The First ‘Black Christmas’ Trailer Is Pure Yuletide Horror
This Christmas is gonna be murder.
Black Christmas is one of the most important slasher films of the ’80s.
A yuletide-set gorefest that follows a sorority house taunted and stalked by a garble-voiced killer, the film slowly builds up to one of the most unpleasant and shocking final shots in cinema history; a burst of sheer fetishistic terror. Which is weird, given that the film was directed by Bob Clark, a man best known for making the decidedly more upbeat December fable, A Christmas Story, and both Baby Geniuses films.
The film has actually been remade once already, back in 2006. That second go-around was so gory and shocking that it actually picketed by religious rights groups, who felt that the film was a sneering rejection of everything that makes Christmas holy and important (which it definitely was.)
Well, now the film is being updated once more, with Blumhouse — the production company behind Get Out and the Halloween reboot — providing a new spin on the classic tale.
Most interestingly of all, this new version is being spearheaded by a female-led production crew. The film is directed by Sophia Takal, best known for her downright disturbing film about fame and jealousy, Always Shine, and written by April Wolfe, a writer and film Twitter personality.
Judging by the looks of the first trailer, the pair have decided to take Black Christmas in their own direction. Although many of the staples of the slasher classic are all there — viewers who’ve seen the original will have known to expect lots of ominous malarkey over the telephone — there’s a whole bunch of new stuff too. Towards the end of the trailer, we get a hint at some kind of vast, misogynistic conspiracy taking place, and then there’s that utterly confusing shot of a killer turning into (?) a stone statue.
It’s weird, basically! Feast your gaze on the trailer here, and then prepare for the film’s December 13 release.