Taking the helm of a Dimension Films remake of director Bob Clark's 1974 classic Black Christmas (WATCH IT OR OWN IT HERE) would have been a thankless task for anyone to accept. It's one of those situations where you've pretty much lost as soon as you get started, because there's no way a modern studio film could live up to the style and tone of that original movie. Even if it got close, the remake would still have a major strike against it because the phone calls from the killer in the '74 version were so amazing that they'd be impossible to duplicate.
Director Glen Morgan didn't even attempt to duplicate Clark's film with his 2006 Black Christmas remake (watch or own it here). Instead, he went in the complete opposite direction, using the set-up of the slowly-paced (I'll admit, sometimes it's too slow for my taste), classy, arthouse original to create a gory, trashy exercise in over-the-top insanity. Morgan took the opposite approach to the killer as well: in the original, he was a total mystery, while here Morgan took the story that was subtly told through the '74 phone calls and used them to piece together an on screen back story for the killer that tells us everything we could possibly ever want to know about who it is that's knocking off these sorority girls.
When I first saw Black Christmas '06, I was appalled that the '74 film would receive a remake like this. While I would still hesitate to call it "good", I have learned to enjoy it more over the years, taking in annual viewings with friends.
In the latest entry in his Black Sheep video series, Lance Vlcek provides a defense of the Black Christmas remake, letting us know why he believes it deserves more respect than it gets. He also lets us know his thoughts on the original film… and those thoughts might make this one of the most controversial Black Sheep videos yet.
CHECK OUT SOME OF PREVIOUS BLACK SHEEP EPISODES BELOW!