Thursday, 14 March 2024

VOD: The Blackening (dir: Tim Story, 2023)

"Are there any white people who wanna kill us?"
"Potentially, all of them!"

Eight college friends have a Juneteenth ten-year reunion weekend at a plush cabin in the woods but - as the Scream-like prologue reveals - a dangerous board game in the basement and a masked killer spell trouble.  Taken from the long-held notion that black characters do not survive in horror films and here presenting a lead cast entirely of black actors and juggling horror tropes, comedy and social comment, the film executes the more conventional horror scenes best - it is certainly better than the A Haunted House movies - and there are some nicely witty comments on black culture and experience.  Overall, the film may be very uneven, but it is fun and purposeful when it does hit the mark. 
 

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