Black Christmas (abbreviated as Black X-Mas) is a 2006 slasher film written and directed by Glen Morgan and starring Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Oliver Hudson, Lacey Chabert, Kristen Cloke, and Andrea Martin. The film takes place several days before Christmas and tells the story of a group of sorority sisters who are stalked and murdered in their house during a winter storm. It is a loose remake of the 1974 film of the same name. A co-production of Canada and the United States, the film was produced by Morgan and James Wong through their production company Hard Eight Pictures, along with 2929 Productions, Adelstein-Parouse Productions and Hoban Segal Productions. It is the second film in the Black Christmas series.
Director Glen Morgan signed on to write and direct the film after the release of his 2003 remake of Willard. Shooting took place in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 2005. The film was co-distributed by Dimension Films and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. According to Morgan, he and Wong had numerous disputes with Dimension executives Bob and Harvey Weinstein regarding the tone of the script as well as the film's conclusion, which resulted in numerous re-writes and re-shoots.
In December 2006, upon anticipation of its release, the film garnered criticism from religious groups due to its depiction of graphic content in a holiday setting, as well as the distributor's decision to release the film on Christmas Day in the United States. The film opened in the United Kingdom on December 15, 2006, and premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, California on December 19. Despite backlash from some religious organizations, Black Christmas was released in the United States on December 25, 2006. The film grossed $21.5 million worldwide on a budget of $9 million and received negative reviews from critics, with the Rotten Tomatoes consensus saying it "pumps out the gore and blood with zero creativity, humor, or visual flair."
This is the final film to be composed by Shirley Walker before her death on November 30, 2006, a month before the film's release, as well as the final film made with the involvement of Bob Clark before his death on April 4, 2007. A second remake of Black Christmas, produced by Blumhouse Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures, was released in 2019.
Plot
Billy Lenz, a boy born with severe jaundice, is constantly abused by his mother, Constance. With the help of her lover, she murders Billy's father Frank on Christmas Eve 1975 and buries his body in the house's crawlspace. When Billy witnessed her scheme, she imprisons him in the attic. In 1982, Billy's mother impregnates herself from her own son in the attic due to her boyfriend's impotence to conceive another child. Nine months later, Constance gives birth to their daughter Agnes and uses the occasion of Agnes' birth to further reject Billy. On Christmas Day 1991, Billy escapes from the attic and disfigures eight-year-old Agnes by gouging out her eye. He then brutally murders his mother and her lover. He is caught by police eating cookies made out of his mother's flesh and is sent to a mental asylum while Agnes is taken to a local orphanage.
Fifteen years later, on Christmas Eve, Billy, now 36, escapes from his cell and heads to his former home, now a sorority house for Delta Alpha Kappa at Clement University in New Hampshire. At the house, Clair Crosby, one of the sorority girls, is murdered in her bedroom by an unknown figure. Meanwhile, Megan Helms begins to hear noises and goes up to the attic to investigate. Upon finding Clair's corpse, Megan is attacked and killed by the same assailant. In the living room, the other sorority sisters, Kelli Presley, Melissa Kitt, Heather Fitzgerald, Dana Mathis and Lauren Hannon, along with their housemother Mrs. Mac, receive a threatening call from the killer. Clair's half-sister Leigh Colvin soon arrives, searching for her. Kelli's boyfriend Kyle Autry arrives as well but is kicked out when Kelli discovers Megan's sex video with him. When the power goes out, Dana goes to the main breaker under the house but encounters the figure in the crawlspace and is killed. When they realized Dana's ambush by the figure, the remaining sorority sisters and Leigh go outside to find her, only to find their fellow sister Eve Agnew decapitated in her car.
With the police unable to arrive in time due to a snow storm, Kelli, Melissa and Leigh decide to stay inside the house whilst Heather and Mrs. Mac flee. In the car, Heather is murdered, and Mrs. Mac is impaled by a falling icicle. While Kelli and Leigh descend to the garage to investigate, Melissa is attacked and killed by the assailant. Kelli and Leigh return upstairs and find Lauren's eyeless corpse. Kyle returns to the house, and the three go to investigate the attic; while ascending the ladder, Kyle is dragged into the attic to his death by the assailant, who is revealed to be Agnes, now an adult. As Billy enters the attic, Kelli and Agnes struggle, leading the two of them into the empty space between the walls of the house. As the killers converge toward Kelli, Leigh helps her escape before they start a fire, leaving Billy and Agnes to burn to death.
Later, as Kelli and Leigh recover at the hospital, Billy, who is partially burned, kills the morgue assistant. While Kelli goes for an x-ray, Agnes appears in her hospital room and kills Leigh. When Kelli returns to her room, Agnes appears through the ceiling and attacks her, but Kelli uses a defibrillator to kill Agnes. Moments later, Billy enters through the ceiling and chases Kelli to the stairwell. They briefly fight, ending with Kelli pushing Billy off the railing where he is subsequently impaled on the tip of a Christmas tree, killing him.
