Black Christmas Review: 2 Ups & 7 Downs

6. It's Just Not Scary

The 1974 original is absolutely soaked in creepy atmosphere from first minute to last, but this lousy re-do lacks it almost entirely.

One of the big problems is the decision to have the killer send DM messages to their victims, which is neither remotely cinematic nor in any way scary, compared to the original film having the killer make extremely disturbing phone calls to the girls.

There's barely a single moment where there's an actual incentive to care about the fates of these thinly-drawn characters, and the killer itself lacks much of a palpable screen presence compared to the original's brilliantly shadowy, anonymous stalker.

Even younger viewers new to the genre aren't likely to find much bone-chilling to take away from this.