Black Christmas 2019: The Remake That Lost Its Killer Instinct

Let me set the table: someone handed a classic Christmas slasher to a new team, told them to keep the title and hit a December deadline, and then let them do basically whatever they wanted. The result was a movie that talks so loudly about its message it forgets to be, you know, scary. Here is how Black Christmas (2019) went from a genre touchstone remake to a PG-13 lecture with bows and arrows.

The setup: two rules, no brakes

The original Black Christmas (1974), Bob Clark's icy proto-slasher that helped inspire Halloween, is basically untouchable. The 2019 path to a remake was... different. Blumhouse called Sophia Takal, who had worked with them on Into the Dark, and offered her carte blanche with two conditions:

1) It had to be called Black Christmas. 2) It had to open December 13. That was the entire brief.

Takal has said she thinks the original is perfect, but she wanted to push hard into misogyny, frustrated that the Me Too moment was fading and that both men and women weren't doing enough. She brought in April Wolfe to co-write; at that point, Wolfe's produced credits were a single short, Widower (2013). She has since added Clawfoot in 2023. Because this thing is technically based on the 1974 film, the original writer Roy Moore is also credited.

According to Takal and Wolfe, Blumhouse backed their boldest ideas and never asked them to dial anything down. They didn't.

On-screen pivot: from subtext to a megaphone

Within minutes, the remake swerves away from the 1974 blueprint. The obscene phone calls that made the original so unnerving? Gone. In their place: boilerplate threatening texts like "I will bring you to your knees" and "I will make you beg for mercy" sprinkled with pig emojis. The killers wear black hoods and metal masks that look like discount Doctor Doom. Subtle is not on the menu.

Then the finale swan-dives into supernatural conspiracy. The men of a certain frat are literally supercharged by the bust of campus founder Calvin Hawthorne, which weeps black goo from its eyes. A full-on siege ensues: the women arm up, charge the house with bows and arrows, and our final girl Riley smashes the cursed bust while shouting "We will never be broken!" But not before she apologizes to her more hardline friend for not being militant enough about men earlier in the movie.

It is not just a departure from creepy phone calls and artful kills; it's a departure from subtext altogether. The film's messaging sits on your face for 90 minutes.

The story that could have worked (and why it didn't)

There is a legitimately compelling core here: Riley is a sexual assault survivor trying to process trauma as new horrors close in. That arc could carry a slasher. Instead, the movie keeps turning up the sermon so loud the character work gets drowned out.

Cast check

• Imogen Poots as Riley, the haunted lead (28 Weeks Later, Fright Night, Green Room)
• Aleyse Shannon as Kris, an ultra-activist turned caricature by the script
• Brittany O'Grady as Jesse, a sorority sister caught in the chaos
• Lily Donoghue as Marty, the sensible friend who meets an especially drawn-out, silly end
• Caleb Eberhardt as Landon, the one reasonably sympathetic guy, mostly by whispering and ducking for cover (he still gets pulled into the movie's thesis that male rage is an unavoidable contagion)
• Cary Elwes as Professor Gelson, who might as well enter frame with "villain" stamped on his tweed

How they made it (fast) and why it's PG-13

Shooting kicked off in June 2019 and wrapped in July. The production set up at the University of Otago in New Zealand. Takal ran improv sessions so the cast could build shared histories and trauma bonds. The sorority house was crafted to feel warm and safe; the frat house was designed cold and imposing. There's even a pointed visual gag of the guys downing aggressively mayo-stacked sandwiches.

The PG-13 rating was a deliberate choice by Takal, not a studio cave. She said she didn't want a film where women are expendable or where their deaths are meant to be exciting. She also suggested the original's R rating was largely down to offensive language, which is quite a read on a movie whose terror still works without any four-letter words.

The Blumhouse context

Budget: $5 million, classic low-risk Blumhouse math. This came right after Jason Blum took heat for a lack of female-directed titles. In October 2018, he made the comment below, apologized quickly, and promised to course-correct.

"not a lot of female directors interested in horror"

Black Christmas (2019) hit theaters on December 13, just over a year later. It opened to about $4 million, dropped nearly 60% in weekend two, and finished around $19 million worldwide. On paper, that counts as a financial win.

Critics landed it at roughly 41% on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences were not having it: a rare D+ CinemaScore, which is basically coal in a stocking.

What works, what doesn't

The holiday slasher DNA is still buried inside this thing: sorority vibes, seasonal mood, a campus mystery, the occasional kill. The problem is the movie keeps telling you exactly what it is about while forgetting to make you feel it. For a remake of a film famous for dread and ambiguity, that choice is a killer in the wrong way.

Bottom line

There is a good Black Christmas somewhere in here, but it is trapped under the remake's own mission statement. If someone takes another swing at this franchise, maybe give it to a team that actually wants to make a Black Christmas movie first, and a thesis paper second. This one didn’t, in fact, slay.