The holidays aren’t always a happy time, and Christmas—BLACK CHRISTMAS, that is—certainly wasn’t kind to filmmaker Glen Morgan back in 2006. His remake of Bob Clark’s 1974 Yuletide horror classic was a troubled production, with the final product being much maligned by critics and horror fans alike. However, before things went wrong, Dayna Van Buskirk spoke with Morgan, the late Bob Clark and others about the CHRISTMAS redux.

Tired of all the warm and fuzzy Christmas movies typically released during the holidays? The horror genre has kept its bloody hands off the season’s neck for long enough. This year, whether you think they’ve trod on sacred ground or believe it was a perfect choice for a remake, Glen Morgan and James Wong are delivering us the gift of an R-rated BLACK CHRISTMAS.

Opening Christmas Day—a distinction Bob Clark’s original film never received back in 1974, and one that has led to protests from religious organizations—this updated version is not a huge departure (the story is essentially the same), but neither is it meant to be a redundant copy of an aging classic with a glossy finish, like some remakes tend to be. THE OMEN, anyone? No takers? Didn’t think so.

“We didn’t do any sort of analytical look at why things work and why things don’t,” producer James Wong says. “All you can really do is make a movie you think is good, that is scary and thrilling, and go from there. [The original] film, it’s classic, and that in itself has its dangers, because a lot of people love what they remember of the movie long ago. And we don’t want to piss off that kind of audience, but at the same time you have to update it, or do something new that makes it interesting or worthwhile to do again. This is not the Gus Van Sant PSYCHO where he supposedly [remade] it shot-for-shot. It’s a weird thing to approach a project like this, because there’s a lot riding on it for a lot of people.”

This is not the first stab at a remake for Morgan and Wong. Though they’re best-known for creating the FINAL DESTINATION franchise, for which they penned and Wong directed the first and third entries, they’re also the guys behind WILLARD. That redux, like BLACK CHRISTMAS, was written and directed by Morgan, and though the studio and many others were happy with the finished product, it simply didn’t make money.

“I was very cynical after my WILLARD experience,” Morgan admits. “I was pretty damn depressed for three months. I was really bummed out. If I want to keep working, and take things to another level, and then another level, [the movies] have to be successful. Bob Shaye, the head of New Line, was wonderful about it. He had given us our first shot, and we lost him a lot of money [with WILLARD]. When we did FINAL DESTINATION 3, he said, ‘Look, I know you think you screwed up the last one, but I really liked it. It just doesn’t always happen.’ And that really meant the world to me. I’m proud of that movie. I had a lot of people call to say they liked it, but…the chance to direct another movie or a TV pilot is based off your box office.”

And in addition to juggling the objectives of making a film they consider entertaining and scary, and reaching a big enough audience to ensure a profit for the studio without alienating the fans who hold the first CHRISTMAS in high regard, Morgan and Wong were also determined to make a film that met with the approval of Bob Clark, the director of the 1974 horror great. Clark, however, while optimistic and supportive of the project, left it in Morgan and Wong’s hands. He’s convinced that his work was done when he approved them as the guys to update CHRISTMAS.

“I read the drafts and they started to have the usual studio struggle, and I was really much more on Glen’s side,” Clark notes. “That helped, I believe. Nothing heavy, but it was the usual rites of passage you go through when you develop a script. But the truth of the matter is, I had very little to do or say; nothing with casting, except maybe Andrea Martin [who returns from the ’74 film]. Six months ago I kind of said, ‘Wouldn’t that be great’…and I kind of forgot about it. I didn’t find out until I read the cast list that [Morgan] had gotten her. I thought that was terrific, and everybody loved her on set.”

Martin, one of the sorority sisters in the previous film, returns to play Ms. Mac, the house mother to a group of college girls who are terrorized one evening over Christmas break by a disturbed killer. The villain, who lives and hides inside the house—in the attic and behind the walls—makes nonsensical, violent calls to the house, then follows up by killing the girls one by one. Though there was no real theme to the murders in the original, Morgan’s maniac has a bit of an obsession with eyes, which makes for some rather grotesque FX gags. In fact, this CHRISTMAS is far bloodier than its predecessor. The majority of the FX in the film are practical makeup gags, crafted by Schminkën Studio and supervised by Toby Lindala, who has worked regularly with Morgan and Wong since their X FILES days. The major visual FX and CGI work is sparse, and mostly used to touch up scenes and support Lindala’s efforts. Morgan was determined from the beginning to shoot as much of the gore as possible live during production.

James Tichenor, the movie’s visual FX supervisor, explains the role he played in the process: “Basically, we got a script and kind of a semi-breakdown that they had already gone through. I believe they originally had a lot more shots than they ended up coming to me with, and they had gone through and already shaved out a good percentage of stuff as practical. They want to get as much in camera as they can, and they really love Toby’s makeup. They wanted to get him doing as much of his stuff as he could. So I got this list of 14 shots, and I met with Glen. It was funny, because when we hold a meeting I usually sort of run through all the shots, and the first one I mentioned he said, ‘Oh, we won’t do that as a visual effect.’ I can’t remember what it was; I think it was a reflection in a ball. We ended up doing it as a visual effect, but the tone was set right there that we had to pick three or four really specific points and do those as visual effects, and the rest we’d do practical.

“Most of what Glen picked was maintenance stuff,” Tichenor continues. “Wire removals, that kind of invisible clean-up stuff; adding snow to a few scenes and enhancing atmosphere that way. That’s cool, the invisible stuff—I like that.”

“FINAL DESTINATION has power kills,” Morgan notes, “with buses and weights and subways. We don’t have that here, so we tried to make it intense and add shock. I don’t want to be clichéd, but I believe that a portion of the horror fans want it that way. So when I was shooting it, it had the kitchen sink, and in editing it I tried to have something else—and if someone complained, then I could put more of that stuff back.”

For more on the original BLACK CHRISTMAS, pick up a copy of FANGORIA #300 (out next month), in which Clark’s picture is one of the top 300 horror movies covered in our special February issue.

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