Slay Girls, Slay

Kaleidoscope's latest is on Universal's & Blumhouse's production of "Black Christmas".  Directed by Sophia Takal, the movie stars Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Lily Donoghue, Brittany O'Grady, Cary Elwes, & Caleb Eberhardt.  Rated 'PG-13", it has a running time of 1 hr., 32 min.

The film opens as a female college student at Hawthorne College is murdered by 3 hooded figures as she walks home.  Transition to the college students who are either preparing to leave college for the winter holiday break or the few who will remain at the school.  Riley (Poots), a student at Hawthorne who is a member of the MKE sorority, is still suffering from some PTSD after being raped by Brian, the leader of the rival AKO fraternity.  Sadly, even tho Brian was forced to leave, no one, besides her closest friends, believed Riley.  Meanwhile, Riley's sorority sisters Kris (Shannon), Marty (Donoghue), Jesse (O'Grady), and Helena are taking part in the uopcoming AKO talent show highlighted with a dance choreographed by Riley. Cocurrently, Kris has drawn the anger of the AKO fraternity and Riley and Marty's classics Professor Gelson (Elwes) following a petition from her requesting that university founder and notorious misogynist Caleb Hawthrone's bust be moved away from the main building and another requesting Gelson be fired due to his refusal to teach books written by women.  Acts II & III revolve around William Congreve's classic phrase from his play "The Mourning Bride": 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!'

This is the 2nd remake of Bob Clark's 1974 cult classic which set the template for future slasher killers:  Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, & Freddy Krueger.    The 1st was 2006's needless remake.  Now, we have an even more pointless remake with a screenplay by Takal & April Wolfe that borrows tropes from many slasher films and some of the plot of 2000's "The Skulls" & Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" with no improvement on any of them.  In addition to the derivative script, Takal's direction is listless & uninspired.  Many scenes are filmed in a clunky, choppy fashion that sometimes leaves the viewer confused.  The movie's climactic sequence is bewilderingly banal, ludicrous, & totally expected.  The cast is uniformly uninspired with many of the actors, including star Poots looking bored, at times.  Only Elwes seems to be having any fun as he delivers a 'hammy' performance that is right there with Vincent Price's best in his Corman period.  Mark Schwartzbard's cinematography & Jeff Betancourt's editing are just as inept as Takal's direction.  Brooke & Will Blair's score is prosaic in the extreme.

I give "Black Christmas" 5 out of 10 nuggets.  This is a total misstep, especially disappointing coming from the usually reliable Jason Blum & his Blumhouse Productions.  My recommendation is to skip this film in the theater, on cable, on streaming--basically,on every conceivable platform.