The Blackening
- Directed by Tim Story
- Written by Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins
- Starring Dewayne Perkins, Sinqua Walls and Antoinette Robertson
- Classification 18A; 96 minutes
- Opens in theatres June 16
Critic’s Pick
If everyone in a horror movie is Black, who dies first? So goes the premise of director Tim Story’s newest flick, The Blackening.
Based on the 2018 Comedy Central short of the same name written by Dewayne Perkins, the film centres on a group of Black friends who go away for Juneteenth weekend, only to find themselves trapped in a cabin with a killer. Co-penned by Girls’ Trip writer Tracy Oliver, The Blackening is a wry, wonderfully meta send-up of the genre and the roles the Black characters (and audiences) have often played within it.
The name of the film refers to an insidious and uncannily animated board game that greets the group of vacationers in the “game room” of their getaway destination (literally, a cabin in the woods). Seemingly controlled by the board’s minstrel centrepiece, the game quizzes the friends on their so-called Blackness, asking them to answer questions such as, “How many Black characters were on the TV show Friends?” and solve math questions using the lyrics to rapper Nas’ song, One Mic.
It’s a game that is as funny and self-referential as it is a sly vehicle to build out the film’s horror elements. As much fun as both the characters and the audience are having, the possibility of death looms large for our characters if they answer even one question incorrectly.
Within all of this are elements of the film that speak directly to Black audiences: Characters communicate in full dialogue with each other through knowing exchanges of looks, in-jokes land sharply and are not explained any more than they need to be, and the playful reactions of Black audiences are echoed by characters in the flick itself. This is a horror movie that loves horror movies as much as it does its audience. Each and every joke and allusion lands with an easiness that could only come from its creators being fans of the genre.
From The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to The People Under the Stairs to, of course, Get Out, The Blackening is clearly indebted to, and plays with, the horror films that came before it. Perkins seems particularly influenced by the summer slashers of the 1990s and 2000s, resulting in a film that is not just a send-up of canonical installments such as I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream, but a winking citation and reshaping of how Black folks have been previously represented.
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While the production here might not be elevated, so to speak, and some characters feel more like goofy caricatures than seasoned camp spectacle – exactly what is happening here with Jermaine Fowler’s portrayal of the Urkel-esque character, Clifton, we might never know – the pleasures and fun of The Blackening are very similar to those of its influences.
It is easily digestible and highly rewatchable moviemaking that, even in its schlockiest moments, meets audience desires for a mainstream slasher flick. Even in its predictability and retreading of familiar narratives, Story’s production is a genuinely hilarious – if at times absurd – film that pays loving, tongue-in-cheek homage to the genre and revamps it to centre Black horror fans. It offers a kind of nostalgic revisiting of well-worn tropes that contribute to the comforts and entertainment the genre holds for many.
More than that, the film brings Black audiences entirely into its wry reworking, allowing us to be wholly in on the joke. Even if its cultural and artistic stakes remain relatively low in the grand scheme of things, The Blackening – whose enjoyment absolutely lies in the fact that it both knows exactly the confines it’s working within and doesn’t take itself too seriously – is still a hell of a good time.
Special to The Globe and Mail