterpart, it is definitely rather similar. I was expecting the 2006 version to be a cheesy, poor acting film full of screaming girls running away and falling down at the vital moment but it genuinely turned out to be a much better version than that! What I’m trying to say is that even though I didn’t expect to, I enjoyed both versions of these films.
