Deck the Halls with Mediocrity
Ah, Black Christmas (2019) — the third iteration of a film that refuses to stay buried, much like the frat boys it keeps trying to set on fire. Directed by Sophia Takal and produced by Blumhouse, this remake of a remake is what happens when a slasher movie takes a Women’s Studies elective and forgets it’s supposed to be scary.
The tagline might as well have been: “This Christmas, the patriarchy bleeds.” Unfortunately, so does the audience’s sense of enjoyment.
The Setup: Slay Bells Ring, Are You Bored Yet?
We open with a scene designed to say, “Look, this is going to be edgy.” A college girl named Lindsay gets stalked and murdered while walking home — a scene that might have been shocking if not for the fact that it’s edited like a perfume commercial. You half expect a voiceover whispering, “Hawthorne… the scent of vengeance.”
Soon we meet our heroine, Riley (Imogen Poots), who’s suffering from PTSD after being assaulted by a fraternity president named Brian. She lives in the Mu Kappa Epsilon sorority house with a group of women who represent every personality trait available in the Screenwriter’s Guide to Token Characters:
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Kris (Aleyse Shannon): the activist with a Twitter account.
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Marty (Lily Donoghue): the sensible one.
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Jesse (Brittany O’Grady): the… other one.
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Helena (Madeleine Adams): the suspiciously naive one who might as well wear a T-shirt that says “I betray people in Act Three.”
Together, they prepare for the holidays, attend a frat party, and — because no one in horror movies has seen other horror movies — walk directly into a situation involving black magic and toxic masculinity.
The Tone: A Lecture Disguised as a Murder
Let’s get something straight: Black Christmas doesn’t want to scare you. It wants to teach you. It’s not a horror movie so much as a group project that thinks it deserves extra credit. Every other scene is a dissertation on rape culture, gender power dynamics, and the evils of Greek life. And while those are important topics, it’s hard to take them seriously when they’re being delivered by people whose emotional range is “mildly annoyed” to “holding a crossbow.”
The script is so determined to make its point that it forgets how to tell a story. It’s like watching someone try to balance feminist theory with fake blood and ending up spilling both.
Example: there’s a scene where Riley performs a song calling out the frat’s predatory behavior in front of the guys themselves. It’s a bold moment — for about five seconds — until you realize it’s being shot like Glee does The Purge.
The Villains: Evil Frat Boys and the Spirit of Patriarchy
Every good slasher needs a villain. This one has… Calvin Hawthorne, the college’s long-dead founder whose bust (literally a bust) drips black goo that mind-controls frat pledges into killing women who speak their minds.
Yes, you read that correctly. The evil force in Black Christmas is a marble statue that bleeds toxic sludge. You could call it symbolic of the patriarchy, or you could call it a Scooby-Doo plot twist gone horribly pretentious.
And then there’s Professor Gelson, played by Cary Elwes — who looks like he wandered in from a different movie and stayed for the paycheck. He’s a misogynist academic who tells his students that women’s literature isn’t worth studying. Subtlety, thy name is not Black Christmas. By the time he starts monologuing about ancient rituals and male dominance, you can almost hear him thinking, “I miss The Princess Bride.”
The Sorority: Sisterhood of the Traveling Stereotypes
Imogen Poots does her best with the material — she’s genuinely talented, even when forced to deliver lines like “You messed with the wrong sisters!” before impaling someone. She plays Riley with conviction, which is impressive given that most of her scenes involve running from men in masks who look like rejected Eyes Wide Shut extras.
Kris, meanwhile, is the film’s designated megaphone for modern feminism. She’s not a character so much as a walking think-piece, the kind of person who probably hashtags her breakfast. When she isn’t signing petitions to remove a statue, she’s starting fires — literally.
And then there’s Helena, whose heel-turn betrayal is so obvious it could’ve been telegraphed with flashing neon letters. By the time she shows up as a cult accomplice, you half expect her to cackle, “Surprise! I was evil all along!” while twirling an imaginary mustache.
The Horror: PG-13 and Proudly Toothless
You might think a film about possession, murder, and dark magic would at least try to be scary. You’d be wrong. Black Christmas is rated PG-13, which means the kills are bloodless, the jump scares are predictable, and the atmosphere is about as tense as a Hallmark holiday special with mood lighting.
When people die, it’s usually off-screen or obscured by shaky camera work. It’s like the movie’s afraid to show anything that might stain its political message with actual horror. Even the killer masks — sleek black things that are supposed to look menacing — end up looking like someone forgot to finish painting them.
The big showdown features our heroines storming the frat house to burn it down while shouting empowerment slogans. It’s meant to be triumphant, but it lands somewhere between The Craft and a college improv skit called “Feminism: The Musical.”
The Writing: Murder by Message
Let’s be clear — Black Christmas isn’t bad because it’s feminist. It’s bad because it’s a terrible movie. You can make a horror film with strong social commentary (Get Out proved that brilliantly). But this film treats theme like a sledgehammer and nuance like a dirty word.
It’s so desperate to dismantle the patriarchy that it forgets to build a coherent plot. Characters appear, vanish, and reappear possessed by the ghost of exposition. Dialogue sounds like it was lifted from a Twitter thread. And the pacing? Imagine watching someone jog uphill while giving a TED Talk about empowerment — that’s the entire second act.
The Ending: Smash the Bust (and the Franchise)
The climax features Riley smashing the magical Hawthorne bust — because nothing says “death to the patriarchy” like destroying a piece of college decor. The surviving women walk away as the fraternity burns behind them, triumphant music swelling, while the audience checks their watches.
By this point, you don’t care who lives, who dies, or whether the bust will get a sequel. You’re just hoping someone turns off the smoke machine.
Final Thoughts: Ghosts of Feminism Past
There’s a version of Black Christmas that could’ve worked — one that used its feminist perspective to enhance the horror rather than replace it. But this isn’t that version. This is a PowerPoint presentation with fake blood.
It’s not scary, it’s not subtle, and it’s not even fun in a campy way. It’s just aggressively mediocre, the cinematic equivalent of someone yelling “Smash the patriarchy!” while tripping over their own message board.
Final Score: 1.5 out of 5 Haunted Sorority Statues
Watch the original Black Christmas (1974) — it’s creepy, atmospheric, and still manages to say something about gender and fear without turning into a manifesto. The 2019 version, meanwhile, is what happens when Blumhouse asks, “What if we remade a classic… but made it polite?”
In the end, Black Christmas doesn’t need an exorcism. It needs a rewrite, a sense of humor, and maybe — just maybe — an R rating.
