Movie Review: Black Christmas

Black Christmas (2006) 

Directed by Glenn Morgan 

Written by Glenn Morgan

Staring Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Oliver Hudson, Lacey Chabert

Release Date December 25th, 2006

Published December 25th, 2006

In 1974 Black Christmas shocked audiences with a Christmas based, blood soaked massacre. The film was only notable for its Christmas horror setting and was soon forgotten. 32 years later a pair of shock masters, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who know a good marketing hook when they see one, acquired the remake rights and rushed out new version of Black Christmas just in time for the holiday season.

Crafted by one of the minds behind the Final Destination series, Glen Morgan, Black Christmas is, once again, only notable for its release date. Though soaked in bloody, horror film tradition, Black Christmas is simply yet another rehash of horror movie cliches.

Michelle Trachtenberg, of Buffy The Vampire Slayer fame, heads a cast of pretty faces as a sorority sister who finds her self stuck on campus for Christmas. Along with her sisters played by Katie Cassidy, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Final Destination 3), Lacey Chabert (Party of Five) and their house mother Mrs. Mac (Andrea Martin, star of the original Black Christmas), she is exchanging gifts and trading stories when a strange phone call sets off a series of horrifying deaths.

It seems that the girls sorority house was once the home of a serial killer who killed and ate his mother on Christmas day; some 20 years earlier. Now, having escaped from a mental institution, Billy (Robert Mann) has come home and is ready to make the sisters his new family. Billy isn't alone, the daughter he had by his own mother is also home to get in on the carnage.

It's a creepy idea but in execution, Black Christmas is little more than a collection of horror movie cliches. Nubile flesh is modestly displayed. Girls run upstairs when they should run outside. Cops are incapacitated and the killers make their murders more elaborate and gruesome when a simpler approach might save some time and work more effectively.

I was surprised to find this collection of cliches was directed by Glen Morgan who with his producing partner James Wong worked on the X-Files TV show and created the clever, if over done, Final Destination series. Morgan's direction of Destination 1 & 3 was, at the very least witty, if not all that frightening. Going for classic slasher movie scares in Black Christmas, Morgan loses the wit in favor of more blood. He should have stuck with his wits.

The cast of Black Christmas reads like the rejected casting for the WB teen drama One Tree Hill. Michelle Trachtenberg, former Harriet The Spy and Buffy The Vampire Slayer alum, Lacey Chabert, the forgotten member of the Party of Five cast, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, star of Final Destination 3 and....nothing else, and Oliver Hudson who knows his way around a teen drama, he guest starred on Dawson's Creek as a wrong side of the tracks bad boy.

This Clearasil approved cast is pleasant to look at but their acting leaves much to be desired. Not that Black Christmas calls for much acting beyond run, scream and die painfully. Though the film does carry an R-rating, the fresh faced cast is not called upon for the kind of nudity that might give a slight erotic charge to all of the carnage. There are glimpses of a naked back in the shower, but only hints of the kind of exposure we are used to in the slasher genre.

Black Christmas pales in comparison to the creepy 1974 original, though that film isn't all that great either. Too weak kneed for a typical exploitation film, but too bloody for the dull PG-13 lot that has been stinking up the horror genre, Black Christmas inhabits an unhappy middle-ground between enjoyable crap and just plain crap. Any less interesting and Wes Craven would have slapped his name on it as producer.

Movie Review A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) 

Directed by Samuel Bayer 

Written by Wesley Strick, Eric Heisserer

Starring Rooney Mary, Jackie Earl Haley, Kyle Gallner, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker, Kellen Lutz

Release Date April 30th, 2010

Published April 29th, 2010 

Lather rinse repeat; simple instructions very easy to follow. I cannot help but speculate that director Samuel Bayer received similar instructions as he approached remaking the horror classic “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Good looking teenager falls asleep, Freddy kills good looking teenager in dream, repeat. This re-imagining of the horror icon Freddy Krueger is like most remakes merely a faded, facsimile of the original. The film is something akin to an “American Idol” contestant's version of a Beatles song; it doesn't sound that bad but lacks the heart, soul, and creative energy of the original.

Jackie Earl Haley replaces the one and only Robert Englund in the iconic role of gardener turned child murder Freddy Krueger. In this version of the story Freddy was a beloved figure who lived and worked at a day school where the kids adored him. That all changed when one little girl, Nancy, told her parents about Freddy's fun cave in the basement. Years later, after Freddy's death, the kids who attended that day school are finally reuniting and with their memories re-emerging, so has Freddy Krueger, who begins attacking and killing them in their dreams. Only Nancy (Rooney Mara) is capable of slowing Freddy's bloodlust.

There is nothing really all that wrong with this version of “Nightmare on Elm Street” from a technical perspective. Director Samuel Bayer, a veteran of music videos, knows how to aim the camera and how to use angle and light for the creation of tension and suspense and he has a good eye for gore. What Bayer is lacking is a story of any depth and characters worth investing in and identifying with. Writers Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer operate from the recipe detailed in the opening paragraph - cute teen sleeps, cute teen killed, repeat. The settings for the deaths are generally the same; Freddy's creepy boiler room remains a creep-tastic setting even if that steam or smoke is still unexplained.

Heather Langenkamp had a winning combination of earnestness and determination and with that wonderful quiver in her voice she won us over and had audiences rooting for her survival even as Freddy was the more entertaining and charismatic of this deathly duo. Rooney Mara taking over the role of Nancy is basically filler. Someone needed to play the role and Ms. Mara was sufficiently attractive and available to fill the bill. Not much is asked of this mostly unknown actress and she gives just about what she gets from the weak script.

The rest of the cast is made up of pretty faces who line up as victim 1, 2, 3 and so on. The film ends on a strong note but I won't go into that too much other than to say that even fans of the original “Nightmare” will be impressed. It's fair to wonder that as a film critic I have seen too much. I have seen so many horror films and I am hard to impress and even harder to frighten. That's fair but I can recognize technique and I am aware when something works for a mass audience and something doesn't. The engaged audience member will likely recognize, as I did, the dearth of character development and the rerun nature of Freddy's kills.

However, those audiences not in fealty to the original as I am and more inclined to forgive the film its many repeats; those giving in to the legend of Freddy Krueger, well rehashed by the far too talented for this Jackie Earl Haley, may find themselves leaping in their seats and watching the movie through their fingers. If you are forgiving, enjoy “Nightmare on Elm Street” redux. Myself, I am going to watch Johnny Depp get sucked into his bed and explode in a geyser of blood in one of the greatest deaths of all time from Wes Craven's original “Nightmare.”

Movie Review Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo (2011) 

Directed by Thomas Bezucha 

Written by April Blair, Maria Maggenti, Thomas Maggenti 

Starring Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester, Katie Cassidy

Release Date July 1st, 2011 

Published July 2nd, 2011

With Selena Gomez on the cover of the September issue of Elle Magazine, their LatinX special, I went and found one of the few times when I have had the chance to write about Selena Gomez. In 2011, Gomez co-starred with Leighton Meester and Katie Cassidy in the forgettable but pleasant teen comedy Monte Carlo. Selena Gomez proved to be a very natural lead for a teen comedy and because of her, Monte Carlo is more enjoyable than many similar teen girl comedies.

Monte Carlo is the story of three friends who travel to Paris for one of the worst tours of all time and stumble upon one truly unexpected adventure that finds one of them impersonating a tabloid superstar, all three jetting off to Monte Carlo, and each finding love in unique ways. Is it a great adventure? No, but for what it is, it's not bad.

Selena Gomez is the star of Monte Carlo as Grace, a Texas High Schooler who has just graduated. Her plan is to head off to Paris with her best friend, Emma (Katie Cassidy) but her mom (Andie McDowell) and step-dad (Brett Cullen) have an addition to her plans. Dad will upgrade Grace and Emma's travel plans if they don't mind having his daughter Meg (Leighton Meester) join the trip.

Naturally, there is tension between Grace and Meg; they haven't exactly bonded since their parents got together. They will need to get along however as once the trio arrive in Paris they quickly find themselves abandoned by their terrifically awful tourist group. The tour scenes are quite funny with the speedy tour guide dragging the group past Paris's greatest landmarks in less time than it would take to snap a picture.

Stuck in the rain and miles from their modest hostel accommodations, the girls stop off at a luxury hotel to dry off. That's when the adventure begins. At the hotel Emma and Meg encounter Cordelia Winthrop Scott (Gomez) and find that Grace is a dead ringer for the heiress. After overhearing that Cordelia is pulling a disappearing act that will have her out of the way for a week the girls hatch an accidental plot to replace her.

The plan was just to take Cordelia's luxury suite for a night in order to get out of the rain but the following morning finds the trio ushered to a limo and on to a private jet headed to Monte Carlo. From there the plot cleverly conspires to keep the girls from escaping. Most films of this sort, modest, middle budget, niche comedies, skimp on character motivation. Monte Carlo actually takes care to make sure that the characters are moving in particular directions for particular reasons.

Grace may not want to keep up the Cordelia charade but when she finds that a children's charity will suffer without Cordelia on hand to raise funds, she changes her tune. It helps that she is immediately smitten with Theo (Pierre Boulanger) the scion of the charity founder. Meg too wants to escape this situation but when she falls for an Aussie vacationer her plans change as well.

Monte Carlo is far from brilliant comedy but within its modest ambitions it is successful at earning smiles and a few minor laughs. The young stars are sweet and best of all they perform with purpose in a movie that has a clear motivation and coheres to a specific plot. Again, I cannot express how nice it is to watch a movie, especially a teen-centric comedy, that cares why characters do the things they do.

Selena Gomez was on the track for stardom ever since she started out as a regular playmate for Barney the Dinosaur. Gomez is sweet, smart and pretty and the makers of Monte Carlo showcase her playfulness as well as her beauty. Monte Carlo gets extra credit from me for portraying Gomez's young romance with a light and comic touch. The romance is sweet and chaste and fitting of the young and playful tone of the rest of Monte Carlo. 

Leighton Meester also showed big star potential in Monte Carlo. Meester's roles prior to Monte Carlo had shown her to be a bland beauty with a mostly blank, expressionless face. In Monte Carlo however, especially in chastely romantic scenes with Aussie hunk Luke Bracey, Meester is lively and fun in an effortless yet PG friendly way. Considering that the role Meester took on just before Monte Carlo was the unwatchable supposed 'thriller' The Roommate, Monte Carlo was Casablanca by comparison. 

Monte Carlo doesn't reinvent the teen comedy wheel but in its formulaic, PG comedy way, it's a pleasant distraction and a breath of fresh air compared to a kid comedies of the same time period, 2010 and 11, like Mr. Popper's Penguins or even a rom-com like Something Borrowed, both of which looked downright amateurish compared to the effortless family friendly fun of Monte Carlo which is both kid flick and modest rom-com.'