YMMV / Black Christmas (2006)

• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Heather seems like one of those annoying morally superior Miss Perfect types, and you expect her to be a Final Girl. Then suddenly she gets slaughtered while trapped in the car.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Billy's mother and stepfather were probably just fucking with him when they gave him a telescope as a Christmas gift, though there is also the incredibly remote possibility that they actually were trying to be nice.
  • When she's attacked by the killer, Melissa runs back into Lauren's room rather than downstairs or to Megan's (where the window is open). Did she panic and pick the nearest place? Or was it her instinct to not leave Lauren alone with the killer?
• Ass Pull: It's never really explained why Agnes is Billy's accomplice, considering how he hated her as a child and actually tried to kill her. How on earth did they find each other and team up?
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Billy cutting cookies out of his mother's flesh comes completely out of nowhere, in fact, there is absolutely no explanation as to why he, or Agnes, turn cannibalistic at all.
  • Ms. Mac's death by icicle, and the fact that it is an accident.
• Ending Fatigue: The film goes to a nice climax with Leigh turning out to be Not Quite Dead and rescuing Kelli, burning the sorority house down and affirming a bond with Kelli as a surrogate sister to her. Then in the hospital, the film drags on for another fifteen minutes with an extended chase sequence. Unsurprisingly, this was tacked on by producers against the director's wishes.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Melissa is quite beloved, due to being played by Michelle Trachtenberg and the nicest of the girls. And the fact that, despite initially appearing to be a standard Girly Girl - she soon reveals herself to be a bit of a Nightmare Fetishist with a Deadpan Snarker persona as well. She was meant to survive the film, but her actress wanted to be killed off.
  • Dana likewise, played by Lacey Chabert - also subverting her apparent Girly Girl persona to reveal herself as a Wrench Wench again with a Deadpan Snarker side. And she can be entertainingly bitchy.
  • Leigh is also pretty popular due to her Big Sister Instinct providing some of the film's most emotional and nuanced moments.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content:
  • The original filmed ending has the well-liked Leigh surviving, has some good Family of Choice moments, and only didn't get used because of Executive Meddling. Many fans wish it had been kept.
  • In the original script, Billy has been Dead All Along and Agnes is the killer. This would have been a clever Not His Sled moment, avoided the Ass Pull nature of the siblings working together, and likely made more sense. Additionally, Ensemble Dark Horse Melissa survives.
• He's Just Hiding: Getting a broken neck like Leigh did isn't always fatal (or even completely paralyzing) when there's fast enough medical treatment available (she was in a hospital at the time).
• Hollywood Homely: Eve is given big Nerd Glasses, hair tied back and framed with dutch angles to make her seem plain. Her actress Kathleen Kole was in fact a model.
• Informed Wrongness: Kyle having a sex tape is presented as a bigger issue to Kelli than the fact that her boyfriend and friend have just been the victim of revenge porn. The tape was made before they were together, and it's on the internet because someone else stole it and uploaded it without their consent! The movie never elaborates on whether Meghan knew the tape existed, and seems to imply that it existing it at all is the big deal, as well as the existence of multiple tapes in his past. Again, the movie never elaborates on whether they were anything more than sex tapes between two consenting adults.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Heather is The Scrappy rather than the two serial killers because, as a mere Rich Bitch, she lacks the tragic backstory of being an abuse victim. She also gets a nasty Kick the Dog moment to Lauren, taunting her for being disliked by her family (although she's actually just responding to a taunt from Lauren in that moment). Then there's her being The Load and willing to leave Lauren (and any other survivors who might be out there) alone in the middle of a snowstorm.
• Moe: Kelli actually in the early part of the movie, when she cutely bangs on Meghan's door and puts on an adorable threatening voice saying "if you're not down in ten minutes, I'm gonna take your presents!"
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Mrs. Lenz and her lover cross it by killing Mr. Lenz and imprisoning Billy in the attic for 15 years. Capped off by Mrs. Lenz raping Billy at least once during that time.
  • Billy crossed it by gouging out Agnes's eye when she was eight. Freudian Excuse or not, she hadn't done anything wrong (yet).
• More Popular Replacement: Leigh fills the role of Mr Harrison from the original - Claire's relative searching for her. He's considered a stuffy patriarchal authority figure who doesn't accomplish much, while Leigh is an active character with a more interesting persona.
• Narm: Agnes' phone calls are so ridiculously over the top, and they all end with "She's my family now..." Especially since in the original, Billy's phone calls were genuinely unsettling, with all sorts of profanity and threats (and ironically the girls in that made light of them, making the remake characters seem easily spooked).
• Narm Charm:
  • There are a lot of fans who love the cheesiness and corniness of some of the kills, precisely because it fits the Christmas setting so well.
  • Dana's line - "I'd like to bury the hatchet with my sister. Right in her head" - is rather on the nose for a slasher film, but that's part of the charm.
  • Kristen Cloke's performance as Leigh is a bit big in parts, but she's still quite liked as a character all the same.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The backstory this remake gives the killer is actually based off something Bob Clark came up with for the original; in a TV special about the film, Bob Clark stated he felt that Billy was abused by his parents, abused his sister Agnes in turn and later killed his parents while Agnes escaped.
  • A killer called Billy being driven to villainy after seeing the murder of a parent on Christmas happened in Silent Night, Deadly Night as well. In both films, Billy makes it to adulthood before becoming a murderer.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The film came under fire by Christian groups, who called for a boycott because it was a horror film themed around Christmas, and also set to be released on Christmas Day, following in the footsteps of Silent Night, Deadly Night, which met with similar controversy over 20 years earlier. Dimension Films pointed out that horror films had a long tradition of being released around Christmastime as counter-programming to the usual family and art-house fare (notable examples include The Exorcist and Scream).
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Maurice was Billy's mother.
  • Katie Cassidy would become far better known for Supernatural, Gossip Girl and of course Arrow.
  • Mary Elizabeth Winstead would achieve greater prominence in Death Proof, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Live Free or Die Hard.
• Ron the Death Eater: Heather's decision to flee the sorority house rather than look for the missing girls might have been cowardly, but whether she deserves to be The Scrappy over it is debatable. The missing girls are in fact already dead, there isn't much reason to think that a Spree Killer like Billy would have kept them alive, and the authorities will stand a better chance against Billy.
• The Scrappy: Heather is the least likable of the girls, for her dour attitude and wet blanket nature. She's also rather rude to Eve, who tries to be nice and give her a thoughtful Christmas present. And when Mrs Mac is trying to get them out of the driveway, Heather just sits in the car and doesn't seem to grasp the concept of brushing snow off a windshield.
• Shocking Moments: The deaths of Heather, Dana and Melissa. The former was played by an actress who seems like an obvious Final Girl, while the latter two were among the bigger names in the cast.
• Signature Scene: Billy killing his mother and stepfather, then making cookies out of his mother's flesh, is the most widely-remembered scene of the film.
• So Bad, It's Good: Over time, people have begun to separate it from the original, and appreciate it as a fun, campy Christmas Slasher Movie with some nice visuals. Bloody Disgusting has even written a piece essentially defending the film as such.
• So Bad, It Was Better: Compared to the 2019 remake. The 2006 film is far from a good movie, especially compared to the original which is considered a Trope Maker of the slasher genre, but some horror fans still enjoy it for its over-the-top violence and campiness. The 2019 film, on the other hand, takes itself far more seriously and has very little to do with the original film. It also cut out or heavily edited most of the more violent scenes to earn a PG-13 rating to appeal to younger audiences. The end result is that the 2019 version is a lot less fun to watch, while still being vastly inferior to the 1974 film.
• Squick:
  • Billy and Agnes eat their victim's eyes. Some of them even pop.
  • Billy gets raped by his own mother, who does so from his rocking chair. And this is how Agnes gets conceived.
  • Billy later in life dismembers his mother and bakes her flesh into Christmas cookies.
• Testosterone Brigade: While the ladies of the original were pretty, they weren't all conventionally so. This one has a cast full of glamorous beauties, and with more of them compared to the three mains of the original. Katie Cassidy, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Crystal Lowe, Jessica Harmon and Leela Savasta are all gorgeous. Michelle Trachtenberg and Lacey Chabert had been child stars, and this was the film that showed off they had grown up into beautiful adults. Kristen Cloke and Andrea Martin are older than college age, but likewise very appealing.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Eve is someone who lives in Billy's old room and is obsessed with the local legend, as well as being the odd one out in a house full of Girly Girls. That's pretty rich material for a character who just exists as an extremely obvious Red Herring.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: We're meant to hate Kyle or think of him as a Jerkass for trying to conceal his sex video with Megan. Except he outright says it was made before he even knew Kelli, and Megan dies too soon before we can found out if she knew she was being filmed (her shocked expression when watching could easily just be from the fact that it's on the internet). If she did, then it's simply a sex tape between two consenting partners. While he says he has 'tapes' plural, they're on the internet because someone else stole them and uploaded them. If it was something he doesn't do anymore and is ashamed of, it's understandable he wouldn't want to mention it to Kelli out of respect for her feelings.
• The Un-Twist: It's hinted a few times that Leigh could actually be Agnes, since she has a different last name to Clair and suspiciously sends Dana into the crawl space to be killed. Her insistence that the girls are missing rather than dead makes her seem rather suspicious. Such a twist would be hard to pull off, since Agnes is missing an eye, but anyway Leigh turns out to be a Red Herring and genuinely Clair's half-sister.
• Vindicated by History: Considered a disappointment when it was first released, especially compared to the 1974 original, it has acquired some fans over the years who enjoy it as a campy and more over-the-top Christmas slasher. It's also been noted for having a likable cast of females, some good visuals and some loving homages to the original. It's also seen in a better light thanks to the 2019 remake being received even worse. It helps that many of the movie's flaws were forced through by Executive Meddling, allowing some to enjoy it for what it was attempting to be.
• The Woobie:
  • Kelli just wants to spend Christmas first with her sorority sisters and then her boyfriend. Then she discovers what a jerk her boyfriend is and her friends slowly being murdered one by one. When she's trapped in the drywall screaming for help, it's actually heart wrenching.
  • Leigh herself was estranged from her half-sister, and is going through an unpleasant divorce (judging from a throwaway line of dialogue). She was planning to reconnect with Clair for the holiday, and spends most of the film hoping she's just missing.

---