Death by icicle. Death by Christmas lights. What next? Death by Rudolph’s antlers? Death by chimney asphyxiation? Death by over-consumption of under-cooked turkey? Alas, not.

The answer, much like the film by the production company that brought us such low-budget blockbusters as Paranormal Activity and The Purge, as well as the Oscar-winning Get Out, is a disappointment.

Death by car key.

The premise by director Sophia Takal and co-writer April Wolfe is political with a capital P and capital LIT as classics student Riley Stone (Imogen Poots) and her sorority sisters confront the “ruthless misogyny of higher education” and “frat boy rape culture” by performing a Santa Baby-esque cock-tease which morphs into a damning indictment of patriarchy.

A subversive twist which – together with a petition to sack a sexist lecturer and a campaign to remove a bust of the college’s misogynist founder – gets the knickers of the pale, male elite in a twist.

So, when one of Riley’s friends goes missing (death by icicle), the finger of suspicion points firmly towards a former fraternity president who has returned to campus three years after allegedly raping Riley. Or perhaps it is the arrogant professor or an arrogant student or all of the arrogant above. Who knows? And for much of the vapid first hour, who cares?

The tension ratchets up in the final third as an army of cloaked killers close-in on their female targets, and Takal and Wolfe raise important questions about male power and the objectification of women (“Christmas is a time for looking sexy,” bleats one doe-eyed deer), but the characters lack sufficient depth and complexity for it to be a meaty drama, and the action lacks sufficient suspense and gore for it be a chilling slasher.

And what’s more, much like the flesh-baring and fat-shaming magazines which promote the ideology it rebukes, it’s all a bit glossy.

A promising premise, ably performed. But, ultimately, Black Christmas is white noise.

Director: Sophia Takal
Writers: Sophia Takal, April Wolfe
Stars: Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Lily Donoghue
Peter Callaghan
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