I am a fan of the original 1974 'Black Christmas', an early slasher film from future 'A Christmas Story' director Bob Clark. That movie stared Olivia Hussey and John Saxon, was filmed in Canada, and introduced "the killer is calling from within the house" trope. 2006's 'Black Christmas' is a lose remake, keeping the basic premise of murders in a sorority house, apropreating some of the moetephes (sp), and dropping in some Easter eggs from the original (such as the crystal unicorn used to kill Margot Kidder).
What we get here is a more gorey, less interesting film. A bad film, a cliche film, one with paper thin characters and nothing to say. We get backstories for Billy and the previously unseen Agness, they used to live a tourted existence in the home that became the sorority house. This is from that school of remake or sequel that wants to explain everything not made explicate in the first film, and in so doing misses the point. The scariest thing about the original Billy was not knowing why he was doing what he was doing, Bob Clark understood this, which is why he deliberately never explained Billy. John Carpenter got this right in the first 'Halloween' as well, he even used Bob Clark as a sounding board early in the creative process.
The Bush era remake is chiefly notable for period cell phones, and murdering a string of beautiful young actresses of the time, including Lacey Chabert, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Michelle Trachtenberg. Also one decent Dick Cheney joke. *
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