Black Christmas
Universal Pictures | Release Date: December 13, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
8
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
86
IGNChristie PuchkoDec 12, 2019
Blended brilliantly, this remake of Black Christmas makes for holiday horror that's a tantalizing and terrifying treat. Read full review
82
PolygonKaren HanDec 13, 2019
For the most part, Black Christmas is a breath of fresh air. Unlike their 1974 counterparts, these sisters are more than just bodies to be dismembered; they’re forcefully bonding together to fight back against an oppressive system. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsDec 13, 2019
So while not everything works in Black Christmas, the stuff that does is ultimately what matters most. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Angelica Jade BastienDec 16, 2019
If the righteous retelling ever feels heavy-handed, it’s Poots’s command of her role and the cast’s electric chemistry that make this a reckoning fit for our fantasies. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKimber MyersDec 12, 2019
Black Christmas is a fun film that gets its kicks out of literally smashing the patriarchy. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanDec 12, 2019
You can’t take a movie like this too seriously, but it’s still one of the rare slasher films that offers a holiday from bloodshed for its own sake. Read full review
67
The Film StageJohn FinkDec 16, 2019
A horror film populated by smart characters that take on the patriarchy by refusing to play by its rules, its anger and its heart is in the right place. The problem is how it achieves these ends with plot devices that feel borrowed from cheap studio cash grabs usually dumped in theaters in January and September. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMatthew MonagleDec 16, 2019
For all its political positioning and explorations of institutional violence, the thing that makes Black Christmas most endearing is the strength of its sisterhood. Read full review
67
IndieWireJude DryDec 12, 2019
Using the hyper-gendered spaces of college Greek life as a fertile palette, Takal and her co-writer April Wolfe skewer toxic masculinity, the white male literary canon, rape culture, patriarchy, and white male rage — all wrapped up with a bow in the stylishly entertaining package of a studio-backed holiday horror. Read full review
60
Rolling StoneDavid FearDec 14, 2019
You could, however, accuse this Black Christmas of elevating the subtext of decades’ worth of slasher flicks to the point that the text itself starts to take a backseat, or that its third-act reveal may be trying a tad too hard to grab the social-thriller brass ring. You would not necessarily be wrong. Read full review
60
Screen DailyTim GriersonDec 13, 2019
Anchored by Imogen Poots’ emotional performance, Black Christmas is uneven and overreaches, and yet its anger at a misogynistic society gets its claws into its audience. Read full review
60
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergDec 12, 2019
If the 2019 Black Christmas is not nearly as chilling as the original, it is genuinely barbed as gender satire, and it cleverly pre-empts obvious outrage. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubBeatrice LoayzaDec 13, 2019
The latest Black Christmas reboot understands the frustrations and lived horrors of modern sexual politics, but stumbles over its scares and the finer points of its feminist messaging. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattDec 13, 2019
A sort of forgettable Christmas wisp, a black-hearted jingle bell only half-rung. Read full review
55
TheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanDec 12, 2019
As a mainstream slasher remake, Black Christmas is bound to be judged a letdown. But Takal’s aims are more subversive. And thanks to her, there’s now a bonkers deconstruction of a mainstream slasher remake hiding in plain sight. Read full review
40
EmpireIan FreerDec 13, 2019
A feminist horror flick that lacks nuance in its feminism and thrills in its horror. But it should be applauded for reinterpreting rather than just retreading the original. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfDec 12, 2019
Sophia Takal's update of the cult classic turns the real horror of campus assault into a springboard for cheap thrills. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineDerek SmithDec 12, 2019
The filmmakers’ overly simplistic depiction of good and evil is mitigated to some degree by the presence of Landon (Caleb Eberhardt). Read full review
30
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoDec 12, 2019
Black Christmas deserves to be a better slasher satire propelled by empowerment than the messy, tonally obstructed holiday dud we're gifted. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeDec 12, 2019
Initially a sluggish stalker flick whose undergraduate moral debates are tiresome instead of provocative, it eventually transforms into a patriarchy metaphor as obvious as, well, all those Greek-lettered paddles that decorate both the frat's and the sorority's clubhouses. Read full review
25
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 13, 2019
Black Christmas has a female empowerment “woke/revenge” subtext, making it a slap in the face to the “torture porn” decade of horror. Sorority girls, hunted on a college campus where this sort of thing may have been going on through time immemorial, turn the tables on their tormentors...Great...If only they’d get around to that a tad earlier. But no, we’ve got to have an hour of summary slaughter, a collection of the dullest, least sympathetic and most poorly set-up murders in the history of Dead Teenager Movies. Read full review
25
ConsequenceMeagan NavarroDec 13, 2019
The real horrors of campus assaults should be examined, and horror makes for a perfect vehicle for that discussion. Yet this remake’s ambitions are too lofty for its own good. The messaging forgoes finesse and grace in favor of blatant lecturing, cramming patriarchy, rape culture, toxic masculinity, and white male rage all in an unsatisfying Christmas horror package. Read full review
20
Film ThreatBobby LePireJan 9, 2020
Aside from a decent cast trapped in a shoddy everything else, there is nothing to recommend here. Read full review
20
The GuardianBenjamin LeeDec 12, 2019
It’s an unwieldy and messy thing, drearily directed and boringly written, taking its agenda seriously yet not providing a robust enough framework to surround it. Read full review
0
ObserverRex ReedDec 18, 2019
Despite its desperate efforts to justify the homicides, there’s nothing remotely innovative or even goofily satirical about it. The lousy actors, incompetent writer and clueless director remain nameless. That’s my good-deed Christmas gift to all involved, and better luck next year. Read full review
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