Black Christmas (2019) Review

"You messed with the wrong sisters!"
-Kris Presley



As winter break begins, the sorority sisters of MKE starts to go missing.  As the sisters fight for their survival, they also have to discover who is behind the attacks and what they find is worse than any of them could have imagined.


What Works:

This section will be extremely brief.  The only thing I appreciated about Black Christmas is the general story.  A group of sorority sisters taking on evil frat guys is a a fun idea and very different from the other movies in the series.  On paper, this sounds like a fun movie.


What Sucks:

Where do I even begin?  Black Christmas is the worst movie I have seen this year (haven't seen Cats yet).  Far and away the main problem with the movie is the characters.  The vast majority of them aren't memorable and the ones that are are unlikable.  Besides Kris (Aleyse Shannon), none of the girls have any personality.

Speaking of Kris, while she does have personality, she is completely insufferable, but I think the movie wants us to like her.  She's obnoxious to an extreme.  Her character is focused on fighting the patriarchy, which is fine and with the themes of the story, it makes sense to have a character like her, but have a little bit of subtlety.  Kris ends up being just the worst aspects of Tumblr personified.

What really rubbed me the wrong way was how Kris treats our main protagonist, Riley (Imogen Poots).  One of the frat boys raped Riley some time before this movie begins and she is struggling to recover from that event.  Kris keeps trying to push Riley into doing things she is uncomfortable doing or simply not ready for because that's how Kris wants her to respond.  Victims need to handle their recovery in their own way and Kris' behavior really aggravated me.  Listen to what the victim wants and needs!  It's not about you, Kris!  This would be fine if we weren't supposed to like Kris, but the message of the film is that Kris was right all along.  It's incredibly frustrating.

This movie is even flawed on a technical level.  The cinematography isn't very good and could have been much more stylistic with the Christmas theme.  The movie also has way too many crash-zooms.

There are also a few key plot points that are brushed over very quickly.  We see a list of names at one point that is evidently important, but we only see it for a second.  There's also an important YouTube video, but it's hard to see and hear.  It doesn't matter if it's more realistic, if it's important for the audience to know, show it to us!

Finally, the kills in this movie are so lame.  It's a PG-13 movie, which sucks, but still.  There's only one kill that has any amount of creativity and it's the first one.  The rest simply suck.


Verdict:

Black Christmas is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in theaters and was an utterly miserable experience, which really sucks because the trailer makes it look really fun.  The characters are boring or obnoxious, the cinematography is bad, the editing is flawed, and kills are underwhelming to say the least.  It's somehow worse than the 2006 version of Black Christmas and that is saying something. 

 1/10: Horrendous  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Argylle (2024) Review

Image
 "The human skull is shockingly brittle." -Aidan Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a very successful spy novelist.  She draws attention from the espionage community when plot points in her books come true.  When Elly is attacked on a train by a group of spies, she is rescued by another spy, Aidan (Sam Rockwell), who needs her help with his mission and to do that, she needs to write another chapter of her latest book. Spoilers Below.  Go ahead and read on because I don't recommend this movie, but either way, you've been warned. What Works: Argylle has a really fun premise that really works in the first half of the movie.  It's a fish-out-of-water, buddy-cop, spy movie, and it's a blast.  Watching Ellie predict where to go based on what the characters in her books would do is a lot of fun.  It's what the whole movie should have been. The opening sequence follows Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill) on another dangerous mission as he pursues the villainous LaGrang
Read more

Top 10 Movies of 2023

Image
2023 is finally over and it's time for me to put my Top 10 list together.  2023 was definitely a weaker year for movies.  There were definitely some great movies, but there were also plenty of disappointing and bad movies as well.  I still managed to put together a great Top 10 with a couple of worthy contenders that just missed the cut.  Let's take a look! #10. They Cloned Tyrone They Cloned Tyrone is a wild and fun sci-fi tale that takes place in the hood.  A drug dealer, a pimp, and a prostitute discover a cloning conspiracy and the results are intelligent and hilarious.  This is a really smart and funny movie with some amazing performances across the board.  This was a movie that kept me guessing the whole way through.  What an absolute blast. #9. Renfield I'm guessing Renfield will be the most controversial entry on my list as I feel like I'm the only person who liked this movie.  I love the old Universal monster movies and the fact that we get a direct sequel, whi
Read more

Madame Web (2024) Review

Image
 "When you take on the responsibility, great power will come." -Santiago Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson), a New York paramedic, hits her head in an accident, which unlocks the ability to see glimpses of the future.  When she sees Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) attempting to murder three teenage girls, Cassie intervenes to save them.  As Cassie learns to understand her power, she also discovers the connection between her, the girls, and Ezekiel. What Works: I think the core idea at the center of this movie is a good one and has the potential to be interesting.  Cassie's superpowers are kinda lame.  It's not like they're going to help in a combat situation.  Ezekiel is basically evil Spider-Man.  He has legitimate powers and is a massive threat.  That's an interesting conflict.  How does someone with lackluster superpowers take on a supervillain.  It's a fun idea that I would like to see tried again with greater success.  What Sucks: This movie was embarrassing to
Read more