Black people do not survive horror films. Think about it – Black-helmed horror movies notwithstanding, how many Black folks lived to see their horror film’s closing credits? The first one that comes to my mind is Fool from The People Under the Stairs. After that, Brandy made it in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, and LL Cool J and Busta Rhymes avoided a ticket to the Upper Room in their respective Halloween turns.
That unfortunate circumstance is likely the leading culprit for the lack of Black presence in front of and behind the cameras of horror films. Yet, the disposal of Black horror characters also inspired the humorous commentary heard from audiences during a horror viewing in the theater or at home. The Blackening is the culmination of a problematic trope’s lemons and its comedic discourse’s lemonade.
Based on a 2018 short film of the same name, The Blackening is about seven friends who unwittingly walk into a deadly life-or-death game. It’s a pretty standard premise in horror, but this time there’s a twist – the group’s “Blackness” determines their survival or failure, subverting the crimes of horror films past.
From a horror angle, The Blackening is surprisingly decent, as it does just enough to be taken seriously. Director Tim Story gets that horror audience buy-in by following a Sawesque or Scream-like playbook. He uses suspense and graphic injuries and kills more than jump scares to keep you on the edge of your seat. Granted, it doesn’t have the level of violence to put it on par with the movies above, but it still fits nicely into the slasher horror subgenre.
That said, it’s the laughs and social critiques where The Blackening flourishes. Regardless of genre, many films have tried and failed to capture the Black experience in a funny, relatable, and sincere way. The Blackening masters it.
Veteran comedy writers Dewayne Perkins (who wrote the previously mentioned Blackening short) and Tracy Oliver crafted a script whose strength lies in authenticity. They say everything you thought or wanted to say about Black people in a horror movie. In other films, that familiarity emerged as somebody writing jokes from their intern’s Black Twitter checklist. Here, Perkins and Oliver's jokes and dialogue feel real because it’s born of conversations we have with each other vs. a series of viral tweets.
Things get better when it comes to how Perkins and Oliver handle “Blackness.” The duo wrote the group of friends in a way that represents Blackness as a monolith. They show we can come from all walks of life and beliefs but still co-exist within meaningful relationships with one another. They also point out how our perceptions of Blackness can be divisive. Again, there’s familiarity, but that’s because the characters have enough dimensions and backstories for us to recognize whether they are people we know or if we’re those people.
In front of the camera, The Blackening suffers no drop-off. The ensemble cast has incredible chemistry that amplifies the script's authenticity and doesn’t miss a single beat. Be it physical comedy, a rapid-fire back and forth, or an occasional flex of dramatic chops. This crew effortlessly moves around each scene like folks who know the line dance for Tamia’s “Can’t Get Enough.”
It isn’t easy to pick a standout from the group, but Jermaine Fowler would be my pick if you forced me to choose. He’s convincingly sheepish and timid as Clifton, and he steals more scenes than a jailbroken Firestick. It’s easily Fowler’s best performance to date.
While it shockingly holds up as a slasher, The Blackening excels as a comedy that subverts, entertains, and educates. It uses humor to correct the long-practiced wrong of erasing Black people in horror while highlighting the nuances and importance of Blackness.
I cringe at the mention of the phrase “for the culture” because it’s used often and seldom applies. However, if there was ever a movie for all cultures, it’s The Blackening.
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