Black Christmas THROWDOWN (1974 vs 2019)

If this movie doesn't make your skin crawl, it's on too tight! It's the week we've all been waiting for. Happy holidays! Enjoy the following conversation from these three hoes. Hovel? Huh? Huddle. He knows when you're sleeping. He knows if you're awake. He knows. It's your killer host. My name is Parker, your resident horror fanatic. I'm Caroline Scaredy Scream Queen. I'm Ian, Scary Movie Skeptic. And welcome to. What's your favorite scary movie is a horror film podcast where we're on a journey to find our favorite scary movie one at a time. Whether you hate them or love them, join us and discover yours. Spoilers ahead, so plan your movie screening every weekend before the episode release. The movie you just heard some pretty rad taglines from in the intro is a movie that came out 45 years ago, this past Friday.

Yes, we're talking Black Christmas 1974. Today you're getting a little sneak peek at what content will be coming in hot on our Patreon starting in January. We will be doing a short mini sode beginning on Black Christmas 1974. A la the content you'll be seeing on our Patreon, patreon.com slash scary moviepod, followed by our full-length episode on 2019's Black Christmas. If you go subscribe over there for one dollar a month in our Sally tier, but for the bonus episodes in our Lori or Alice tiers at$5 or$10 a month, you can get supplemental episodes just like this one where you get the full picture on all things. What's your favorite scary movie? You may listen to this episode and think, gee willakers.

If I didn't subscribe to this Patreon, I would have only gotten What's Your Favorite Scary Movie's thoughts on the 2019 newest edition of Black Christmas, and that would just surely be a shame because we're about to break down 1974's Black Christmas. Surely. Hello, ladies and gents, boys and ghouls. It is I, your favorite host Parker. Just to let you know that while we're still so excited for you to hear this special Black Christmas episode, one of our microphones had a little bit of trouble. Um, unfortunately, the audio for some of the summary that I had written to splatter throughout our conversation could not be salvaged. So if you hear me just drop in from the editing room to fill you in on what you might have missed, don't be alarmed.

Most of the episode is still as recorded, but alas, I still wanted all of my beautiful words to hit your eardrums. A fun fact right off the top. I think that's pretty cool. When this movie made its way from Canada, where it was made, over to America, it was retitled Silent Night, Evil Night for the American release because they didn't want us simple Americans thinking this was a black exploitation film. They wanted us knowing we were in for some spooky, festive fun. And finally, when Black Christmas was released for TV, it was titled Stranger in the House. And I'm pulling this straight from IMDB trivia because this was such a convoluted story I couldn't put it in my own words.

So, direct quote from the trivia section of IMDB. NBC scheduled this film for its primetime network debut on January 28th, 1978, under the title Stranger in the House. On January 15th, 1978, two female students at Florida State University were murdered by an assailant who broke into the sorority house where they lived. Three other young women in the immediate vicinity were attacked and assaulted. NBC received numerous pleas from locals to pull the movie from broadcast in light of the crimes. And after first stating that they would offer the local affiliates an alternative movie to broadcast, they decided to just pull the plug on the movie altogether. NBC instead ran Stranger in the House as a late movie on May 14th, the same year.

The perpetrator of the crimes at Florida State University was later identified as serial killer Ted Bundy. I looked it up because I was curious the similarities. Did you look it up while we were watching the movie? Shut up. No, I just looked it up. Damn. Did you just lie? No, I literally it I just pulled it up. So you watched this movie and you thought Ted Bundy? Yeah. Wow. Well, and I was sitting there racking my brain, I was like, 1974. Like, when did he go on his rampage? And it started in 1974. Damn. Yeah, and this was going to air on TV in America in 1978, because it took it a minute to get over to the US from Canada.

Alright, so again, happy 45th anniversary, Black Christmas. So this movie was directed by the late Bob Clark, who also directed a Christmas story in 1983. It was written by Roy Moore. However, Bob Clark did a lot of work on the script himself. This movie is based on the urban legend, The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs. Wikipedia's description of this urban legend says a teenage girl is babysitting at night. The children have been put to bed upstairs, and the babysitter is downstairs. This is for you, Ian, so you better be listening. Watching television. The phone rings. The caller tells her to check the children. The adolescent dismisses the call and goes back to watching TV. The anonymous caller dials back several times.

Eventually, the babysitter calls the police who inform her they will trace the next call, and the stranger calls again. The police return her call, advising her to leave immediately. She evacuates the home and the police meet her. They explain that the calls were coming from inside the house, and that the unidentified prowler was calling her after massacring the children upstairs. This urban legend not only inspired Black Christmas from 1974, but meeting Ian halfway after many, many requests, also inspired the 1979 film When a Stranger Calls. And when Bob Clark was asked about the similarities between these two, he said that Black Christmas definitely came, quote, way before that movie. They really did rip us off. So we may not ever watch When a Stranger Calls as requested by Ian.

But you're basically getting the same movie except a little bit better. You know, we should have co-host choice nights. You don't know what's good for you. You're the virgin. This movie starred Olivia Hussey as Jess. You may have already seen her in Romeo and Juliet of 1968 and it in 1990. The late Margot Kitter as Barb. You probably saw her in Superman, 1978, and Amityville Hoar in 1979. Andrea Martin as Phil returned in the 2006 remake. And of course, she's in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. That was her? That was her. Give us a line. Oh my god. And that lump was my twin sister. I just love when she's feeling his hair. She's like, oh yeah.

Jan Miller. John Saxon as Lieutenant Fuller, who I initially thought was the killer. Oh spoilers, Ian. Also a nightmare on Elm Street 1984. Heard of it. In Tenebray, 1982, which I've never heard of. That's exactly how you say it. And it is a um Dario Argento movie. I've heard it's great. Just kidding. Pretend you've seen it. Pretend you've seen it. The Rotten Tomatoes critic score on Black Christmas 1974 was 71%, and the audience score 75%. I want to know, fresh out of Black Christmas, the classic 1974 holiday horror. What are your thoughts? It's been a while since we've watched like a pretty old movie, right? Um this old. It's been a while since we've watched a movie like this.

Is probably a better way of putting it. Yeah, I mean, like a month ago we watched The Shining from 1980, but like this was '74. And we also haven't watched a slasher since Halloween from Hall October. I was gonna say, we haven't watched a ton of slashers in a while. That and we haven't watched a ton of like um like hyper paranoia paranormal stuff. You you mean paranoia, not paranormal. Sure, paranoia. It was a nice change of pace. I'm not a huge fan of slashers in general, but I think like for from a scare factor, we haven't had a lot of movies that are like super scary lately. Yeah. And this at least gave, you know, a couple jump scares, a little anticipation, stuff like that.

And in season one, we actually watched quite a few slasher and our journey to scream. So yeah, it has been a minute because I wanted to kind of give it a rest. But this is quintessential Christmas viewing, so I felt like we had to, especially with the new one coming out this weekend or last weekend. I love a good sorority movie. I also was intrigued by the Ted Bundy theory. Theory, I think that's fact. Well, I was trying the whole time, I was like, was this inspired by Ted Bundy? Was Ted Bundy inspired by this? The world will never know. I think a not so happy coincidence. Yeah. Um, but an intriguing one. I don't mean to cut you off, but in the shadows, it kind of looks like Ted Bundy.

Well, I mean, a 70s name. Yeah, I think they uh all kind of looked the same. Yeah, I guess. But um that's interesting. So yeah, I was trying to wrap my head around that. Also, the coincidences did you watch the Ted Bundy documentary? No, but we watched Extremely Incredibly Vile, Extremely Wicked, and I name way too long. Whoever created that title was not thinking I had marketing. I what I found interesting in Black Christmas is the large focus on like the police officer situation, and that was a huge part of finding Ted Bundy because in that time period police stations weren't talking to each other across like county or state lines, and he was pretty strategic about where he committed his crimes, so it was it took much longer than it should have to track them down and to correlate crimes.

So I thought that was interesting. That is interesting, but I want to talk for a moment about the legacy of Black Christmas. We've covered both Halloween 1978 and Halloween 2018 on the main feed, and I wanted to make sure, you know, before we went into this movie, I told you guys this movie came out in 1974, four years before Halloween, because I think it's important. I know we didn't watch these in chronological order, it's important that you don't think, wow, this was a lot like Halloween, because maybe Halloween was a lot like Black Christmas instead. In an interview with Icons of Fright a few years ago, Bob Clark unfortunately died in 2007. So before his sad death, uh Bob Clark, the director, said in an interview that he was just talking to John Carpenter, who said he was a massive fan of this movie, and he asked Bob Clark what he would do if he made a sequel to Black Christmas.

Quote, I said it would be the next year, and the guy would have actually been caught. Escape from a mental institution, go back to the house, and they would start all over again, and I would call it Halloween. Some suspicious similarities in what Bob Clark just said to the plot of Halloween. However, there was no animosity there, and he said that although he did say that, the script for Halloween was given to John Carpenter, and it was already titled Halloween. So, yes, very similar, and yes, John Carpenter said huge inspiration, but Bob Clark seems to be in pretty good spirits about that film. Now, a lot of people give Halloween credit for being the movie to set the standard, set the formula for the slasher film.

And as we've kind of discussed off and on on this podcast, that formula, you know, can be pulled from a few different movies like uh The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which came out the same year as Black Christmas, or Alien that came out closer to Halloween, or even people credit Psycho with being the first slasher, or Peeping Tom, or all these movies. You know, there's no one movie that's the first slasher. But I think what's interesting is this movie was made in Canada, and it really didn't get the following that it has now until much later. So while Halloween got this reputation when it was released for being the slasher and inspiring Friday the 13th and all these other craze, it's just interesting to note, and I think important to note, that this came before and was a huge inspiration just to give credit where credit is due.

So context. Context for you. This is also not the first holiday horror movie. Nope. There are many examples starting like from the 1930s. However, I think the most explicit one would be Silent Night, Bloody Night from 72. So debunked. Because I heard that I read that in a few different sources that this was quote the first holiday horror movie. And I just don't think you could possibly say that. Nothing's ever the first of anything, unless it is. What this movie is recognized for is how well it depicts the women in the movie, how fleshed out its characters are compared to slasher movies that follow it. Even Halloween is criticized for having a really great character, Lori Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, but not so great characters around her.

Characters that you kind of are like excited to die to see die. And I I truly don't think that Black Christmas falls under that fate. Alright, now let's get into a little spoilerific summary. Black Christmas tales the jolly tale of a house of sorti girls who have been receiving vulgar and threatening phone calls from the mysterious Billy. Jess, our final girl, seems to be the poor recipient of most, and eventually they start reflecting conversations she's been having with her boyfriend Peter. Billy's menace increases as he begins picking the gals off one by one. Claire is the first killed, done so by asphyxiation via plastic bag, resulting in the iconic image of her corpse in a rocking chair.

The professional virgin. I know this is pre-trope, but already kind of throwing a wrench in what we think of for our slasher films, which is that she's a virgin and she dies first. She's kind of a presence throughout the entire movie because she's in the attic, rocking in that chair the whole time. Her father is also such a big presence in this movie searching for her, and I think that's an example of what Bob Clark said in that interview, that it's so sad that he's coming to pick her up for Christmas, not knowing that her dead corpse is in the attic above him the whole time. This kind of looming presence of doom and dread over the festivities the whole time.

Uh, just wanted to point out that that I think is a very strong image of his intention for the film, the whole movie. Next up is Mrs. Mack, the carefree house mom who just can't seem to keep track of her damn cat Claude. He's probably in the attic, right? No! Billy is, and he sends some sort of hook pulley right into her face. How many bottles of alcohol does she have hidden around this? What was she drinking? I think I read somewhere Sherry. Ugh. It looked thick and disgusting. I mean, where does she got it? She's got it in the toilet. She's got it hidden in books, in boxes in the cloak closet. I think she's hilarious.

Just her putting on lipstick on one side of her lip really got. One side. She's trying really hard to impress Claire's father who's searching for her. She's covering up the photo of the hippies having sex in the peace sign formation. All those little gags that run around Barb and Mrs. Mac really kill me. She just wanted to take care of her BBs. Did she though? I don't think she did. There's a little affection, but I think she really just wanted to get out to her sister's place and have some party. Now, the first time I watched this film, I was really confused by this Janice subplot. There's a 13-year-old girl that goes missing, and they find her murdered in the park.

And the first time I watched this, I was like, Janice, Janice, Janice, did we know a Janice from the sorority house? And I guess I was just being a dumbo because watching it this time, I actually really loved how that story was woven into this one. Because when Barb and Claire's boyfriend and Claire's father are going to the police station to be like, hey, you need to take this thing with Claire more seriously. The Janice's mom is there trying to get help from the detective. And it looks in the moment like this is just kind of an opening scene, a transition of being like, oh, bad things are happening, we're in a police station. Oh, here comes our main characters.

And really, this character comes back to be a large part of the plot. They find her dead, which causes a search party that they join in with for Claire to look for her, which then causes the men to go to the house and causes really interesting misdirect from the action happening around Jess and at the time Phil. I didn't think they were actually part of the search party. I thought they were the killers of the kid. Yeah, they were pretty creepy. Yeah, but they're actually part of the search party. I think that makes it even scarier because help was always around them, circling that house. There are people out and about ready to protect them. And you know, maybe the police officer in the car, Officer Jennings, maybe his throat was slit, so he wasn't great help.

But I just think it's so scary that help is always just, you know, a scream away, and they just can't manage to get it. What's interesting is the like the scene when Peter leaves the house and then he's hiding behind the tree that made me think that he could have been the one that killed the policeman. Well, that's intentional. Peter is such a huge red herring in this movie. We are supposed to repeatedly think that Peter is the killer until that very last second, when it is for sure revealed that he is not. It's with a heavy heart that I discuss Barb's death. She was just trying to sleep off a bad night of drowning in booze and sorrow, but Billy has other plans.

Another iconic death is he makes use of a glass unicorn figurine on her bedside table. Pretty stunning images of her hands scattering the rest of the glass figures as the unicorn plunges over and over again. Margot Kitter's performance here is. Revered as being a really great performance, a really great character in this movie. There's a lot of love for Barb, and I think I agree. Barb's really cool because not only is she flawed, but she's a really fleshed-out character, and she's got real sadness. Her mom called her and was like, Can't come home for Christmas. And she's dealing with those problems, and there's this whole kind of we see her inner workings totally separate from the plot, but also within the plot.

You know, she's drinking because she's sad, she's known to go with. Her friends are going out of their way. You know, Phil cancels a trip with her boyfriend because she's like, hey, Barb needs me. And so I think Barb's a really interesting character and a really masterful stroke from Bob Clark and writer Rob Moore, Roy Moore, because they manage to capture this entire like microcosm of a girl's world within this horror film. So I think Barb is a really cool character, and her death I think is really devastating. Just like we were talking about earlier with uh Claire and her father, the juxtaposition of the children caroling outside with Barb's probably the most violent death of the movie is the same concept of the darkness within the merriment.

I just thought she was gonna be the main character from the beginning. I think she definitely could she's wearing that rad choker. Yeah. She looks really cool, her hair hot. And then that scene where she is feeding that child champagne, and she's like, You're smashed. Yeah, you're smashed. And he's like, uh if we're gonna look at the comedy, which I think Black Christmas does really well, I think Barb is the chef's kiss. The Krim de the Krim. I was reading an article that was actually pointing out that it was curious that Barb is the most outwardly sexual of the girls, and her death is also the most sexual. I I had that thought. I also thought that the glass menagerie that she had here was a little bit uncharacteristic for her.

Maybe the outward exterior, a front for the soft girlish interior. I had that thought. I was just like, that's Barb's room. Really? Yeah, it was the 70s. Uh I think the blood glistening on the glass phenocornhorn, really gorgeous, and her hands sweeping the rest away, devastating and very artistically shown. Also, at that point in the movie, um I realized that this killer didn't come prepared with like weapons. Most of the deaths were from the situation that they walked in on. And I think that's interesting to point out that there's a lot of mystery around Billy. And there's no motive that we discover. There's we don't even know who he is. And I think there's a lot of wiggle room and conjecture around why Billy's doing what he's doing and why he seems upset with himself for doing what he's doing.

Yeah. I think that's terrifying as well. Somebody who just seems completely out of control, who knows what they're doing is wrong, but maybe can't stop themselves. That's why I was like, I thought it was Peter, and then I was like, maybe he has like a severe like type of like, you know, like bipolar or like something. I mean, he uses all those voices on the phone. Maybe there's some schizophrenia. I mean, we can't I don't think we can diagnose him. Well, no, I'm not but yeah, but there's definitely something amiss going on, and there's definitely a history with him that we don't find out in this movie that uh, you know, the mystery of it all adds a bit to the terror.

So, Phil, I think she adds something to the camaraderie of the girls, but uh, you know, she doesn't have much of her own thing besides her boyfriend who's also Santa Claus on the side. The real lady of the hour is Jess. She is informed that the call is coming from inside the house, and yet she is a hero. She must go back for her friends because she loves them. They're her sisters, and that puts her in the pickle she's in. And I get quite a fright from both the eyeball watching her from the crack in the doorway, as well as the hand grabbing her hair over the banister in the stairs. Those I think are the two most frightening moments of the movie for me.

Yeah, the eyeball was the best moment of the movie. When I watched this movie over the summer while y'all were gone, just getting caught up on things I was programming, I checked a few dark corners before going to bed that night because I was a little freaked out by that. So I do think this movie is quite frightening. Now, Jess, as stated, is a badass. You know, maybe we groan when she runs up the stairs, but our favorite final girl, at least my favorite final girl, Sydney Prescott herself, said some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act, who's always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting.

And yet Sidney Prescott herself, right after saying that, is forced to run up those same stairs that she just criticized. So can we ever know what we would do in this situation? No. Would I be the hero that Jess is in this situation and run up the stairs to try and save my friends? Probably no. Would you run up the stairs for me, Caroline? No. Ian? No. Ian would. You'd come back for me. No. He would. He's too embarrassed to see. I wouldn't stay the night there if my friend had gone missing. I'd be out of there. I would've been out of the county. Yeah, plus the calls. That's pretty scary. Jess has her final girl face off with Billy, but unfortunately for Peter, still has him pegged for the killer.

After she's fainted in the aftermath of killing him, the police leave her in bed and exit to wait for backup from a larger corner's office. Billy's voice continues its spooky singing in the attic amongst his new corpse family. One of the things related to Jess that this movie is recognized is this very progressive conversation about abortion and parenthood. So, fun fact, this movie was released in 1974. Roe vs. Wade passed in 1973. So not only was abortion and women's rights a little in the mud stepped on at this time, but very progressive to have such a mainstream conversation about it like this, where Jess is like, hey, I have dreams, and I will not be putting them on hold.

One for you and two for a child that I don't want. And I think that's a very powerful look, nuanced look at this conversation at a time like this. I even noted in my notes that she doesn't have time for a baby, and she doesn't even have time for a man that she doesn't want because she kills him. Do you remember when we first met? You told me about your wanting to be a concert pianist. How it was your greatest dream. And I told you about some of the things that I wanted to do. I still want to do those things. You can't ask me to drop everything I've been working for and give up all my ambitions because your plans have changed.

I wasn't sad that he died and he wasn't the killer because he was being a little piece of shit about that. It's very clear that he's supposed to be seen as the killer until the end. And I think it's interesting that Billy starts repeating the words that Peter says because if we are to be if we are to believe what Jess believes, that would be totally be a red flag. But what she doesn't know is that Billy is just listening to her conversations and probably set off by these very strong female presences within the house. Unfortunately, Billy's backstory, which is mysterious and terrifying, is explored much further and in more detail in the 2006 remake of Black Christmas, which is pretty general generally reviled by everyone.

I watched it in preparation for this episode, and you know what? The slasher parts are pretty fun, the backstory parts are pretty garbage. It's um it's not much of anything. It exists. Nobody seems very happy that it exists, even the people who created the film. So what are you gonna do? The last thing I wanted to say is that I think that the threatening calls are in fact overtly sexual. You could say that this isn't about gender, it's all just incidental to the plot, but I don't think you can say that because of the first phone call they have where he says he wants to lick their pretty piggy. See you next Tuesdays, and for them to suck his thick roosters.

Um didn't hear that one. I don't like that word. Um, so I think that completely removes our ability to look at this situation devoid of gender, and that in these attacks he is establishing a gender power dynamic. A classic case of repression is at work here, and that is reflected in the maleness of the cops who don't have time for them, except for the light in the darkness, Lieutenant Fuller, who actually gives pretty good help when needed. Would you give this movie a smash or a slash? I would give it a smash. I'm gonna give this slasher a slash. What? You have given us no indication that this would be the case. I was a little bored.

Oh my god, supports your case more than that. Um it was much too long. I would agree it was a little too much. It was it was way too long. I was not engaged. It was It was a lot of the same over and over again. Oh my god. It was 20 minutes too long, but it was still a smash for me. I'm giving this movie a smash, smash, smash. I really enjoyed it. I like this movie a lot. It is a Christmas holiday classic. It is really good. On a scary scale, one to five. I'm gonna start us off because I think this movie is. I told you last week I had not seen many of these.

It is a five out of five. I think this movie is very scary. It makes me, like I said, check under the bed before I go to sleep. And maybe it just takes an expanded mind to understand the terror of Black Christmas 1974. You can sound off with your ratings as well. I'm giving it a two. Give it a four. Oh, that's nice. Do you have a reason why? Caroline's trash, so she doesn't. I guess I mean going back to my multiple requests to get when a stranger calls, but I get really creeped out by the concept of getting a phone call like that. Mm-hmm. And then also like uh people in clock closets are scary places.

Yeah, and like I said, that trash bag over the head, spooky spooky. Alright, last thing I want to say, what expectations might you have from Black Christmas 2019? Have you seen the trailer? No. Caroline? I recommend you try your best not to before we go see this movie because I feel like I've seen a two-minute short film of the movie, and I hope they have a trick up their sleeve. Well, since it's been so long, I'd love everyone to be in a retirement home. And this takes a little bit. No, no, no. It's a remake. This isn't a sequel. Oh, a remake. Oh my god. Wait, can we talk about how hilarious? Billy attacking the retirement home.

It's like, oh my god, and like a chairlift up the stairs. Oh my god. Four sisters. And like really intense music, and then like, and Billy's just like walking up with a cane after. Well, it looks like you're going to get more twists than you're you've bargained for. Uh, too bad I've seen the trailer, and I think I know all of them. But hopefully I'll be wrong. Um, it looks like it's continuing the vein of feminist feminism. That could be a good or bad thing if they do if they go overboard. Created by a woman, so. Then I can't say a damn thing. Yeah, woman. Welcome to part two of our conversation on Black Christmas. We are diving into the 2019 remake of said film.

I will say before we get into any get into anything, I would like to applaud this movie for being a lot less of a white Christmas than the 1974 film. Thank you for some diversity. Some. A lot. I saw lots of women of color. Lots of white dudes. Well, I don't think that's an accident. Um, but not all. I think comparatively, good job. Just to start out on a positive note, because who knows where this conversation will take us. Black Christmas 2019 was co-written and directed by Sophia Tikall. She previously directed Always Shine from 2006 and wrote and directed the New Year, New You segment of Blumhouse's Into the Dark series. She has 30 acting credits on IMDB, including a segment in VHS.

And in an interview with the Boo crew, she uh said, which could have been sad, but she said it with empowerment, that um she just realized that her skills behind the camera were much more appreciated than her skills in front of. It's a good thing to recognize that. Yes, being able to evaluate yourself like that is very nice. This was also co-written by April Wolfe, who this was her feature debut writing uh a screenplay for. She uh is mainly known as a film critic and podcaster. So hold on to your dreams, Caroline and Ian, because you never know. If you want to what a journey that we want to write a movie, you know. No, what a journey that would be for us to write horror films.

Yeah. I would be down. All right, in this movie. Why is he first? Uh, because not to be patriarchal here, but um the most recognizable face, I would say, in this film. He's what's pulling people to the theaters, because let me tell you, not many people are seeing Black Christmas opening weekend. Yeah, we were like the only people in there. It has made some measly box office numbers. Starting off, our characters with a white man, Carrie Elwes, plays Professor Gelson. Oh, he was in Saw in 2004. And many other things, but go check out that episode if you want to hear more about Carrie Elwes. We also have Imogene Poots. Imogene Poots plays Riley Stone. Uh, she was in 28 weeks later in 2007, Fright Night in 2011, and Green Room in 2015.

And spoiler for the rep rest of the episode, but she may be my favorite leading lady thus far. Whoa. Yeah, I have no response to that. Let's just get through the rest of this. All right. I think she does a fab job. She does! She's a great actress. All those movies you listed are great movies, and she's a great part of them. We have Elise Shannon who plays Chris from the 2018 Charmed Reboot. Lily Donahue plays Marty, and Brittany O'Grady plays Jesse. The IMDB summary reads: A group of female students are stalked by a stranger during their Christmas break. That is, until the young sorority pledges discover that the killer is part of an underground college conspiracy.

The Rotten Tomatoes, as of December 15th, 2019. It may have changed by the time you're listening. The critic's score is a 44%, the audience score a 29%. The critics' consensus is, quote, better than the 2006 remake, yet not as sharp as the original. This Black Christmas stabs at timely feminist themes, but mostly hits on familiar pulp. I love a little pulp in my orange juice. Now, to start this conversation off, um, spoilers, because then, you know, you know what you're getting into, but I would like to say, Caroline, on this podcast, sometimes we are a bit of a bully to you. Thank you. And I would like to say that, and now instead of apologizing, I would like to say it is only because of magic that the patriarchy exists.

So, not our fault. True. We have been possessed by fraternity magic. We just left the theater moments ago. What did you just like gut reaction think of Black Christmas 2019? It's been quite a journey on Twitter getting to the release. So finally we can set the drama aside and just share what we thought. Oh, they released. They released. Excuse me. I had a jolly old time watching that movie. Carolyn had a jolly old time. I had a jolly time. I, you know, a few scattered laughs, some at the movie and some at the jokes that the movie was making. Um yeah, kept it moving the whole time. I was interested the whole time, which was a big improvement from the last original Black Christmas.

Careful. Just saying. That was my number one complaint. You know what I really loved about this movie is they both were like 30 minutes too long. Really? Yeah. But I I um my gut this was an hour and a half. Pretty quick movie. It was quicker than the old one, I would say. My gut, though, however, at the beginning was like, oh, uh-oh. This is gonna be bad. I gotta say, it gets better. Definitely gets better, but it started at a very, very low. I would say the first scene of this movie is my favorite scene from the movie. The girl being stalked on her way home. Oh, well, yeah, that was all rough. I thought that was interesting.

It was fun. A few too many um glance over the shoulder and then disappear. It happened, I think, four times, and I was like, alright. And I would say it's also the most graphic death of the movie, her being stabbed in the chest by an icicle. And I I liked it and I thought, oh, there's hope. I've heard that the death and the deaths in this movie are disappointing, but I'm not mad at this. And her being dragged out of the snow created a nice image of the snow ancient. I enjoyed that. A. But then downhill from there, yeah. Who's saying deaths were disappointing? B. Can we talk a second for the creepy way they cut that scene of the not bad killer that was behind her?

Like it was like really awkwardly. You're going to have to be a more suspicious. The guy just walking on the side. Yeah, the guy that was just texting and then the cut, and then he's like, white male enemies everywhere either. Because she yelled and he just doesn't look good. Yeah, I would have been like, excuse me. Can I help you? True story. Yesterday we were walking down the street, and I was I said something to Caroline, and this poor old lady right in front of us jumped and grabbed her heart. She was like, And I passed her, and she was like so frazzled, I looked back and I realized that we had scared her. And I was like, Did we scare you?

She's like, Yeah, and I was like, Oh, I'm so sorry. I was talking and then Ian chimed in with his low bellowing voice, and apparently it just scared the pee out of her. And that's when I realized I didn't want to be the reason someone died like that. Um, revisiting what you said a moment ago, you said who says that the death deaths in these movies are disappointing? I would like to ask, yes. Which deaths did we see? We saw hardly a death. We saw all of them. You know what do you define as deaths? No, they were all just like a jump and a cut straight away. Girl, like a guy throwing some lights over her head and then cutaway.

Girl illuminating some lights, man there, cut away. Girl walking into her bedroom, a man appearing behind her, cutaway. I mean, we saw her stab a frat guy in the chin with some keys. Um, but that's the only thing coming to mind right now. I personally like that style because I think when you start to get in the kerfuffle of the fight, you start to humanize the thing that in my mind for this movie shouldn't be humanized, which is the killers themselves. I think things get hokey sometimes when you see the actual death, and sometimes it's a little bit scarier with just the shadow or like, you know, those types of things. I like to have my mind go, what was the struggle like?

We can say sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, but when we've seen it done well, it's good. And this movie just doesn't even try. And I would assert that having a more human villain in this movie would go miles and miles and miles to making it better. Well, that's a different thing than actually seeing murders. Well, no, I'm just responding to Ian's criticism that seeing the struggle humanizes the villain, and I just think I would love a more human villain here because the metaphor here is um no room for guessing. It is on the nose, it is hitting the nail on the head. Another one. It is just sawing into my brain hole. And I I don't know, I like you can trust me to be able to solve a puzzle a little bit more, Black Christmas 2019.

I feel like we had this very like season one, like I want to say like episode one or two or three, like we had this same conversation. About scene murders, about the the film not trusting us to associate. I'm trying to remember. We talk about it a lot. Yeah, well, and another piece of that is that how does this movie what happens in the climax, a long conversation with people like like on the verge of killing each other, but it's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's have a quick little discussion on why and how this is happening, and then we can kill each other. And uh, you know, that just never flies for me. Uh, it was upsetting in us, it is upsetting here, and I would like to say I've seen many, many, many reviews come out in the past weekend that says worst movie of 2019 on this, and I would like to ask if they saw Ma.

But yeah, I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would because yes, everybody has just been shitting on this movie. Um, but I would like to also say that it lacks nuance, it lacks all the goodness of Black Christmas 1974, and I am on to Blumhouse. There is a conspiracy here because watching this movie right after having watched the original, not a lot in common. Yes, they are sorority girls, yes, there is Christmas, yes, they put a bunch of like items throughout the house that are the same items that are in the house in the original movie. But if this movie had been called like Sorority Christmas Massacre or something, I would probably have not thought twice about it.

I would just been like, if they had like removed the obvious Easter eggs, I would have probably not even thought about it. Just like, oh, here's another Christmas slasher, black Christmas is that too. And I had the same thought about Child's Play earlier this year, where I was like, there is all this drama around this being a remake of Child's Play and like edging the original creators out and all this stuff. Now people are making comparisons, and really that one I think would be a a different rework, but it could have just been like killer doll, and I wouldn't have batted an eye. So I think that this drama around this being called a Black Christmas remake is just Blumhouse trying to drum up some press, and uh, you know, it didn't work that well because this movie's not making much money.

And then Blumhouse, you know, did the same thing with The Hunt where they drummed up all this drama over canceling that movie. I think that they're just, you know, looking for a quick buck, and I'm sick of it. I want good movies. But y you know, because right before we went to the movie, I asked, Is this a remake or is this a sequel? And then you did your little dance and you said it was a re you did your remake dance. And one I don't recall. It was a dance if one was not if one did not go into this movie with the backstory of the original Black Christmas and didn't see the opening title, I would have to guess they probably wouldn't even recognize this movie.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think the title Black Christmas, yeah, was slapped on this just to try and get people slapped on going going nut so. Lathered on. I think that I was pleasantly surprised as I said that this was not the worst movie of 2019. Um, but as Caroline alluded to, there were just a few moments where I couldn't help but laugh at the movie and not with the movie. Because it is it is really just aggressive on all fronts. And like I said, the metaphor of men versus women is not subtle. And I actually wrote down, I wrote down one note during the movie, a quote from the movie that I would like to read.

You aren't inspiring people, you're pissing people off. It's interesting to me that they would say that because I think that there's I think that Chris, one of our main ladies, is right that you know women should be fighters and they should stand up for themselves, but at the same time, you have to be a little more thoughtful about how you fight. And there's a scene in this movie where the cast of ladies is at a talent show and they sing just a cringy performance, clearly an homage to mean girls, where they've reworked the lyrics to up on the housetop, right? In front of a room full of aggressors, accusing them of being, you know, sexual assaulters.

Because we didn't say yet, but this movie is rated PG thirteen, um, whereas the others have been rated R, and it's rated PG thirteen to try and, you know, entice a younger audience to come see it and to share in this message. Or any audience, you know. Uh I truly don't think this movie was made for anyone over 20. I would like to say that she said that she started writing this film in the wake of the end of the Kavanaugh hearings. And I would like to just uh think about for a moment the difference between Dr. Ford being uh very brave and inspirational by getting in front of a courtroom of people who probably many of them did not appreciate what she was saying and sharing her story, and a group of college girls crafting a snarky song to sing to a room full of frat guys.

I just think if this movie, you know, they've said is PG 13 so that young women can go see it, it is just to me kind of mind-blowing that you would be trivializing things like that. Like where they could have been having a hard conversation and her trying to confront what's happened to her, um, which I guess she does in more violent terms later, but you know, trying to dig into things, they do that. That just seemed so careless to me. I imagine that this song and performance came out of three years of frustration of trying to have those conversations and having no one believe her. She didn't write that song though. Chris, who's pushing and pushing her to confront someone, did.

Or I don't know if she wrote it, but I mean her crew of girls did. And I I'm not talking plot here. I'm just saying for what you're showing the young women that you say this film is made for, that just seems really a little to me. Because I think that's um plan of action. And especially if they are about to go on a murderous rampage, you know, this movie could have been a lot shorter like then. So you know, I think they're they're if you're going to be if you're going to be so on the nose about what you're trying to say, uh just I'm disappointed that they didn't really, it seems like, look carefully at what they were saying at all times.

I think what was interesting, I think what surprised me was there I mean, obviously not hiding conversations about rape. And I I found that surprising that that that wasn't like, I don't know, for some reason considered an R type thing to I think that kind of thing is like seen a lot in like teen movies, though. Even like you know, high school party scenes or whatnot. Yeah, and if you think of the way it was discussed in this movie, it's part of the like um thematic material of the movie, and it's not discussed in a way that's at all like destructive, and I think that could also lead into why it wouldn't be like an R-rated conversation.

And, you know, all of this stemming from what we talked about in the original film, where there are strong ladies and they're discussing, you know, one is pregnant and wants to have an abortion, and you know, they're trying to update this idea that Black Christmas 1974 is kind of a um a standout in having pro women, I guess I could have said feminist conversations. But you said that you like the way this movie pushes a h along in its plot a lot more, and I think that's to the detriment here because I think they kind of have an equal amount of horror versus drama, and that you know, the horror is kind of far between and until the end, and it's kind of split up with um more dramatic air quotes um content.

And in the original, I think what's so great is that it's kind of compressed to a shorter timeline with a simpler plot, and so that time in between the horror is spent getting to like know the ladies and the sorority, and here the time in between the horror is all plot, and it's like we're gonna get more information for the story done here. And I felt like besides Imogen Poot's character, Riley, I and maybe besides Jesse, who's like the the ditz of the group, I think um, I don't know, I just like they were all interchangeable. I didn't even sometimes it would flash between a different sorority and the main character sorority, and I would kind of be like, oh, like, are these the girls?

And I just like haven't realized that somebody's maybe gotten a haircut. Like, uh, it was just so weird that these these women who are like the like powerful Avengers in this movie, uh all just seemed totally expendable to me. It's interesting what you just said because I if you look back on the original Black Christmas, like to your point, the drama and the the um the horror are very separate. But in this movie, they're they're intertwined. Like the drama that they're facing is directly proportional and impactful to the resulting horror. Whereas the original is just like in my mind they're totally separate. Do you mean in plot or in like execution? Like in the story. In plot, because yeah, I mean, the people that are obviously murdering are part of the the whatever you want to call it.

Yeah. What you pointed out a moment ago about liking the mystery and not seeing too much. I mean, I would point you to Black Christmas 1974, where we never really see any sort of penetration or um, you know, a very explicit murder. Even the murders they have are very artistic, where Barb's hand is brushing across the glass animals and it's juxtaposed against the Caroline children. And um I think that they do a much better job of keeping that ambiguity because we don't know why Billy is calling them. You know, there's been a lot of conjecture on, you know, he must have a troubled childhood because these calls, he's talking about his sister Agnes, and you know, maybe people have said this house is, you know, maybe his childhood house or he has some sort of connection, but it's always the general consensus that the fear comes and we don't know why Billy is there.

We don't know what even happens to Billy and Jess. And so, I mean, I think that the movie that we just saw, to me, I'm not trying to say your opinions are wrong, but to me it's vague and ambiguous in the areas I don't want it to be, and it's too specific in the areas that I could use a little more ambiguity. And I was just pointing that out as a mirror, like uh observation. I I I don't want to be misconstrued. I didn't really like this movie. Oh but it's interesting to observe how just very different that is. Yeah, yeah. I think they definitely handle trying to handle the same kind of like I said, I don't think story-wise, these are very similar movies, but they handle kind of the same type of content so so so differently.

Uh, which also I think is a product of the time. Um, you know, Sophia Tacall's been very upfront about this movie was made in less than six months. And she was like, I she said in an interview with the Boo Crew, a podcast that uh you should listen to us instead of. Um she said that she knew she could make a more timely movie with more of the moment uh themes because it was coming out the same year she started writing and making it. As we have revealed, uh, we find out that the villains in this film are a fraternity, and we find out at the end that this fraternity is mind-washing or brainwashing through magical ritual all men to hunt down and kill the women who have uh wronged them.

And this includes a character named Landon who just begins to woo our uh uh protagonist, Riley, at the beginning. He has this like headache that's so um, you know, painful, and then he becomes a brainwashed killer. I think that it it would be more difficult and there would have to be more artistry harnessed by the creators of this film to create the same message with sympathetic men. And I'm not saying that I want I want men to be good because I'm a man and you know, I'm I'm so sad, you know, I can't look at men be bad and you know feel good about myself at the same time. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I think it would have had more nuance if they could have had sympathetic men and still get their point across.

But it seems like they wanted to be really, you know, black and white about this. Black and white. And when you say sympathetic men, who? Like, um, like, I mean, Nate, who is Marty's boyfriend, he's sympathetic for the most part, even though he becomes somewhat of a villain because he says nasty things to her. And Landon, that I'm about to get to, um, was very kind to Riley until he becomes brainwashed. But looking at the metaphor of this movie, I think having the initiation of the violent, patriarchal violence that these men are enacting on the women be magic. It not only enforces the idea that people can change and you should give them a second chance, but also that, you know, maybe Landon was capable of rape and assault for a few hours, but now the spell's broken, like, no worries, let's get him out of there.

And if Landon can be saved, I also think it's a little upsetting that the magic over the entire room of men that they were fighting at the end is lifted, and they choose to take Landon, who was part of their ranks at the end, and lock the rest of them in a room to burn and die. Whereas, you know, maybe some of them were Landons in there. This movie was crafted, not looking at it from all angles. And, you know, I guess, you know, maybe I am just being a man trying to make excuses for men, but I just wish that some of this could have been handled a little more I mean, I can't say realistically because of the way the movie plays out, but just handled with more nuance and complexity in layers.

And I just don't feel like it was. You know, weird things happen that are a result of the extremes that this movie is playing with, but it's not all playing, I think, the way that they want it to play, as like this like manifesto of empowerment. I feel like we've seen like similar concepts, maybe not so overtly like man versus woman feminism or like suppression of women. If they would have like turned into like monsters or something and like didn't maintain their human form with part of this magic, I feel like we we, and especially you having these strong feelings about it, maybe would have had a different take on it. You know, like maybe because I I didn't have an issue with it because I knew that like this was like being blown so far out of proportion, like magic forcing, you know, it was just it was a little bit ridiculous.

So like I'm not taking those issues with it. So I feel like with you, you relate to like monster movies a little bit more than me. So if it would have gone past that human form into like some other, you know, dimension of magic rather than just like a spell, maybe it would view it a little bit differently. But I'm not having trouble with the actual plot of the movie. I'm just saying I think that there are holes in the logic of what they're trying to tell their audience that they just whether monsters or not, just didn't do carefully. You know, this is a very complex issue uh with, you know, sexual assaults on college campuses and feminism versus patriarchy.

Like there's so much um, you know, there's so many layers to that issue, and especially when it comes to men, because men can be feminists as well, um, that I just feel like it was all or nothing, and they were very tunneling. Vision and just missed so many aspects of this movie that I think are could could be detrimental to young people going to see this, you know, because I think that like I said, they said this movie they want young people to go see it. And I also think kind of weird that that is the the vibe when I feel like young women are more woke to things, you know, similarly to the women in the movie, they are more um, they are more like political fighters and activists.

You know, we've seen so many young people rise up and they say all these things in the news about how young people could like change a vote because only so many vote, but they're projecting in the next election that so many more young people will come out and vote, and that could change the skew of the results of the 2020 election. Um and so I'm kind of wondering like who this movie is supposed to be addressing, because if it's targeted at an audience that already believes what it's saying, then the aggression that it's asserting into its themes are just turning everyone else off. And, you know, if this movie I don't even know. You know, it's it's the same thing that I said in that quote from the movie, like, you aren't inspiring people, you're pissing people off, because the mov the people this movie would be inspiring are already there, you know?

And the people who aren't there. Hopefully. Yeah, and if you're not there, I feel like this movie's like, wow, that was ridiculous. I don't want to look like, you know, a crazy girl who's so upset she's going to go perform, you know, a little Santa Baby in front of these fraternity men. I don't know. It's just this whole thing, uh, it was a little weird to me. Yeah, I don't know how to verbalize how all of it because yeah, I feel like it misses the mark. I'm thinking from the the viewer's perspective, like I think, like, okay, what if a frat guy went to see this movie? Or what if a sorority girl went to see this movie?

I in the same way that you say like younger people would be more woke, and so they'd be like, why is this statement being made? And people that aren't woke would get turned off. Yeah. Same way if you niche it down to sorority and frat people, not to bundle everyone in a bundle, but like No, yeah, no, I get what you're saying. I think they would watch it and be like, they wouldn't take anything away from it. Like I feel like there's still still like um, at least from the guy's perspective, I feel like there still is this like layer of like okay. Like it like it still doesn't feel like it makes a statement that they are like trying to responsible for their actions.

Like I feel like they use the the magic spell as the crutch of the like the cushion between the per the guy and what they do. Yeah, I mean what's the difference between a guy, a frat guy being under a magic spell and a frat guy getting a little too drunk and not trying to justify this, but just a viewer seeing the movie, uh getting too drunk and sexually assaulting a sorority girl. Like this movie, I think, is making room for excuses, just like you just said. Yeah. Yeah, so in that regard, and I think this I mean, I can only speak really from that side, but like I think there's probably room for that same argument on the women's side too.

But I think way more so on the on the guy's side. Yeah. Um, and then another thing that I thought, just to get it all out there, the last thing that I was like, well, that's not cool, is I know that in the end, Riley's younger sister in the sorority, uh, sorority sister. What do they call that? Yeah, her little Helena is the betrayer, and she has helped the sorority men, you know, procure the items they needed to cast their spell over the young the sorority girls. And um, you know, I I just couldn't understand what if this was supposed to be funny or if it was supposed to be powerful. It's just weird. Helena was like, I have submitted to these men, and you should too.

Like, even though I'm agreeing to a life behind them and in their shadow, I I accept my place as inferior to a man. And then I don't know, like, just because that's not the politics that the movie agrees with, like, she has to die. Like, there's no there's no there's no room for people to believe anything except what this movie wants them to believe. She's kind of like also like for that portion of the movie, think about it. What use does she really have? Like, she ends up getting killed. Like, why why did that plot line exist? Her being there. I think it was just supposed to be a shock. Like, oh, not Helena. Stupid. Yeah, and maybe they just needed to draw things out because Imogen Poots was she was right there at that statue, ready to smash it, and then Helena was like, help me, help me.

So yeah, I think that this movie was a big miss on its thematics. But I will say, I jumped a few times. There were some good jumps. Um I thought that that was handled well for the most part. Yes, I would have loved a little gore, but you know, we can't have everything. So I'll excuse. Um, the other thing I wanted to say is some of the filmmaking was a little strange to me. I'm thinking specifically, you may have noticed Claudette the Cl- the Claudette the Cat, an homage to Claude the Cat in the OG. So cute. I love a long hair fluff ball cat. Uh, do you recall the scene where I can't remember her name and I tried to look her up on IMDB and I could not identify the actress, but the Diva Cup um sister is searching for her cat, cannot find him, and then she dies.

And um not only did this scene of her walking into every room and then a jump scare of a man coming out and strangling her with uh Christmas lights have very little tension. It was just like, okay, she's walking around. Oh, I'm scared. Oh, it's over. Um, but it was just a strange moment to me where it was like, it didn't look like she was saying anything, but her voice just like was continuously speaking overhead. There were a few just moments in this movie where I was like, What's happening with the production here? I don't know. It was not as slick as I might expect um an anticipated 2019 film to be. Like it's weird that even I, someone who knows n really nothing about filmmaking, could catch things that seemed like errors to me.

I did, I paid attention to where the meows were coming from in that scene. Yeah. And it was not consistent. Yeah, I think I would agree there. Yeah. Alright, well, this has just been a bunch of men breaking down this movie. Caroline, what do you have to say? I didn't take offense to it. I think, you know, uh coming into this conversation, I was looking at the list of characters, and when I got down to Professor Gelson, I was thinking to myself, I don't think he really belong, like this movie would have been the same without him. But I think he plays a pretty important role in the fact that this sorcery or like thought of you know keeping women down comes from leadership.

And the leadership brings the magic into this, you know, the thought process into these young, vulnerable men. And there's a point where he says these men are now going to go into courtrooms and into the professional world and change things. And so for that reason, I think this has, you know, timely political things that Sophia Tacall clearly has something to say about. Yeah. Yeah, I think that that was all I was affected by that as well. I do have a question about the finale. Was there not a so we had the fraternity, their leader was Professor Gelson. Was there not another man who entered who was supposed to be higher up than Professor Gelson? The one with the mask on?

Well, they all had masks, but like one came in with yeah, whose mask was never removed, and they were like, oh, father, or something like that. Was that I think that was just one of the pledges because the all the pledges took on the spirit of the. But they were just like bow to him. Like he seemed like a high like was that Hawthorne? Like the No, I think he was like the last remaining pledge that the girls hadn't already killed coming back, and he still had the spirit of Hawthorne in him. Maybe I was just like, huh. Who are you? I want to see your face. It was funny when they took the first mask off, and she was like, and then there had to be like a flashback of why we were supposed to know who he was, and I was like, They all look the same.

They all look like they're on the sale team. That all that gave me a tickle because it was like she like kind of gasped, and then it was like, here's where you know I'm from. Oh, oh. I couldn't keep it. I know. Well, they should earn it. We should like they could have had that guy be someone that we knew. Well, also, he had the insignia on his head, like we remembered that. He could have just been like, that's a frat guy. They kept showing the guy that raped her, and I was like, is that him, or is the guy standing next to him the guy that raped her? They were all they all look exactly the same.

I was laughing, trying to actually keep myself from laughing, because when she was walking through the hall and there were like the portraits on the walls, those did not look like real paintings at all. They all looked like somebody put on a little like painting filter on an app or something. I was really tickled by those paintings. Well, they they must have gotten their money's worth out of that here because I was just like, nobody painted the Parker. Instagram's free. So yeah, they uh they're taking the money. Ugh, wow. I really liked Riley. I mentioned this before, but I I enjoyed her. It's very rare that we see a sexual assault victim kind of rise back up, and you I think she did a really good job of portraying like her inner battles with trust, especially with Landon and and all of that.

Um so I think in response to Ma and so much that you hated about that sexual assault situation, I think that this was a good step in the direction. Also to see sorority girls portrayed in a smart, intelligent, and activism role, which is not always the case. Yeah, and I like that there Riley's character did have some realism in her journey, whereas maybe like, you know, we all kind of loved revenge from season one, but that's so, you know, extreme, you know, a woman hunting men down in this desert, um, which I you know I loved that, and we all did. Uh, but yeah, this was handled with a little more um reality in mind for the most part, uh, for her specifically, not the movie on a whole.

And I think if Imogen Poots wasn't just like really talented, then uh this movie would have gone down. Oh, yeah, it would have been a lot more not just than it would be. No, she was a good choice for that role. So, going back to what I said earlier about Black Christmas being slapped on this movie, in my opinion, uh in the same Boo Crew interview, uh, because I was trying not to look up too much because I didn't want it to be spoiled, because the trailer seemed to spoil enough that I wanted all the surprises I could get. But I listened to this one interview with her, and it was very recent, so I was like, oh, it'll have all the up-to-date facts.

But Tikal said that when Blumhouse approached her, they said that they would like for her to identify the elements that felt essential to Black Christmas and then make something new outside of that. So she said, outside of sorority, Christmas, and slasher, she identified well-drawn characters. Death wasn't sexual or exploitative, and the threat of misogyny, just like um she was saying the end of Black Christmas 1974, she found so upsetting because Billy is still alive and we don't know what he's going to do, and he represents kind of this patriarchal uh force that her entire movie kind of is using as an impressor uh over a whole cast of men. And I was just wondering, those are great traits, but those are traits that I think are shared with other films.

And so I was just wondering what you guys thought about does Black Christmas need to have Billy, the you know, prime villain to be a Black Christmas? Because I think if someone had been named Billy in this movie, even that would have been like, okay, Black Christmas. But like, even like the phone stuff in this 2019 take was not like super great. Uh whereas, you know, the phone calls in the original are what's so scary to me? You know, like the text messages and them like standing in a circle and reading them aloud to us. I was like, hmm. It seems like the literal plot devices that make Black Christmas, Black Christmas, were not the things that she chose, which isn't a bad thing, but at the same time I was like, but um, this isn't Black Christmas.

I had little expectation for this movie, so to me it wasn't as like offensive that they didn't stick to the original. I don't think they needed to stick to the original. I'm just wondering. I mean, I do. If it's a remake, I feel like it should be. Well, I mean, I'm always excited for a new journey. It's just at the same time, like, this didn't have enough Black Christmas to me. You know what I thought was gonna happen at the very beginning was when we didn't really know, and it wasn't that long of a moment, but when we didn't know this was going down the, you know, assault route and Riley was clearly upset, I thought that they were gonna reference that her upsetness was somehow correlated to the previous movie of Billy.

Oh, you thought this would be like a sequel? Yeah, and I was like, Well, this isn't a sequel, but this feels like this is where it's about to go. And I'm like, how is this gonna happen? Three years ago I survived a horrible night. That's exactly what I thought was gonna happen. I honestly might have preferred that. Yeah. Well, I when they said it was very brief and then they never mentioned again, but that her parents are dead. That was such a weird scene where it was like supposed to be a joke, but I was like, hmm, that wasn't that funny. I mean, go back to Halloween, right? Like they they did that. So I I thought that that was gonna be like somehow tied, like maybe she was supposed to be the aborted baby or something.

Yeah. That would have been wild. My last little fun fact for this interview was that she said the masks that the frat guys wear are based on what's called a skull's bridle, which from the Middle Ages is a mask that men would put on wives when they were being annoying or non-compliant. So, you know, it's weird that I have one in my closet that you don't tell them about that. It's weird that like the literal details in this movie, like the physical things, like the mask and like the Easter eggs from the first movie are here, but like on its own, this there's uh I just feel like the attention to detail was negative 10. So more of a story.

That's it. You know, and I always I want to like horror movies. I was excited to see this. I went in like, okay, I here we go. Like, this could be my new favorite movie. So all this shitting, you know, isn't to say that like I went in wanting this to be bad. Because online it seems like a lot of people went to see this movie wanting it to be bad. Um you refuse to let your you know, this whole week. You refused to let that creep into your psyche. Yeah, I've been, you know, researching, I've been reading all about it, and I um yeah, you know, I've just come out where I was hoping I wouldn't.

But nonetheless, I cannot help it. So let me give you a little timeline on the drama surrounding this movie because it has been such a journey, and I think we would be remiss not to touch on this. Because it it's weird how this has seems to have affected its release so much. So let me take you back to uh, you know, a time long ago, October 2018, when Jason Blum did an interview in Polygon called, quote, Blumhouse has never produced a theatrically released horror movie directed by a woman, but hopes to. And people got a little upset, rightfully so, because in this interview Blum Jason Blum said, quote, there are not a lot of female directors, period, and even less who are inclined to do horror.

And people were like, Buscume, there are a lot of female directors and a lot of female directors who would love who do horror and would love to do horror, and people like you, heads of production companies, are not giving them jobs. So that's where we begin our journey. A few months later, Sophia DeCall says she was approached, and after having done her Into the Dark uh New Year New You segment at New Year's, she was approached by Blum to do Black Christmas. Um, it was not announced and it did not begin development until June of 2019. And the film was filmed, the movie was filmed over 27 days in July in New Zealand. And in case that's not registering for you, that was five months ago.

Five months ago, this movie was filmed. Literally five months from right now? July 2019 was when this movie was shot. Oh my god. They're like, we got a PR problem, we need to push out a lady director like now. I know. Is that not insane? I've had local video projects last longer than that. And I mean, I know that this year, as we've discussed, is the 45th anniversary of Black Christmas. But who at Blum House was sitting in their office in like March and was looking at like Google, you know, movie anniversaries this year and was like, shit, somebody get on Black Christmas right now. Because damn. I feel bad for the editors. Uh T'Call said in a New York Times interview that she did, um, she said, quote, they said you can do whatever you want as long as it's called Black Christmas, but it has to come out this December, she recalled.

This was in March and there was no script. My God. My God. So jumping forward, I know well, and just like we wonder why maybe this was not the glossy product that we had hoped, and it's because, you know, they had to get something done. But so the full trailer for Black Christmas debuted in early September to very mixed reactions. Some people were complaining that it didn't look much like Black Christmas, like we said, or I said, uh, but most people agreed that the trailer was spoiling way too much because the trailer features a lot of that last scene where they're all fighting in the room with the frat guys. But I mean, it had the whole twist about it being the fraternity men instead of just one killer.

Uh, seeing the movie, that's revealed pretty much at the beginning, for the most part, kind of. It's kind of a surprise, but we know that something's going on with the fraternity, so I'm not as upset about it as I was. But Sophia DeCall did tweet, or April Wolf tweeted the trailer, and then Sophia DeCall retweeted it and said, Trailer's out for my movie. April is right, do not press play if you want to be surprised by the many twists and turns in this movie. Just go see it with your friends on December thirteenth. So it is interesting. Interesting now to officially note that directors, if you were wondering, have no say in the marketing for these movies.

Damn. Yeah, and I would also like to speak a little bit of shit about someone real fast because I was personally upset by this because the movie comes out, everybody's like, oh, there actually is a surprise that wasn't in the trailer. And so I was like, oh good, like something won't be spoiled for me. I merely went to Rotten Tomatoes to record information for this podcast. And one of the top reviews from this is who I would like to get lost, Ed Potton from Times UK, a top critic on Rotten Tomatoes, says the final out half hour brings ludicrous supernatural developments. What the hell? That was like the one surprise that they had not revealed. And now it's spoiled.

So I did have this movie a little bit spoiled. I know I didn't get the details, but like, come on, Ed. Jesus. Jesus said. God damn it. Alright. Now moving even a little bit further forward to mid-November, Bloody Disgusting breaks the news that 2019 Black Christmas will be rated PG 13. This is met with outrage! Horror Twitter was a flutter, as I wrote in my notes. Because some people were like, it already looked like shit, and now it definitely will be. While other people were like, there's so much good PG 13 horror, like the ring, you're being ridiculous. And I was kind of split in the middle where I was like, listen, the ring is rad.

I love some PG 13 movies. But every PG 13 movie kind of being thrown out in this debate was not a slasher. And slashers are based on kills. You go see it because you want to see people die in creative ways. I know this movie is trying to do other things, get other jobs done. We've already hit on that. But you know, I want to see heads rolling. And so I was kind of like on the side of I'm upset and a little turned off that this will be PG 13, but I was so ready to give it a chance. So April Wolf tweeted and said, Here's the deal. We wrote it with an R in mind.

When they did the test screenings, it was clear that this movie needed to be available to a younger female audience because the subject matter is timely. Also, I want to indoctrinate girls into horror. Doesn't make it any less vicious. And I don't know what the deal is, what they did to this movie, but I think it's so obvious that the violence in this film was cut. Like just the way that you don't even get even a glimpse of one of these girls dying after that first death, and it cuts away from every death of the girls dying. Uh, she said in the in the Boo Crew interview that she didn't want to focus on women being the victims of violence, but at the same time, this is a slasher movie, it's there anyway.

I don't like there could have been a tiny bit more because we literally saw nothing. We would just see the reveal of a killer being there, and then it would cut away without even like a physical touch. Has there ever been a male slasher? Like all of them are Michael Myers, no, no, no, no, no, like the being slashed men. Like a final girl. Like a because lots of guys die in slasher movies, but uh off the top of my head, the final girls are, you know, mostly girls. I mean, for night around Elm Street 2, the main character is male, but people give that movie a lot of shit because they were like gay. Like, I want a male murderer going into a fraternity house.

Uh well, there is a movie that I watched called Pledge that is about like so it's it made me really sad, but it's about some dweeby underdog boys who can't get into any of the fraternities, and they find this one with all these really cool guys and they ended up like torturing them. So kind of like what you want. Um I think that for slashers, the final girl's been become such a thing that it's kind of become a prerequisite of making one. And as we discussed in our Halloween episode, our first one, uh, when we were still figuring out the ropes of how to do this podcast, you know, we always are, but that one makes me cringe a little bit.

You know, it was there was this idea established about gender being a little more by um Carol Clover. She asserted that gender was a little more fluid in the slasher as female characters were uh finding power to fight against male slashers. And then also questioning that because when you go see a slasher, are you rooting for the final girl or are you rooting for the villain? So I mean, I think gender has always been an interesting question in slasher movies. I don't know if that answers anything you were asking. I was like, she said that like she didn't want the violence towards the women. I like I I had kind of why would you put violence towards the women?

Well, that's what I think she's just kind of falling into this construct that we have that like slashers have to be aimed at women in a house, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I have no answers for you. I would have liked to see more blood and gut cool. Well, I feel like the violence that like they were like kind of going towards is the assault itself. True. And we do see more violence against the men in this movie than we do against the women. You know, it's interesting. Obviously, this this whole movie was about that, but I could have found it intriguing if it was just like more like a sorority pitted against another sorority or a fraternity pitted against another f fraternity.

You know? So you want to watch House Bunny? Oh, do not get me started on House Bunny. Remember when y'all were like, watch this, it's so good. And then it ended and y'all were like, Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. I was like 10 years old when I saw that and I thought it was funny. Damn. Um before I was woke. Just to revisit, I'm getting more frustrated about the violence in this movie as we think as we talk about it. Remember when she discovers Jesse's body, she starts to turn it, you see that something might have been stabbed into her eyeball, and it cuts away before you can even understand what's happening. Exactly.

Same thing when Nate was shot in the face with an arrow, you can tell that it made impact on his face, but you never see the result. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about, where things seem to be a little slight. Do you think they didn't have the budget for it? No, I think it's this PG-13 debacle. Bullshit, let's move on. Alright, so following that, at Thanksgiving, Joe Bob Briggs, very prominent horror critic and personality who has a show on Shatter, has a long history of being an icon in horror. He made it. He tweets, and I've had many conversations with other horror writers and things about this. Yeah, about this tweet, and nobody can understand why this tweet was crafted.

But in response to an article from Bloody Disgusting that says Black Christmas director Sophia DeCall on bringing a new perspective to the classic, whatever, he wrote, What I love about directors from the 70s and 80s is that they had no political axe to grind, no message, no social justification for horror. It was just get a load of this great story. I don't want to be told how to watch a movie. And everybody was just like, Skew me. Have you seen any of these movies from the 70s and 80s? They're all political. Like we were talking about with Black Christmas. It's about feminism. It's just not um as loud as this current one is. When we talked about um Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's about the government and the Vietnam War.

Oh my god. So, rightfully, outrage ensued. I screenshot a few responses. Gaily Dreadful, which is a queer, you know, review outlet, says maybe the reason it feels more subtle back then is that you didn't have the internet where a filmmaker could accessibly talk to people about their intent. So that's a nice way to think about it. Uh Heather Wixon said, No disrespect meant, but imagine thinking that horror of the 70s and 80s wasn't political. The genre has always been one of the greatest vessels of sociopolitical storytelling for nearly 100 years now. And for the record, we still live in a world where we can't edit our tweets. Yeah, exactly. And then Phil Noble, the uh uh director of Fangoria, retweeted these uh tweets from Sam Weineman that said, just a quick reminder that the original Black Christmas was about men in authority who could have helped women if they had believed them.

Oh, and it featured a pro-choice subplot. So if you don't think Horror used to have a political axe to grind, maybe you just haven't been watching. Damn. Not woke. But then some people came to his aid, like Phyllissa Rose, who was the star of Sleepaway Camp. Someone responded to Joe Bob Briggs' tweet and said, Black people and women who enjoy sex tend to die first, but there's for sure no political agenda. GTFO. Actually, GTFO H. What's that mean? Get the fuck out of here. Out of here? Out of here. And then Felissa Rose responded, uh, which I hear she's lovely and great, so no shit. But I'm a woman in horror. I've been working on this genre for 37 years, and I've been the villain and the last to stand in most films.

I'm proud of the genre I work on, and I won't get the fuck out of here. And I was just kind of like, girl. Yeah, she doesn't know who she's fighting for here. Yeah, I was like, look at Phyllis. Come on. So Joe Bob did follow up and kind of cooled off the controversy. We're still confused, but he said, I know most of them, and if they have a political POV, it was subconsciously embedded. They were interested in story. Not one of them ever said, I'm making this movie to bring new perspectives. They never made extravagant claims for horror. That's cooling it down. Then he said, Happy to see this much passion over horror history. LOL.

A uh the LOL was mine, not his. A, of course, horror films can be political. Just pointing out my preference for keeping it as subtext. B, I believe everyone should make their movie, let every voice speak loudly, especially at Thanksgiving time of inclusion. So well, first of all. What? I didn't even think about that last sentence until now. Um, hello? But um Hello Yeah, Thanksgiving is not historically a time of inclusion. I think as misguided as that first tweet he put out was, I do like this one about saying that the messaging was either not the goal of the movie or not at the forefront, or maybe a result of the action. Uh, because if we do think about Black Christmas 1974, that movie was ultimately about ladies being killed in a sorority house.

But there's all this great stuff that is in it that doesn't distract from that fun. You know, you could be a a dweeb and watch it just to watch some ladies die, or you could be a little more critical, like we're trying to be, and think, wow, for the 70s, there's some really progressive things happening, conversations we're still having today about abortion and women's rights. Two sides to every coin. After everyone settled down after Joe Bob, it seems like everyone was exhausted and forgot to care about this movie until it came out. And that's what it looked like in the theater. Yeah, we were in there. I would like to say, we may have been like only like three of what, would you ten people in there?

Ten. Yeah. Uh, but a few rows in front of us were a couple of teenage girls. And I told Caroline, I was like, let's keep an eye on them and see how they react because I had read so many reviews, I was like, this is not a movie for adult analytical consumers of horror. And so I was like, let's see what they think. And it seems as if they might have left halfway through because they were scared. Um, and they did cheer at the end. They were also texting for a lot of the movie, and I was like, okay, they can't even pay attention. So well, the young'uns. I know. Young'uns. But so it does seem like it spoke somewhat to them.

And when I saw movies that I think are not so great now, like the remake of When a Stranger Calls, um, at the time when I first saw it, I was scared out of my pickle. So that's unusual. I um, you know, if even if these movies may not withstand the tests of time, they do the trick. It's Bravo for some things, but uh not for a lot. All right, Black Christmas. Let's wrap you up, baby. What would you say from Black Christmas 2019 is your most memorable murder? I can go first. It is when Riley takes the bag with her dress that she was assaulted in and the plastic covering and strangles one of the pledges.

Wow, throwback, yes, to the original, but I didn't even connect that that was on her dress. Yes. I kept thinking, when's this dress gonna get used? Yeah, she uses not only the dress cover that was a reference to the original movie, but the dress of the assault itself. Yes, and I didn't mention this, but Sophia DeCall said that they specifically tried to use weapons from the 1974 Black Christmas against the fraternity men, which she was saying, you know, women taking back their power. So cool. Yeah. Wow, Caroline, what a woman. You're a fighter. Definitely when Helena gets neck broken. Necked. Yeah, you cringed that. That was uh quite a oh, I meant to ask you, what did you think about the arrow slicing open image in Poot's cheeks?

Because you don't like that. I loved the arrow subplot weapon choice. I think that was a surprise. Didn't see it coming, loved the grays of the thigh or the the calf. We don't know, we didn't get to see it. I loved it. I thought it shot through her Achilles tendon and then rolled up into her calf. I think I I thought it was the grays of the calf, as Ian said, but you know, who knows? But anyway, I would have to say the neck snap. I did think the moment where he did slice Imogen Poot's cheeks and rubbed it in like makeup was of everything that happens in this movie, an interesting moment. Yeah. When he starts trying to kiss her under the mistletoe, a little heavy-handed.

Yeah. Um, my favorite murder for Black Christmas 2019 would be Lindsay. The very first death in this movie. Snow angel stabbed to the chest with an icicle. Not only the most graphic, but the most fun. If you're gonna die, give me some imagery. On a scary scale, one to five. How would you rate Black Christmas? I'm gonna go first on this one. I'm I'm actually a little bit struggling because I wanna give it a two because I just wasn't that excited. But I think I'm gonna give it a three because some girls left. They were scared, and because I did jump a few times. There's not much tension. I wanted to dread and have my heart tickle a little bit more, but unfortunately you didn't.

So I'm gonna give it three, middle of the road. I'm gonna give it a one. There was no scare for me. You jumped a few times. Yeah. If rare exports is a one, this is at least a two. No, I gave rare exports a two. Damn. This is a one. I'm gonna have to uh align with you, Parker. Uh thank you. I want to give it a two as well. I gave it a three. I think I had to be honest with myself and say, uh, I think it was a three. Oh. Now, Black Christmas 2019, is that a smash or a slash? If someone came up to you and said, you know black Christmas 2019, I've been thinking about going to see that.

Would you say, oh yeah? Or would you say, watch it? Do you have AMC stabs? How much you pay it? I would have to say it's a definite slash for me. If it eventually came out on like Hulu and it was not the question, I wouldn't I would be like, yeah, we can turn this on, depending on who it was. Am I gonna sit down with my mom on the couch and watch this? Absolutely not. That's not the question. Smash or slash. Or slash. Smash or slash. If you smash this, I'm gonna take this microphone and snap it over my knee like a fucking twig. I'm gonna give it a light smash followed by a hard slash.

No, that's a cop out. It's a smash and slash. What are you? That's not how this works. Ultimate slash, but I would smash it first. Okay, well one last good smash before you slash. Oh my god, I think Caroline is the problematic killer in these movies where she is sexing up this movie and then killing it. You're tired. Oh no, no, no, no. We don't want him on get out. Some some president just walked into the room and we said, get out of my apartment, you ho. Ian's under the spell. Oh my god. Oh, I got a headache. Oh my great. This is Trump University. Hey, ask me what I would give this movie. What would you give us?

SLASH! Yeah, I hope that hurts your ears because that's how my ears felt watching the dialogue in this movie. I guess I wasn't watching the dialogue, I was hearing it. Yeah, this is a pretty um big slash for me, not just because it's just a forgettable horror movie, but because these deeper things which can be so rich in horror movies were so superficial here and not even as meaningful or powerful as I think they were meaning for them to be. I thought we were supposed to watch these movies not as horror films, but just as general enjoyment. I'm just saying, I think horror movies can be rich subtextually. I know. Well, I just want to say something that is a bit of a hot fucking take for the horror community.

If you asked me, oh, I just watched Black Christmas 1974, and I've heard there are two remakes. Should I watch one of them? I would say, hell yeah, go watch 2006's Black Xmas, and then go and just buy Black Christmas 2019 and then snap it over your fucking knee. Yeah. So yeah, maybe a hot take, but Black Xmas 2006, it's also shallow, but it has bunkers, gore, and deaths, and at least if you want to have a fun time, because you've already consumed the good, intelligent, intellectual Black X Black Christmas 1974. If you just want to have a good time because you're drunk with your friends at Christmas, put on Black Xmas of 2006. You won't be sorry.

It's out of control. So, last question What's your favorite scary movie? Shining rare exploits. My favorite scary movie is Black Christmas 1974. That is a fucking good horror movie. I'm into it. Alright, you guys. Guess what? This week is Christmas. So we want to wish you a happy holiday no matter what you celebrate. Happy holiday. But we here all celebrate Christmas, so we're taking the week off next week. And uh, so you will not be getting an episode from us the week after Christmas. However, we will be back in 2020 with some hot new episodes. For example, we are going to be kicking off the New Year's with a hard hitter. We are going to be watching Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock.

And so I'm really looking forward to that. Something else you can look forward is to is the new Grudge, which we will be visiting after Psycho. And if you liked what you heard here and you like us comparing, contrasting old and new, go over to patreon.com slash scary movie pod because we will be posting right at the beginning of the new year for your listening pleasure before you hit the theaters, Jew on the Grudge, which is the Japanese original of The Grudge. So if you want to be informed heading into your viewing of Grudge 2020, you gotta hit us up on Patreon. And Parker, do you hear this? Do you hear that? Uh yeah, I do.

How how can we fix that? Well, we gotta get a new cable. Yeah, so if you have a spare couple dollars to get some extra awesome perks every single month, be sure to check out patreon.com so we can get some new XLR cables here. Go to patreon.com forward slash scary movie pod. Yeah, and remember, if you sign up in December 2019 or January 2020, you will be getting a postcard in the mail signed by us. And you don't want to miss out on that ish. It's gonna be good. And like I said, it's not like you're getting nothing. You're gonna get our sweet, sweet voices in your earholes uh talking about more scary stuff. Alrighty, my name is Parker Heron.

You can find me at Instagram, Twitter, Letterboxd in the slasher app at Parker Del Rey. My name is Carolyn. You can find me on Instagram at Carol Manifesto. And my name's Ian Hoyt. You can find me on Instagram and YouTube at Ian Hoyt. And make sure to check us out on social media, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at ScarymoviePod. You can head over to our website to get some reviews coming out on new horror releases and to see our calendar if you're curious about what's upcoming here at scarymoviepod.com. You can reach out to us with any requests or thoughts at scary moviepod at gmail.com. And please, please, please, please, please, it'd be the best holiday gift in the world if you would go over to patreon.com slash scary moviepod and support us so that we can get even more rad content out to you.