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Category Archives: Christmas Horror Films

BLACK CHRISTMAS (2006)

Mar 18

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BLACK CHRISTMAS-United States/Canada-2006

Katie Cassidy as Kelli Presley

Oliver Hudson as Kyle Autry (Image not from film)

Kristen Cloke as Leigh Colvin (Image not from film)

Andrea Martin as Barbara 'Ms. Mac' MacHenry (Image not from film)

Directed by Glen Morgan

Screenplay by Glen Morgan

Based on the 1974 screenplay by Roy Moore

Do you like recipes? Do you like following instructions and preparing your food just exactly the way it says in the book? The book says ‘add 1 tsp. salt’ and that’s exactly what you do.

I hate following recipes. I think of different ways I can broil a steak or bake a chicken breast. What new twist can I add to it? Perhaps I can add some ginger to the steak or maybe inject the chicken breast with white wine. It’s my food, I’m going to fix it however I damn well please.

You know who I bet loves following recipes? Glen Morgan, the writer and director of Black Christmas, or Black X-mas; whichever you prefer. The film is a remake of the 1974 classic slasher film and it follows the plot to the letter. I can imagine that the recipe that Morgan followed went something like this:

Take one classic horror film screenplay and use it as a template

Write your own screenplay over the old one; but make sure you add in a little more nudity and a lot more gore. It’s the 2000’s after all. No one wants to see a suspenseful horror film with no blood these days.

Make sure you cast a bunch of hot chicks with big tits and vapid personalities. Also, make sure you feature a cast member from the original film. That’ll draw in the older crowd.

Bake at STUPID for about 90 minutes.

Allow 30 minutes to cool and then shop it around to the producers who wouldn’t know what a good horror film was if it bit them on the ass.

Distribute to theaters and watch the money roll in.

Congratulation! You have now sold your soul and set the horror genre back another 20 years because you don’t have an original idea in your head.

I hope you’re happy.

TRIVIA

Andrea Martin, who played Phyllis in Black Christmas, said in an interview that she hadn’t thought about Black Christmas for 32 years and it “came out of the blue” when Glen Morgan offered her the role as the house mother in the movie.

The scene in which Billy puts on a Santa Claus suit upon leaving the mental institute is a reference to the character Billy Chapman in the movie Silent Night, Deadly Night.
 
During one scene the famous “leg lamp” from A Christmas Story can be seen in the background. This may be a reference to Bob Clark, the director of the original Black Christmas. He also directed A Christmas Story in 1983.
 
NO BLOOD DROPS
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Posted in Christmas Horror Films, Films Released In 2006, Movies, Remakes, Slasher Films

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GREMLINS

Dec 20

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GREMLINS-United States-1984

Zach Galligan as Billy Peltzer

Phoebe Cates as Kate Beringer

Hoyt Axton as Randall Peltzer

Directed by Joe Dante
Written by Chris Columbus

    It had been a long, long time since I sat down to watch Gremlins. But, as I was watching it again after all those years I got the nagging suspicion that I had seen this all happen before in real life. No, I don’t mean that I saw cute little Mogwais and scaly, slimy little gremlins fighting it out for the fate of a small town straight out of ’It’s a Wonderful Life on Crack’. I just mean the way they were behaving. Then it hit me and I knew exactly what this movie reminded me of: Black Friday.

Think about it. Have you ever been at a mall or a department store on the first shopping day after Thanksgiving? Think about how the people in the store were acting. They knock each other down, grab things out of other people’s hands, tempers flare, fights break out, grown men cry and on and on and on. Now, think about the scene in Gremlins where Stripe and all his scaly Gremlin buddies are in the movie theater. If that doesn’t remind you of the crowds on Black Friday I don’t know what will.

Another defense of my belief in this is the whole thing about don’t feed them after midnight. Everybody knows that most department stores and malls start their Black Friday sales in the wee small hours of the morning. So before that time most people are sweet, calm, cool and collected. In other words they’re like Gizmo, a Mogwai. But lo and behold, a transformation comes over them as soon as those doors open and those sales begin. They turn into Stripes, evil Gremlins all!!

So, it should go without saying that Gremlins is the perfect holiday movie. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have shopping to do. Online.

TRIVIA

The idea for these creatures was born in a loft in Manhattan’s garment district that was home to NYU Film School graduate screenwriter Chris Columbus. “By day, it was pleasant enough, but at night, what sounded like a platoon of mice would come out and to hear them skittering around in the blackness was really creepy.” Columbus recalls.
In Cantonese Chinese, mogwai means devil, demon or gremlin. The Mandarin pronunciation is mogui.
Among others, the voices of the Gremlins were done by Michael Winslow.
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Posted in Christmas Horror Films, Comedy-Horror Films, Films Released in 1984, Movies

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Black Christmas (1974)

Dec 15

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BLACK CHRISTMAS-Canada-1974

 

Directed by Bob Clark

Written by Roy Moore

Starring

Olivia Hussey as Jess

Keir Dullea as Peter

Margot Kidder as Barb

John Saxon as Lt. Fuller

Black Christmas is the prototype for the modern day (1980′s to the present) slasher film. The film takes place on a holiday and features a group of sorority girls and their house mother. One by one they are murdered by an unseen killer who terrorizes them after each murder with obscene phone calls. One of the girls, Barb, played by Margot Kidder, is the template for the teenagers who would be hacked, slashed, and diced by the likes of Michael, Freddy and Jason. She drinks, has a foul mouth (in a hilarious scene, she tells the desk sergeant at the police station that the number to the sorority house is Fellatio 2880) and is more than likely sexually promiscuous. Olivia Hussey plays Jess, the final girl. For those of you who don’t know, the final girl is the last girl to either live or die in a slasher film. She is also the one who finds all or some of the bodies of the previous victims. You could also say that Hussey was the prime example of how the final girl should look as she is very beautiful in a wholesome sort of way. The killer, Billy, is never seen and the film is left wide open for a sequel the same way Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween were left open. This is not to say that it’s a bad film or that its predictable. It is quite a good film and the only way it is predictable is that we’ve seen the exact same thing time and time again in the movies that followed it. This is a very good film and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know just exactly where their favorite slashers got their start. Billy was their teacher and he was a good one.

TRIVIA

Keir Dullea worked only for a week on this film, never meeting Margot Kidder and barely meeting John Saxon, but the film is edited in such a way that he appears to be present throughout.

The role of Peter was originally offered to Malcolm McDowell, but he turned it down.
 
When NBC showed the film during prime time (under the title “Stranger in the House”), it was deemed ‘too scary’ for network television and was pulled off the air.
 
Around 1986, Olivia Hussey met producers for the film Roxanne, who were interested in casting her for the title role, co-star Steve Martin met her and said “Oh my God Olivia, you were in one of my all time favorite films”, thinking it was her classical performance in the phenomenal Romeo and Juliet, Olivia was surprised to find out it was indeed Black Christmas, Martin claimed he had seen it over 20 times.
 
 
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Posted in Canadian Horror Films, Christmas Horror Films, Films Released in 1974, Movies, Slasher Films

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