2019 saw the release of Black Christmas, an American slasher film written and directed by Sophia Takal and April Wolfe. A vague second remake of the 1974 Canadian film Black Christmas, following the 2006 version, it is a part of the Black Christmas franchise and centres on a group of sorority sisters at Hawthorne College who are being stalked by an unidentified individual. Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue, Caleb Eberhardt, and Cary Elwes are among the movie’s stars.
When Jason Blum revealed in June 2019 that he would produce the movie through his production company Blumhouse Productions, the project’s development got underway. Principal filming in Otago commenced shortly after Sophia Takal joined on as director and co-writer, and the shoot lasted for 27 days.
On December 13, 2019, Universal Pictures released Black Christmas in theatres nationwide, falling on Friday the 13th. On a $5 million budget, the movie brought about $18 million globally. Some audience members firebombed it, while critics gave it mixed reviews.
Plot of Black Christmas (2019) – Horror mystery starring Imogen Poots.
Lindsay, a student at Hawthorne College, is slain by a masked assailant while she is going home. Mu Kappa Epsilon horror Riley Stone suffers from PTSD as a result of being sexually assaulted by Delta Kappa Omicron fraternity president Brian Huntley. Kris, her sorority sister, has been a source of ire for both Professor Gelson and the DKO fraternity. She has petitioned for the removal of the bust of university founder Calvin Hawthorne from the main building and for Gelson to be sacked for refusing to teach works written by women.
Riley finds new DKO recruits performing a ritual around Hawthorne’s bust as he and Kris, along with their friends Marty, Jesse, and Helena, arrive to the fraternity for the talent event. She replaces Helena in the talent show and stops a DKO member from sexually abusing an inebriated Helena. She and her sorority sisters sing a song against the fraternity’s culture of rape after she spots Brian among the crowd. Later, Riley has a relationship with the kind frat lad Landon, but Helena is kidnapped by Lindsay’s assailant. The girls begin to receive menacing texts, like to Lindsey’s prior to her death, from an account purporting to be Calvin Hawthorne.
The next day, the masked attacker attacks and murders Fran, a sorority member. Riley meets Gelson while looking for Helena and discovers his list of the MKE females. When she calls campus police about the disappearances, they are unhelpful.
Riley and Kris get into a fight that evening over Kris’s uploading of Riley’s performance, in which Riley confesses to Brian raping her at the conclusion. Marty gets into a fight with her boyfriend Nate and tells him to leave while Riley accuses Kris of being behind the threatening texts from DKO. The attacker attacks the girls after killing Jesse, injuring Marty in the process. While Nate arrives to apologise and is also slain, Kris finds Jesse’s body. Riley takes out the attacker, but two other people assault the girls. Riley and Kris kill the assailant and identify him as a DKO pledge that Marty witnessed during the previous ceremony, causing Marty to pass away.
Riley believes that Hawthorne, who was well-known for using black magic, is the one behind the killings because of his bust, which releases black liquid, and the two flee in Nate’s car. Riley insists they go to the fraternity and the two part ways, even though Kris advises they call the police. Riley asks Landon to assist her in getting into the fraternity. Kris finds Lindsey’s sorority sisters under attack from DKO and comes to their aid. The fraternity brothers persuade Landon to become a pledge at the DKO residence. Riley finds Helena bound and unconscious after being struck by a DKO member.
Brian, Gelson, and other DKO members attack her as she awakens bound and gagged. According to Gelson, when Kris insisted on moving the bust, they learned about Hawthorne’s scheme to subjugate women using the black liquid and a spell. The drink gives the fraternity’s pledges possession by the spirit of Hawthorne, who then uses them to murder women they believe to be rowdy. In order to help the possessed pledges find their targets, Helena stole things from her sisters while working covertly for the fraternity. Before Kris and the other sorority sisters attack the fraternity, Helena is killed.
Riley destroys the Hawthorne bust after overpowering Brian. After Kris sets Gelson on fire, the frat guys are locked inside and left to burn to death while the ladies and Landon flee.
Release date
On December 13, 2019, a Friday the 13th, Universal Pictures released Black Christmas in theatres across the United States and Canada. [30] On March 3, 2020, the movie was also made available digitally. On March 17, it was released on DVD and Blu-ray.
Box office revenue
With $10.4 million in revenue in the US and Canada and $8.1 million in other areas, Black Christmas brought in $18.5 million globally
The movie, which debuted in theatres this past weekend with Jumanji: The Next Level and Richard Jewell, was previously expected to bring in between $10 and $12 million from 2,100 screens.
Estimates for the movie were reduced to $4.5 million when it opened to $1.4 million (including $230,000 from Thursday night previews). In the end, it opened with a meagre $4.2 million and took fifth place at the box office. In its second weekend, the movie dropped 57% to $1.8 million, placing it in tenth place.
Review
39 percent of the 114 reviews from reviewers on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes are favourable, with an average rating of 4.7/10. “Better than the 2006 remake yet not as crisp as the original, this Black Christmas stabs at relevant feminist issues but primarily hits on familiar pulp,” is the general verdict on the website. [34] Based on reviews from 25 critics, the movie has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100 on Metacritic, which indicates “mixed or mediocre reviews.” [35] The movie had an average grade of “D+” on an A+ to F scale from CinemaScore viewers, while PostTrak viewers gave it a “terrible” average of 1.5 out of 5 stars, with 38% of respondents indicating they would certainly recommend it.
With a rating of three out of four stars, Simon Abrams of RogerEbert.com said that the movie “reflects the reality beyond the movie theatre in ways that most other studio-distributed horror films don’t, due to some atmospheric scary moments and some snappy dialogue.
What’s best about Takal and Wolfe’s take on the material is that it’s angry — righteously, deservedly, properly enraged about the crap that many people, but one gender in particular, have had to put up with for way, way too long,” wrote Rolling Stone reviewer David Fear, who gave the movie three out of five stars. “Fans of the original… might not enjoy writer-director Sophia Takal’s rendition, but Black Christmas is a delightful picture that gets its pleasures out of practically demolishing the patriarchy,” stated Kimber Myers of the Los Angeles Times.
One out of five stars was awarded by Benjamin Lee of The Guardian, who said, “It’s fast, cheap-looking and totally lacking suspense, atmosphere, and dramatic tension, so bad at points that it suddenly makes 2006’s iffy version appear like a misremembered genius.” The Times’ Ed Potton gave it a one-star rating as well, stating that “the least dramatic unmasking in cinematic history, some remarkable leaps in deduction from Riley, and absurd supernatural occurrences” are all included in the last half-hour.
One of Imogen Poots’s most potent tools in Black Christmas, a rough adaptation of the Canadian horror classic from 1974, is her wide, longing eyes. Suspense builds as they dash through blood-splattered chambers. At other times, their kind eyes convey a universe of history that sorority sisters have shared. With a flowing energy that alludes to the ways women strive to heal in this case, after sexual assault gaze Poots underpins the movie.
Riley, a college student portrayed by Poots, is troubled by past mistreatment at the hands of Brian, a former frat guy (Ryan McIntyre). Riley’s rape, which far too few people think actually occurred, occurred years ago, yet she won’t shut up. She does a holiday-themed callout of Brian and his like, who still don’t need permission to acquire what they want on campus, with her sorority sisters. At about the same time, Professor Gelson (Cary Elwes), who loves the writing of white male authors above all else and frequently quotes Camille Paglia, is upset by a petition to remove a statue of the university’s notoriously misogynist founder, which is started by fellow MKE sister Kris (an electrifying Aleyse Shannon). Hawthorne College feels like a powder keg as the holidays draw near, especially when sorority members begin to depart for no apparent reason.
The cult hit, which had previously featured sorority sisters in two distinct university settings, is being rebooted by director Sophia Takal and co-writer April Wolfe.
