Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: A sorority is stalked by two lame killers on Christmas Eve.
Review: I have to say, this is a contender for worst remake; the real winner is probably that piece of shit "Shutter" remake! When this first came out I remember thinking, "what the fuck did I just watch"? Well, my thoughts have not changed one bit over the last couple years. I can't even believe they had the confidence to release this on Christmas Day as if anyone in their right mind would run out and see this! The original was ripe with material to work with to tell a new story or even a better one, and, yet, the creators failed so monumentally. Not only does this film suck massively in comparison to the original, but it hardly even makes sense as a coherent plot. From start to finish, everything feels like a jumbled mess as if the editor was drunk on spiked eggnog or something. The only redeeming quality to this travesty is the abundance of babes, of which, most are horror alum. You can't go wrong with the likes of Katie Cassidy as the lead, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and the severely underrated Lacey Chabert who should be in everything. However, yes, the girls are here and looking great, but they cannot save this mess and this isn't any of their best work
The biggest and worst change comes in the form of the killer and addition of an accomplice. The mystery of the killer's identity and his phone calls are what made the original memorable, but those ideas are tossed out the window in favor of shenanigans; they also decided to give these two killers the most retarded of backstories which eats up a lot of the running time. In the original, the killer mentioned the names Billy and Agnes in his disturbing phone calls, so this film decided to make those actual characters which I suppose is mildly clever. Billy, as a child, used to live at the sorority house, obviously before the sorority, and saw his mother and her boyfriend murder his dad one Christmas. Considering how big the house is, how the hell do these clowns have money for this as we are left to assume the murdered father must have been the one with money? They make the mom out to be such a psycho bitch which only emphasizes the ridiculous nature of it all; I should note, Billy boy has yellow skin for the sake of trying to make him appear intimidating. As time passes, Billy's mom starts to "rape" the catatonic-like Billy as we are left to assume he is traumatized from watching his dad die and is locked in the attic. This leads to the birth of his sister/daughter, Agnes, who we learn pretty much nothing about. For some reason, when Agnes is about Billy's age when his father was killed, he snaps and murders the mom, boyfriend, and rips out Agnes' eye for whatever reason. Now the film makes Billy out to be a feared killer reminiscent of Michael Myers, but his body count is low, comprised of the people who wronged him, and I feel his murders are justified; if it weren't for ripping out Agnes' eye, he wouldn't be a villain at all. For yet another inexplicable reason, Billy tries to escape some mental institute every Christmas to...kill people...I guess? In fact, he has no motivation to kill whatsoever except because the script demands it. As for Agnes, oh good fucking lord she is a contrivance. Besides the idiotic fact she is played by an extremely large man, she has even less motivation to be a killer and what a coincidental, one in a billion chance, she and Billy boy both decide to return to this, now, sorority house to kill whoever inhabits it on the same day and time?! The movie showed us Billy doesn't like Agnes, but then they conveniently meet up at the same exact moment with the same exact idea to kill and suddenly get along and work together? Are you fucking shitting me here?! And of course both are super-humans when needed and as weak as a little ol' granny at supposed tense moments. To sum it up: the killers have a backstory that is meant to be filler, they have no motive, their meeting defies any reasonable sense of chance, look and act stupid, and follow the horror cliche handbook to the letter. Simply beautiful.
The other half of the story is comprised of the sorority girls talking shit, acting like bitchy princesses, and dying in uninteresting ways. As I mentioned, the story is an incoherent mess as we are introduced to red herrings. Yeah, in a movie that spends so much time explaining the killers' origins, we have red herrings. And it's not even like it's just one, but there are at least three! There are multiple subplots that contribute absolutely nothing to the story except to make the red herrings appear more suspicious which makes you want to strangle someone. Rika--give me the strength to keep on going! I feel like a lot of scenes were filmed with the intention of making this a "whodunnit" like the original, but during filming they changed the direction...either that or they are as dumb as fuck. Everyone dies in lame ways with only two deaths invoking the original's ideas. For some reason the killers have this eye fetish which is moronic and, again, has no explanation. The phone calls are sporadic and make no sense given that the killers are hiding in the walls and floorboards like roaches. Likewise, the killers appear to be everywhere simultaneously; it's as if they figured, "well, we have two killers so we can get away with it," but nice try. All the atmosphere and tension of the original has been sucked out and replaced with by-the-numbers slasher kills. By the end, everyone dies except Ms. Cassidy, so you don't even get to bask in the beauty of the majority of the girls.
The more I think about this garbage the more I realize it goes beyond hate and into loathing territory. Seriously, if it weren't for so many hot chicks in one place, I'd be raging. I mean, if I want to be totally fair, the only good things were the girls, the Christmasy-look was done well, and I liked the claustrophobic feel from the snowstorm trapping them in the house; by the way, the storm is so severe yet a lunatic in bare feet can make it to the house as well as two of the red herrings? This film embodies everything we hate about remakes and why they appear to always be inferior. Hell, even the director has come out saying it sucked! This is the fruitcake of Christmas-themed movies: you don't watch it and punch whoever gave it to you in the face.
Notable Moment: When Heather is killed in the car. I mean, this death is so contrived and stupid it kind of sums up the quality (or lack thereof) of the film as a whole.
Final Rating: 4/10
The lovely ladies with the tatas front and center! Such a clever marketing strategy.
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