Black Christmas (2019)
/“You messed with the wrong sisters.”
Filmology Rating: 1.5 out of 4
Black Christmasis a film that Blumhouse wants you to get mad about. It's a remake of a remake of a sequel of a trilogy that was soft rebooted to make another terrible remake that nobody will remember in a week. Merry Christmas!
The film is loosely about a group of sorority women who are being killed one at a time because they're feminists. Nothing happens in the movie.
We should begin at its surface level and work our way down. So this is technically a "giallo’ inspired film! I think. Because the killer wears gloves and murders people, a group of ordinary people who aren't the police investigate (kind of), but it's not Italian. Instead, it's garbage.
So this is a film that is trying to throw its hat into the feminist movement, but does so in a very aggressive, obvious, and blunt way. I will say, the filmmaker and writer's heart was perhaps in the right place, which I'm all for, but either clearly had zero idea how to deliver their message without sounding like an angry college student shouting their agenda at you.
Here's what you do, the theme of feminism, women rising up, whatever you want to do, put that as subtext. Then, you have a compelling story with characters over that subtext. Instead, the feminist angle is the actual text of this film. There is no subtext and there's nothing subtle about this film.
Even if you take out the feminist angle, this entire film has zero distinguishable characters and a story where absolutely nothing happens for over an hour.
The script itself is utterly atrocious. One line of dialogue in this film is an insult where someone literally calls someone, "Fart face." Another line is during some strange ritual where a bunch of men are praying over a bust or something, then someone says, "The essence of our founder will pull out your inner alpha." It's possibly one of the worst scripts of the year.
Here's the bottom line, this is a Blumhouse horror film released around Christmas. They don't care about the feminist angle of this film. They put it out there to make as much noise as possible, earn their money back opening weekend, and run off with your money.
Regardless, everything about this film is so blunt, obvious, dumb, and is just terrible.
I would also like to point out that this film is very similar to the God-awful film 'Hack-O-Lantern.' 'Black Christmas' should be ashamed. They ripped off that film...
But my compliments to the cinematographer. The film looked alright.
Rating: Skip It
-Nolan