Blumhouse is gearing up to try its hand at classic horror movies centered around holidays once more. Clearly buoyed by the success of last year’s Halloween, the studio is now getting ready to bring us their remake of 1974 slasher Black Christmas, which is set to be with us right in time for the holiday it’s named after.
For those unfamiliar with the original – and if you are, be sure to check it out – the plot revolves around a group of sorority girls who find themselves terrorized by a homicidal maniac during the holiday break. As they try to stay alive and keep safe, they soon learn that he’s much closer than they thought.
No doubt this reimagining will pay homage to the original, but there are also expected to be quite a few differences from what we got back in 1974. One of which is that this will be a “fiercely feminist” take on the source material. Or so says director Sophia Takal.
Speaking in a recent interview, the filmmaker teased what audiences can expect and had this to say:
“You know, this movie, even though it’s very, very loosely based on Black Christmas, I’d say the plot is extremely different. It’s more inspired by the feeling that Black Christmas made me feel watching it, this idea of misogyny always being out there and never totally eradicable. So that was the jumping-off point for how I came up with this plot. I’d compare it more to how Luca Guadagnino remade Suspiria than to a straight-ahead remake … I wanted to make something that reflected our time right now, drawing more from what the original evoked for me rather than great plot points. For me, it was about what does it feel like to be a woman in 2019?”
“I feel like another part of why I kind of shifted the direction that this version took was because, in 2019, I didn’t just want to make a movie about a bunch of women getting slaughtered. It just gave me a pit in my stomach. This is not to say that a man might want to see that. I just think I felt very much a responsibility not to perpetuate this idea of disposable female characters, because of how it makes me feel when I watch that. I call this movie a fiercely feminist film…”
Starring Imogen Poots, Brittany O’Grady, Lily Donoghue and Aleyse Shannon, among others, these comments are sure to stir up some discussion online. Especially since the internet already seems pretty mixed on the movie. While it’ll be nice to see a new take on the classic horror pic, the fact that it’s PG-13 definitely stings. Not to mention that after watching the trailer, it kind of felt like we’d already seen everything the pic had to offer.
But maybe we’re wrong. Maybe this will be another sleeper hit for the genre and a nice win to close the year out on. We’ll find out for sure when Black Christmas reaches theaters on December 13th. Which, for those keeping track, is a Friday.