Blumhouse’s Black Christmas remake earns a PG-13 rating

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions are making some odd decisions for their upcoming remake of the 1974 classic BLACK CHRISTMAS. First they put out a trailer that seems to spoil every surprise the film might have held, then put out a (slightly less spoilery) second trailer, the one embedded above, as if the first one hadn't already shown enough. Now comes word that the film is tame enough that it has only earned a PG-13 rating.

The murders in the '74 movie weren't exactly gore fests (the 2006 remake was a lot messier), but a PG-13 rating for this remake means that not only are we not going to get any impressive kills, but there also won't be anything along the lines of the obscene phone calls featured in the original.

The 2019 BLACK CHRISTMAS has been rated PG-13 for "violence, terror, thematic content involving sexual assault, language, sexual material and drinking."

Directed by Sophia Takal from a screenplay she wrote with April Wolfe, the film stars Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Lily Donoghue, Brittany O'Grady, Caleb Eberhardt, Simon Mead, and Cary Elwes.

Just in time for the holidays comes a timely take on a cult horror classic as a campus killer comes to face a formidable group of friends in sisterhood.
 
Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. But as Riley Stone (Imogen Poots, Green Room) and her Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters – athlete Marty (Lily Donoghue, The CW's Jane the Virgin), rebel Kris (Aleyse Shannon, The CW's Charmed), and foodie Jesse (Brittany O'Grady, Fox's Star) – prepare to deck the halls with a series of seasonal parties, a black-masked stalker begins killing sorority women one by one. 
 
As the body count rises, Riley and her squad start to question whether they can trust any man, including Marty's beta-male boyfriend, Nate (Simon Mead, Same But Different: A True New Zealand Love Story), Riley's new crush Landon (Caleb Eberhardt, Amazon's Mozart in the Jungle) or even esteemed classics instructor Professor Gelson (Cary Elwes). 
 
Whoever the killer is, he's about to discover that this generation's young women aren't about to be anybody's victims.

Jason Blum produced the new remake with Ben Cosgrove and Adam Hendricks, and Couper Samuelson, Jeanette Volturno, Greg Gilreath, and Zac Locke serve as executive producers.

This third take on BLACK CHRISTMAS is set to reach theatres on December 13th.
 

Source: Exhibitor Relations

About the Author

Cody is a news editor and film critic, focused on the horror arm of JoBlo.com, and writes scripts for videos that are released through the JoBlo Originals and JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channels. In his spare time, he's a globe-trotting digital nomad, runs a personal blog called Life Between Frames, and writes novels and screenplays.