Summary

• The original Black Christmas's haunting ending, which leaves the protagonist trapped alone with the unseen villain, is a key reason why the 2006 and 2019 remakes failed to capture the same success.
• The ambiguous ending of the original works because viewers know very little about the villain, creating a sense of fear and uncertainty. In contrast, the remakes provide extensive backstories that detract from the mystery and suspense.
• Both the 2006 and 2019 remakes of Black Christmas spend too much time explaining the motivations and origin of their villains, which takes away from the potential for mystery and scares. The remakes squander the original movie's effective decision to leave the villain's story a mystery.

While the original Black Christmas is an iconic horror movie, the slasher's perfect ending inadvertently explains why its 2006 and 2019 remakes were critical disasters. Despite Psycho, Peeping Tom, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre all contributing elements to the formula, there is a strong argument for calling Bob Clark’s 1974 horror film Black Christmas the first slasher movie. It utilizes many tropes that became central to the subgenre in the decades that followed, including POV shots from the unseen killer’s perspective, a single location filled with young, carefree victims, and a bevy of suspects who could be revealed to be the villain.

Although the original Black Christmas received mixed reviews upon release and underperformed at the box office, the movie became a cult classic over time. Many years later, Black Christmas’s 2006 and 2019 remakes failed in their attempts to capitalize on the first film's legacy. While these two remakes were very different in of tone and themes, the original movie’s haunting ending explains why both of them proved equally unsuccessful.

Black Christmas’s Terrifying Ending Left Billy’s Story A Mystery

The original Black Christmas doesn’t explain the backstory of its unseen villain, Billy. In fact, until the end, it's heavily implied that Billy is an urban legend invented to scare the girls living in a sorority house. Viewers are led to believe that the heroine’s unstable boyfriend, Peter, is behind the killings, resulting in a sense of relief when he is defeated by Olivia’s Hussey’s resilient Final Girl, Jess. However, the closing scene leaves her alone in the sorority house, only for the killer’s trademark heaving breathing to begin again. Black Christmas’s ending confirms Billy is real, and the exhausted heroine is left trapped with him.

This terrifying ambiguous ending works only because viewers know next to nothing about Billy. It's unclear how he survived for years in the attic, why he ended up living there in the first place, or what he did to end up ostracized from society. In stark contrast, the comically lurid but utterly un-scary 2006 remake turns Billy into a bright yellow cannibal whose backstory involves a plethora of potentially triggering themes handled as insensitively as possible. Meanwhile, the villain of the 2019 Black Christmas is a murky magic goo that turns college boys into misogynistic monsters, a clumsy and simplistic metaphor that grows more tortured as the movie progresses.

Black Christmas 2006 & Black Christmas 2019 Ruined Their Villains

Both the 2006 and 2019 versions of Black Christmas could have been mysterious and scary if the remakes didn’t spend 20 minutes apiece explaining the backstories and motives of their antagonists. The 2006 Black Christmas could have devoted more screen time to the movie’s kills if the villain’s backstory hadn’t taken up so much story focus. Meanwhile, the 2019 version’s bizarre black slime might have been a more effective attempt at surreal horror if it didn’t repeatedly explain its origins and modus operandi ad nauseam. Instead, both Black Christmas remakes squandered the original movie’s best decision.