Black Christmas movie review & film summary (2019)

Mu Kappa Epsilon sister Riley (Imogen Poots) receives mysterious, threatening private messages on her smartphone. For some reason, she doesn’t instantly block the messenger, who claims to be Calvin Hawthorne, her slave-owning college’s founder. But as you might imagine, the real danger to Riley comes from the community of men who support (tacitly or directly) her cyber-stalker. Soon enough, Riley and her fellow sorority members, like Kris (Aleyse Shannon) and Marty (Lily Donoghue), are physically attacked by a cabal of masked men.

There’s never any doubt as to who these men are: frat guys from Delta Kappa Omicron, whose former president Brian (Ryan McIntire) sexually assaulted Riley, but they, of course, don’t believe her. Still, knowing who’s behind the masks—not to mention the “Eyes Wide Shut”-inspired masks that these creeps wear—only serve to enhance the movie’s viscerally upsetting stalk-and-slash scenes.

But that’s part of what makes this year’s “Black Christmas” not only immediately satisfying, but also a fitting companion to the bleak 1974 “Black Christmas,” another horror movie where young women are targeted and picked off by a deranged killer. Fear of women is the thematic tie that binds these two slashers, though the new “Black Christmas” is understandably more focused on how women are met with resistance whenever they accuse men of complicity and wrong-doing. Takal and Wolfe make it hard to dismiss Riley’s feelings of exasperation and panic by juxtaposing her hopeless interactions with Gil (Mark Neilson), a believably uncooperative security guard, and Professor Gelson (Cary Elwes), a condescending frat sponsor, with the sudden and periodic dispatch of Riley’s fellow MKE members.

During the middle portion of “Black Christmas,” we see a group of women trapped by macho hostility and indifference. This is the unnerving part of the movie, the part where a believable conspiracy, fostered by gross pride, takes shape. We see the plot against Riley and her friends everywhere: in the portrait of Brian that hangs in his frat’s hallway; in the childishly defensive way that Gil responds to Riley when she asks him to help her find one of her missing friends (mayonnaise has never looked so gross); in Gelson’s passive-aggressive dismissal of Riley’s accusations (made that much more credible by the way he conflates his mistrust of Riley with his nostalgia for Hawthorne); and in a quietly upsetting argument between Riley and Kris that’s full of bitter, self-flagellating accusations about who’s to blame for their present dilemma. Takal, Wolfe, and their generally strong ensemble cast (especially Poots) effectively drew me into the minds of Riley and her friends, a group of realistic characters who are messy and frightened without being diminished or condemned for their anger and insecurities.