A huge reason “The Blackening” works as well as it does is simply because the humor within this horror/comedy written and directed by Black people, is made for Black people. This statement may seem obvious, but with it I only mean to say that this film has no real desire to commodify Blackness for a white audience, like so many mainstream Black comedies tend to do.
Synopsis: A group of Black friends (Antoinette Roberton, Dewayne Perkins, Siqua Walls, Grace Byers, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo and Jermaine Fowler) reunite in a cabin in the woods to celebrate Juneteenth. During their stay, they discover a board game that looks racist as hell called “The Blackening” (and hilariously referred to by the group as “Jim Crow Monopoly”). At that point they are forced by a mysterious masked killer to play said game, where the object is to determine who is the “Blackest” and therefore who should die first.
Admittedly, as a Black man I walked into this film with much trepidation. The trailers looked cringy and buffoonish. And the tagline which read, “we can’t all die first” referring to the horror stereotype of Black characters always dying first, seemed like the setup for a single-joke premise elongated by a smattering of low hanging fruit comedy, depicting Black people put on screen solely to be laughed at.
But fairly early on my expectations were subverted. After about ten minutes into the movie, with the introduction of actual three-dimensional Black characters and a slew of well written and very targeted jokes, “The Blackening” quickly establishes itself as a more than worthy horror/comedy with an engaging whodunit throughline. Not to say that there aren’t any cheap laughs, but not for one moment did I feel as though I was stuck in a theater watching an improv group.
Final Thought: For me this felt like “Scream” for the Black community. Yeah, I said it. Meaning, it’s a movie that could’ve been “just another slasher”, checking all of the boxes, but instead chose to do something more. To engage in some meta-cinema with a specific audience, never taking a moment to explain the bulk of the jokes or handhold the uninitiated; trusting that the material is strong enough to entertain everyone in the theater. “The Blackening” is a movie with familiar horror/comedy aspects, but unapologetically centers Black audiences. And it’s more than good enough to create its own distinct spot within the genre. That’s right, director Tim Story’s name can finally be attached to a good movie.
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