Editorials
[Remake Fever] Where Did the ‘Black Christmas’ Remake Go Wrong?
The horror genre is nothing if not cyclical. Horror films are frequently picked apart and reassembled again in new packaging for new audiences. Sometimes this results in modern classics. Other times it results in a blasphemous product that defaces the legacy of the original. Remake Fever is a series that compares and contrasts an original horror film and its remake to investigate how the new film is reimagined, as well as what works and what doesn’t.
In 1974, Canadian Bob Clark made a slasher film about a sorority house under siege by a madman who makes threatening phone calls and stages secret murders. Black Christmas starred Olivia Hussey, Andrea Martin and Margot Kidder. The film originated many of the tropes that would go on to become defining conventions of the slasher subgenre, though a delayed release in the United States meant that John Carpenter’s Halloween received much of the credit. Over time, the original Black Christmas has been embraced by the horror community as a beloved slasher film and it is without question the best holiday horror film (come at me in the comments).
In 2006, writer/director Glen Morgan (of The X-Files fame) mounted a remake of Black Christmas. He directed from his own script, fleshing out the backstory of central villain Billy (played by an uncredited Albert J. Dunk in 74), modernizing the technology for the prank calls and upping the gore. Despite these efforts – and in spite of some missing scenes – the film was a critical and commercial flop, grossing only $16M in the US.
So how do the two films differ and what went wrong with the remake? Let’s dig in!
**Spoilers for both Black Christmas films follow, as well as The People Under The Stairs, Scream 4, The Pact, Housebound, and The Boy.**
Like many of the remakes of the 2000s, Morgan’s Black Christmas channels its predecessor in both narrative and character. Morgan’s most significant change involves spending considerably more time on the backstory/psychology of Billy, but the remake also replaces a lot of the drawn-out nuance and atmosphere of Clark’s original in favour of increasingly gory violence. This was the style at the time, though enthusiasts of the original text did not take kindly to these alterations.
In the original Black Christmas, the emphasis is firmly on Final Girl Jess and her sorority sisters, Phyl (Martin), Barb (Kidder) and a few others. The gothic house that they share is mostly empty for the holidays (a plot point that conveniently helps to delay the discovery of the murders since it is assumed that the other girls have simply gone home). The remaining women are a motley crew: Jess is presented as the responsible good girl and Phyl is mousey and unassuming. Kidder’s Barb is a foul-mouthed alcoholic mean girl while the house mother, Mrs. Mac (Marian Waldman), is secretly squirreling away booze in every nook and cranny of the house.
Clark’s original is a deliberately paced whodunnit. In addition to the murders themselves, Black Christmas ‘74 dedicates a substantial amount of screen time to competing subplots, including the police’s attempt to trace the location of the prank calls, the (red herring) search for a missing local child and Jess’ struggles with her boyfriend (Keir Dullea)’s 70s-era toxic masculinity regarding a secret pregnancy.
That final element is one of the reasons that the film remains so highly regarded: not only is abortion a weighty topic for a slasher film to address, the subplot fleshes out Jess in significant, meaningful ways. Clark makes a real effort to ensure potential sorority caricatures become three-dimensional characters by providing them with interesting backstories and defined attributes. The result means that the sorority sisters are the film’s focus, not its mysterious killer.
The balance of power shifts in Morgan’s 2006 update, which dedicates significantly more time to Billy Lenz’s backstory. In the remake Billy (Robert Mann) is born with a liver-disease that leaves him looking jaundiced, which results in an abusive relationship with his unloving mother (Karin Konoval). A series of flashbacks include adultery, incestual rape, sibling defacement, murder and cannibalism; in this way Morgan’s film not-so-subtly places the blame for Billy and his sister Agnes (Dean Friss)’ homicidal behaviour on their mother. This is in stark contrast to Billy in the original film: not only is the original killer’s backstory never revealed, his motivation is barely speculated upon and never clarified.
There are instances of voyeurism in both films. Unbeknownst to the sorority girls, the house has been infiltrated by Billy – and Agnes in the remake – and they are constantly being watched. Both films feature repeated close-ups of eyes watching the sorority girls, though this is significantly more sexualized in the remake, including a scene when Lauren (Crystal Lowe) is spied upon while she drunkenly showers.
Morgan cast a range of up-and-comers to medium-profile actresses – several of whom he had worked with on The X-Files and the Final Destination films (Konoval, as well as Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Kristen Cloke). Meanwhile, Lacey Chabert had Mean Girls and Michelle Trachtenberg had Buffy under their respective belts, while Katie Cassidy was on the cusp of breaking out on The CW.
Despite the talented cast, however, none of the characters make much of an impression. The lack of screen time to beef up the sorority sisters, in particular, is problematic because it renders the girls indistinguishable from one another. Aside from Lauren (the remake’s stand-in for Barb), few of the girls have a unique personality (Cassidy is…nice? Winstead is…vaguely religious? And Chabert and Trachtenberg don’t even have that). Also, due to the compressed timeline of the remake – the events of the film take place over several hours as opposed to days in the original – no one has a character arc. One other (small) nitpick: despite being familiar with all of the actresses, their hair and costumes are styled so similarly that it is surprisingly easy to confuse or blend them together.
The emphasis on Billy, the lack of characterization for the sorority sisters and Morgan’s fixation on eye trauma (so.many.plucked.eyeballs!) are routinely cited as drawbacks in critiques of the remake. There is, however, a small camp of fans who praise the film for its amped-up bitchy dialogue, faster pace and ridiculous deaths (including one by icicle, one by figure skate and even an impaling via Christmas tree). In this regard, Black Christmas ’06 would pair nicely on a double bill with Sorority Row (itself a remake of The House On Sorority Row).
Intriguingly, both versions of Black Christmas can lay claim to a host of imitators. While the original Clark film is a known inspiration for Carpenter’s Halloween and other slashers of the eighties, the remake’s “killer in the walls” plot point precedes the twist endings of 2012’s The Pact, 2014’s Housebound and 2016’s The Boy (the exception is Wes Craven’s underrated 1991 film, The People Under The Stairs, though that film doesn’t use the trope as a twist).
The other imitated aspect of the ’06 remake is its protracted hospital ending. Following a bloody battle that claims nearly even character, Cassidy’s Kelli is attacked by Agnes in her hospital room and must defend herself using a defibrillator. This scene looks eerily similar to the (also protracted) ending of 2011’s Scream 4 when Sidney is attacked…in the hospital…by the killer (her niece Jill)…who is eventually killed using a defibrillator.
Comparing the original Black Christmas with its 2000s era remake is an unenviable task. The original has taken on near-mythic status as a classic of the genre (particularly evident at this time of year). Even on its own, Glen Morgan’s slasher remake isn’t a particularly great film, though it has a fun camp appeal and some really enjoyable kills. Billy’s backstory is arguably the least successful aspect of the film: it feels rote and unnecessary, disrupts the flow of events and lends the modern-day attacks on the sorority house a pervy, misogynistic vibe.
Thankfully Black Christmas ’06 is a quick 84 (or 94 unrated) minute watch which means you can easily give it a look while you wrap holiday gifts! Just be sure to leave a little something for Billy under the tree.
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Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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