While plenty of independent horror filmmakers have attempted new spins on the Friday the 13th and Halloween franchises, one property that has been left well alone is the proto-slasher Black Christmas.
Bob Clark’s seminal bone chiller has had two Hollywood reboots attempted over the past 15 years but no fan has tackled it until now.
The unique thing about co-directors Dave McRae and Bruce Dale’s story is that, very much in the vein of Halloween 2018, this is a fast-forward sequel introducing a new generation to the terrors of 1974.
Despite being a crowdfunded project where you might expect shaky camerawork and some questionable acting, this is a beautifully shot film with a well structured narrative that attempts to bring the Black Christmas mythos into 2021 with some caveats that some fans could potentially pick fault with, but make a lot of sense within the structure.
While there are some POV shots in the film, this does not dominate the appearances of Billy who gets plenty to do during the 41 minute runtime. We do get to see Billy in action and there are some callbacks to a handful of iconic shots from the original.
As the lead Victoria Mero is excellent and definitely has a striking resemblance to Olivia Hussey’s Jess who she is playing the granddaughter of. The gist of the story is that Sam (Mero) is going to stay at her late grandmother’s house over Christmas with her two friends unbeknownst to them, the mysterious ‘Billy’ has returned to wreak more yuletide havoc.
As a voice artist McRae also attempts to pay homage to the harassing phone calls from Black Christmas, and largely succeeds but also tries to update some of the dialogue to fit with this story.
It’s Me Billy also leaves us questions, which it would be fascinating to explore in the future if the filmmakers decide to do a second part.
Watch It’s Me Billy: A Black Christmas fan film on YouTube now.
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