Christmas is a time for reflection? No way! “Black Christmas”, which can currently be streamed on the Home Of Horror channel on Amazon Prime Video, proves the exact opposite. And it’s pretty intense!
When the first gingerbread can be spotted in the shops at the end of September, the season of reflection and charity is ushered in: Christmas. But if you’re honest, the holidays have very little contemplative charm these days. Instead, people run amok and engage in a consumer battle beyond good and evil. Those who are already rather grumpy about Christmas for this reason, among others, can currently access the ideal anti-holiday title on Amazon Prime Video.
“Black Christmas” from 2006 is currently available on the Home Of Horror channel. You can easily subscribe to this channel on Amazon Prime Video and test it free of charge for 14 days. After that, the monthly fee is €3.99. In the case of “Black Christmas”, the trial subscription is not only worthwhile because the horror film is quite funny. Here, the film is also available in the Unrated version – and is thus a few minutes longer (and harder) than the R-rated or theatrical version.
THIS IS WHAT “BLACK CHRISTMAS” IS ABOUT
Young Billy (Cainan Wiebe) is held captive in an attic for years. Abuse and beatings are the order of the day – but one day Billy takes revenge on his parents. For the bloodbath he wreaks on his family, he ends up in a psychiatric ward. Years later, the house is inhabited by six female students who want to spend their Christmas holidays comfortably in a small circle. But then Megan (Jessica Harmon), one of the girls, disappears without a trace.
The other students, Kelli (Katie Cassidy), Dana (Lacey Chabert), Lauren (Crystal Lowe), Megan (Jessica Harmon), Heather (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Melissa (Michelle Trachtenberg) become increasingly worried. When the group is terrorised by a series of anonymous phone calls, panic sets in. But this is only the beginning. Soon the first blood is spilled and the atrocities of the past are recalled…
THIS YEAR WE’LL HAVE A BLOODY CHRISTMAS!
To avoid any confusion, I’d first like to clarify whether the 2006 “Black Christmas” recommended here has anything to do with the 1974 horror film of the same name. Although this 2006 version rehashes some elements from the classic (the attic, the sorority house, etc.), this one is – at most – a reboot and not a remake. “Black Christmas” from 2019, another version, by the way, blows a very similar horn in this case, but distances itself much more clearly from the 1970s shocker and is rather a meta-reflection on the slasher cinema of the last 50 years.
Even if director Glen Morgan (co-writer on “Final Destination” and “Final Destination 3”) is not able to pull out any trees with his “Black Christmas” and thus by no means brings with him the iconic radiance of the 1970s milestone, the filmmaker possesses an elementary skill that makes his at times extremely bloody horror tearjerker work throughout: a highly pleasant aplomb in dealing with shenanigans. Although “Black Christmas” never veers towards fun-splatter, it indulges in vulgar psychological conclusions with an almost passionate penchant for harebrained cruelty.
