Black Christmas Review: 2 Ups & 7 Downs

5. The PG-13 Violence

Though a PG-13 rating isn't inherently the kiss of death for a horror movie, for a film called Black Christmas it most certainly isn't the smart way forward.

The result, naturally, is a film largely lacking in inventive or even basically bloody kills beyond a few faint spatters of the red stuff, which totally undermines the visceral potential of the death scenes.

The original film itself was fairly sparing with the gore, but it nevertheless made its blood-letting count, whereas here it just feels cynically sanitised to maximise the film's box office potential.

But given that this remake was made for a mere $5 million, would it really have killed Blumhouse to make it R-rated? The script would still be fundamentally atrocious, but at least we might've got a few gnarly deaths out of it.