The 3 Good Things About Black Christmas (2019), That Got Lost In Translation
By: Ryan Dimalanta
Tags: Horror, Pop Culture, Review, Film, Christmas

The 3 Good Things About Black Christmas (2019), That Got Lost In Translation

It’s bad, but good, kinda.

This is one of those bad movies.

But, good-bad. Like, funny-bad.

You know the ones.

Like, you can’t stop laughing because they’re so bad, ones — the painfully obvious plot twists, poorly written dialogue, fake ass looking blood oozing from the midsection of that too-beautiful-to-die person who eats it in the first five minutes of the film.

Black Christmas (2019), is one of those movies.

Directed by Sophia Takal (whose work includes Green, Always Shine, and an episode of Into the Dark), Black Christmas is the third iteration of the story; which was first released in 1974 by director Bob Clark (the second, directed by Glen Morgan in 2006).

The film is an American slasher flick based on the Canadian urban legend, The babysitter and the man upstairs; where a teenage babysitter receives persistent calls from a stalker, telling her to check on the kids.

Instead, this version revolves around a group of sorority girls. One in particular, Riley (Imogen Poots), is dealing with the aftermath of a sexual assault she experienced the previous year.

One by one, each of them receives threatening text messages from an anonymous sender. And one by one, they all start to die.

Along with the obvious slasher flick tropes, the film attempts to embody powerful, female themes in its narrative; but despite the insistency on a feminist agenda, the narrative falls flat.

More than that, it falls, takes a tumble down some stairs, gets back up with its collar bone sticking out, then meanders around drunk and disorderly for another hour and a half.

Still, there are 3 things that the film does do well (kinda).

Here they are:

The 3 Good Things

#1. Imogen Poots

Imogen Poots is a British-born actress, known for her work in V for Vendetta (2005), She’s Funny That Way (2014), and Green Room (2015) — to name a few.

She plays the role of Riley, the film’s protagonist — the only one to survive the drunken slaughter (oops, spoiler).

Poots is the one bright spot in Black Christmas. Her performance is the only thing that warrants attention for the entire ninety-three minutes, and is likely the film’s only appeal.

But even her performance (which, in typical Poots fashion, was full of emotion, eccentric angst, and a knack for the American accent that puts to bed the myth that British accents always show through when playing American roles), couldn’t save the film from falling down all those stairs.

Even so, Poots was able to carry the film (blood, guts and collarbone protruding) to the twisted, uninspired end. Where you find out (way too late, and not in any way enough detail) that the culprit behind the terrifying texts is a secret fraternity-cult whose ranks have been infected by an evil curse.

So, yeah.

Onto the next.

#2. Cinematography

Despite the film’s poor use of character, dialogue, plot (and pretty much everything to do with the narrative ), it looked good.

All credit goes to cinematographer, Mark Schwartzbard. His use of lighting made up for the film’s obviously low budget (there were only a few actual locations: a house, a neighborhood, part of a school), and his ability to utilize certain camera moves and techniques helped add something to the narrative.

Respectively, Schwartzbard helped make Black Christmas look like a Hollywood movie — which is why you paid to see it, right?

Although, at what cost…

#3. Feminism

So, the big one.

When you’re watching the movie, feminism leaks not-so-subtly from the pages and onto the screen. Like getting spritzed in the face with perfume after taking a wrong turn down the aisle in Nordstroms.

The film focuses on the topic of consensual sex — specifically in Greek Life. The topic is easily broached, as the stereotype of most fraternities is that it’s members are arrogant pigs who’ll say and/or do anything to get a girl into bed.

I think you can all agree that this is an important issue and deserves our attention — it’s a detriment to all women — but Takal’s execution of the issue in a slasher flick, left much to be desired.

The problem with broaching a serious issue like this in a slasher, is that the issue is deeply personal for the victims.

As such, the human story deserves the spotlight; which is what Takal attempts to gives it — the entire narrative surrounds the issue, like a call to arms for women everywhere to stand up to all those evil fraternity boys out there.

Yet the cheap blood, fake gore, bows and arrows (yes, they hunt the girls with bows and arrows) and the pseudo-mystical pretext that influences a cult of fraternity brothers to go around killing sorority girls, takes center stage — it’s a slasher flick, after all.

But this cheapens the issue.

And coupled with a serious lack of character development, the film’s message gets lost in translation.

Conclusion

Black Christmas is a bad movie. Good-bad. Like in a funny, but not trying to be funny, kind of way.

So if you’re looking for a laugh and/or something to distract you from the real world for a bit, this film is right up your alley.

Bring your friends (or more likely, wait till it comes out on Netflix). It’ll give you something to bond over — how bad it is.