The 2006 one was bad enough.
Hope this one is better, but have a terrible feeling they are going to reveal Billy. If so, surely it can't be as effective as the original.
shareKeep Billy a mystery.
share
MovieChat Forums > Black Christmas (2019) Discussion > The 2006 one was bad enough.
I've never seen the 06 version, it couldn't be more boring than the original could it.
shareIf you don't like the 1974 movie, you might like the 2006. They're very different.
One is about the mystery, the other had everything explained to you.
They're both of their time. 1970s horror films went for atmosphere and suspense more often. Post-millennium slashers are often about shock value.
70's horror had shock. Halloween was plenty shocking when it came out, I saw it in the theater and my date hid under her jacket, people cried, jumped out of their seat, some walked out. Exorcist, Carrie, Amityville Horror, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hills Have Eyes, etc.; awesome movies. Black Christmas was boring. Hardly anything happens until almost 80 minutes in, the pacing is awful, the casting is backwards IMO (Hussey and Kidder should have been flipped), and the ending ..., ugh. The movie languished in obscurity until marketing companies pumped it a year or two in advance of the remake, making it out as some long lost cult classic ripped off by Carpenter.
shareBy "shock value", I don't mean that the 1970s movies weren't shocking.
More that often in modern horror, things are put in for effect rather than because it adds anything to the film. Take the incest/rape of a 12-year old angle in the 2006 version. It felt like they were putting it in for the sake of being controversial.
The 1974 version of Black Christmas had a spooky atmosphere to it. As did Halloween, another movie that you reference. You say very little happened in Black Christmas, but how much actually happens in Halloween? Most of the movie is Jamie Lee Curtis seeing a man in the distance, and Donald Pleasence wondering around looking for Michael and losing his temper. But that's what they were going for with Halloween. The scary part was meant to be the creepy factor, rather than the controversy factor.
I'm not saying all 1970s horror was like this, or that none of them had gore. You're right, some were equally as gratuitous. Just more that they often made the atmosphere of the movie creepy, which is something missing in the 2006 remake. 2006 was less subtle in it's approach.
The difference is Halloween had a protagonist whose presence is felt throughout the movie.
shareThe point I was really trying to make is, the 1974 and the 2006 movies are quite different in their approach.
If you didn't like the 1974 movie, there's a chance you'll like the 2006 one.
Something I've noticed in perusing the IMDB/Movie Chat forums of both films is that a lot of people seem to massively prefer one to the other. There are some that massively prefer the remake.
They're quite different movies is all.
As hurricane said, 2006 was a pure slasher film not a suspense.
shareI saw the 2006 one when it came out and liked it at the time but I can now see that it was pretty terrible. I also was kind of against older movies at the time and found them boring but did end up seeing the original not long after and really enjoyed it (my taste in films has changed a lot over the years) but holy shit, does this new Black Christmas make the 2006 remake look like a fucking masterpiece.
shareWhen I first watched the 1974 Black Christmas, I hated it. I didn't like the fact that *spoilers* you never knew who the killer was. I watched the 2006 version and was like; "Yeah, they explained stuff better there."
On re-watching 1974 a second time, I began to get more into it. Paying more attention to what was said by the killer, especially with the phone-calls. The whole point of the 1974 version is that nothing is fully explained, but lots of clues are there that the viewers come up with their own theories as to who Billy is. Somehow things are more sinister when you don't know about them. If a character has a lot of back-story, you risk humanising them and making them less scary. With 1974 you don't know what happened, but the fun is the piecing together your theories on who he is. The more you watch the movie, the more you see there.
I caught the 2006 version on TV last Christmas. It was the second time I'd seen it, and after getting more into the 1974 version, I really realised how poorly the remake compared.
The 2006 one was bad enough
No, it was BETTER than the original. share
Was it, balls.
shareThe story's more compelling, it has a superior female cast and it lacks Barb (Margot Kidder), one of the most obnoxious characters in cinema.
I'm not saying the 1974 film is worthless -- it has its positive points and is historically significant -- just that the 2006 version is an all-around more entertaining horror/slasher IMHO. The tacked-on ending is crap, however, and almost singlehandedly ruins it.
Just opinion, I guess. But I feel the complete opposite.
The story in the original has more mystery and leaves a lot unexplained, which makes it more interesting and sinister to me. The remake feels generic.
I preferred the cast in the original to the remake, not counting that Andrea Martin was in both movies. Even Margot Kidder. Her not being in the remake is a complaint from me, not a benefit.
Each to their own.