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Black Christmas (2006 film)

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This article is about the 2006 remake. For the 1974 film, see Black Christmas (1974 film).
Black Christmas
Poster for Black Christmas
Directed byGlen Morgan
Written byGlen Morgan
Produced byJames Wong
Odgen Gavanski
Bob Clark
Mark Cuban
Glen Morgan
Todd Wagner
StarringKatie Cassidy
Michelle Trachtenberg
Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Crystal Lowe
Kristen Cloke
Lacey Chabert
Oliver Hudson
Andrea Martin
Distributed byDimension Films (USA)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (USA)
TVA Films (Canada)
Pathé (UK theatrical)
20th Century Fox (UK DVD)
Release dates
United States
December 25, 2006
United Kingdom
December 15, 2006
Running time
1 hours. 40 mins.
CountryCanada/USA
LanguageEnglish
Budget$9,000,000
Box office$20,517,977

Black Christmas (or Black X-Mas) is a 2006 remake of the 1974 film of the same name. It is directed by Glen Morgan. The movie is rated R in the US, 18A in Canada and 15 in the UK for strong horror violence and gore, sexuality, nudity and language. The film score was the last to be composed and conducted by Shirley Walker. [1]

Plot

The movie tells the story of Billy, a young boy who was abused by his mother as a child. His mother killed his father one Christmas with a claw hammer right before Billy's eyes and kept Billy in the attic, while she started a "new" family with her lover. One night, Billy was raped by his mother, and she became pregnant with a daughter by him. After 15 years, Billy escaped the attic and murdered his mother and her lover while his sister/daughter, Agnes, looked on.

Cut to present day, a group of eight sorority sisters - Kelli (Katie Cassidy), Melissa (Michelle Trachtenberg), Lauren (Crystal Lowe), Heather (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Dana (Lacey Chabert), Megan (Jessica Harmon), Clair (Leela Savasta), Eve (Kathleen Kole) and their house mother, Ms. Mac (Andrea Martin), who now live in Billy's childhood home, find themselves being harassed by threatening mystery phone calls during Christmas break.

The plot follows the Slasher genre, as each character is brutally murdered and has a bag put over their head by the unseen killer, until just Kelli and Leigh (Clair's sister) remain. When they think they have escaped, Kelli finds the killer, revealed to be Billy's sister Agnes, making a Christmas tree out of Kelli's friend's heads. Meanwhile, Billy returns and in the ensuing fight, Billy and Agnes are apparently killed while Kelli is rushed to the hospital with Leigh who suffered minor injuries.

The movie has several variant endings.

In the US version, in the hospital, Billy and Agnes are revealed to be alive, kill the morgue attendant and escape. Agnes kills Leigh by snapping her neck, but when Agnes attacks Kelli, Kelli kills her by electrocuting her and she pushes Billy over a balcony and impales him on a Christmas tree.

In the UK ending only Agnes attacks Leigh and Kelli in hospital and Billy dies earlier from burns.

The DVD release contains three alternate endings. The first shows Leigh visiting Kelli in the hospital and the two discuss family. Then, Kelli's phone rings and as she goes to answer, it reads "Kyle Audry's Cell." The camera zooms out of the window, and fades out on the hospital... leading the audience to believe that Billy and Agnes are still alive. The second shows Leigh getting called out of the hospital room with Kelli, to the coroner's office to identify the body as Agnes seeing as how they were the only two to have seen her. However, when the body bag is opened, Clair's body is inside. Leigh has a bit of a meltdown and runs back to Kelli's room where the movie proceeds as the original theatrical cut until Kelli's parents pick her up after she zaps Agnes with the EMP. The third and final alternate ending is an extension to the second. It shows Kelli being brought into the room where the doctors tried to save Billy's charred body. Kelli witnesses his dead body and is escorted out by her parents, but when it cuts back to Billy's hospital room where the worker from the morgue comes to take the body, he is told the morgue already took the body. The two men run out of the room in newly acquired realization and the camera scans to the smoke detector where you see Billy's eye staring through the slits.


Deaths

  • Katie Cassidy... lives. The ONLY survivor.
  • Michelle Trachtenberg... has two different deaths. One in the U.S version and a complete different one in the U.K. In the American version, She runs out of a room, into the wall. She then pulls the bag off her head and runs back into the room. She runs to the window trying to open it, but sees Agnes coming so she beats Agnes with skis and then opens the window. Agnes gets up with a glass unicorn ready to stab but sees a pair of ice skates and decapitates the back of her skull with the ice skates.

In the U.K version, the same happens where She runs out of a room responding to a scream while Agnes, puts a bag over her head and she kicks the railing and flies backwards. She struggles, and then Agnes puts her fingers over her eyes and gouges one out. Agnes eats the eye, and it is infered she does it with the other eye puts both fingers in her eyesockets and drags her down the hallway, killing her offscreen.

  • Kristin Cloke... gets killed off-screen by Agnes. Kelli sees the watch Leigh gave her in the hospital, the back drenched with blood.
  • Mary Elizabeth Winstead... is killed in the car. We see Billy's eye through a gap in the snow on the windshield, the car shakes and then blood spats against the windshield.
  • Lacy Chabert... is killed while going under the house to flip the circuit breaker. She is stabbed in the head with a garden tool by Agnes.
  • Crystal Lowe... is killed offscreen. When the girls flock in her bedroom, her eyes are covered by her arm. When Kelli leans into her, Lauren's arm falls, reveling her eyes had been eaten out.
  • Oliver Hudson... is suffocated and stabbed in the head by Agnes in the attic.
  • Megan Helms... After it is revealed Kyle cheated, Megan stayed in her room crying. She heard a noise in the attic and saw Leela Savasta in the rocking chair. Megan then was killed.
  • [Leela Savasta]]... Claire was killed within the first three minutes of the film. She was signing a present to her sister, when she heard a noise in the closet. She got up to check it and then went back to her bed, where you can see Agnes under it. She is suffocated with a bag and placed in a rocking chair in the attic.
  • Andrea Martin... When Heather is killed in the car, Ms. Mac backs up into the shed doors, and an icicle falls down right in her eye.
  • Karen Konoval... Billy's mother is killed when Billy strangles her with the Christmas lights, drags her into the kitchen and beats her with a rolling pin. He then puts a cookie cutter to her and makes cookies out of her skin, then puts them in the oven and eats them right in front of police officers.
  • Kathleen Kole... Her decapitated head falls out of a car door one of the girls opens to try to leave.
  • Howard Siegel... ran downstairs after he heard Agnes scream, and Billy pierces his eyes out with a Christmas ornament.
  • Peter Wilds... Billy's real father is killed by his mothers boyfriend with a hammer. They bury him under the house.
  • Ron Selmour... Stabbed in the neck with a candy cane.
  • Juan Riedinger... killed with a mini-spinning saw. Blood spurts in the milk.
  • Michael Adamthwaite... Billy kills him, places him in a trash bag, and steals his costume to break out of the institution.
  • Dean Friss...Agnes, is killed by Kelli, shocked by a hospital transmittor.
  • Robert Mann...Billy, is killed by being pushed off the railing at the hospital by Kelly, and falling on the pointy end of the railing, with his organs and guts pouring out of his body.

Cast

Box Office/Reception

The film was released on December 25th, 2006 and grossed $3,723,364 on its opening weekend and went on the gross $16,273,581 domestic and another $4,526,417 foreign, making a total Worldwide Gross of $20,799,998.

The film drew backlash from Christian groups because of the studio's decision to release a bloody slasher film about Christmas on Christmas Day. Several groups, including Liberty Counsel and Operation Just Say Merry Christmas, have called the film offensive, ill-founded and insensitive.[2] Additionally, L.A. Weekly columnist Nikki Finke also questioned the filmmakers' decision to release the film on Christmas.[3] Dimension Films defended the timing, saying "There is a long tradition of releasing horror movies during the holiday season as counter-programing to the more regular yuletide fare."[4] Dimension's own Scream, originally released on December 20, probably being the most successful example. Furthermore, genre critic Egregious Gurnow, of The Horror Review, countered Liberty Counsel's complaint[5] on several counts, foremost of which is the critic's citation that the organization's views upon the feature, are naively idyllic and aesthetically limited, especially from a cultural perspective in that they forbid the notion that such atrocities as murder don't politely take a sabbatical during the holiday season.

References

  1. ^ MPAA Ratings Updates
  2. ^ "Christian Groups Fume Over Christmas Horror Film". Retrieved 2006-12-18.
  3. ^ "Faith-Based Horror Film for Christmas?". Retrieved 2006-12-18.
  4. ^ "Black Christmas not merry for religious groups". Retrieved 2006-12-19.
  5. ^ Horror Bob Presents: The Horror Review - Why I Can’t Discuss Glen Morgan’s New Film, [Censored] [Censored], Because Liberty Counsel Says It’s Rude: Race, Religious Tolerance, Ethics, and Aesthetics and the 21st Century Holiday Horror Film. By Egregious Gurnow (2006)

Template:Footer TV and Films James Wong and Glen Morgan

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