“The Blackening” Review
Allison (Grace Byers) tries to outsmart a sadistic killer in the horror-comedy film “The Blackening.”
Horror has always been a haven for social satire and commentary. More recently, we’ve seen more and more black filmmakers display a biting combination of thoughtful messages with creative scares like Nia DaCosta’s “Candyman” and Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” “Us” and “Nope.” While “The Blackening” is a funny satire of horror movie clichés, it has a lack of scares making for an uneven albeit entertaining experience.
In the film, an all-black group of friends from college reunite at a cabin in the woods to celebrate Juneteenth and have a good time catching up. While some laughs and tensions arise within the group, everything is turned upside down when they discover a racist board game called “The Blackening” and a masked killer who prompts them to play a game. When the friends answer a question wrong, the killer begins to stalk them with a crossbow leaving the group to try and survive the night.
The biggest problem “The Blackening” has is that it has very few scares. At a certain point in the film, you realize that very few characters in the film are going to die, which is fine as long as there is still a feeling of tension. In a recent horror film, “The Boogeyman,” there is also a low body count but you’re constantly on edge because you are constantly worried that one of these characters will be killed. That doesn’t exist in this film.
Despite a creative design of the killer's mask (having it look like a prop from a minstrel show to further drive the film’s commentary), the identity of who’s trying to kill the protagonists and the main motivation felt tacked on at the last minute and didn’t really amount to much.
While “The Blackening” is a flawed horror film, it’s a much better comedy. The ways that this film makes fun of horror, specifically how black characters in horror have been treated for many years, was incredibly funny. It felt like Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins, the film’s screenwriters, watched the documentary “Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror” on Shudder and thought “how can we make all of this funny?” From splitting up to not checking to see if the killer is dead after he gets hit once, “The Blackening” makes fun of it all and had me laughing my ass off for 90 minutes.
The film also has an incredible cast. Not only is everyone great at delivering this comedic material but there’s a real feeling of camaraderie among this group of friends. In particular, Grace Byers and X Mayo are fantastic as Allison and Shanika respectively. If I was in a situation where a serial killer was trying to hunt me down, I would want to have Byers and Mayo on my side, spewing one-liners and being able to hold their own in a fight.
But the film’s best and funniest character is undoubtedly Jermiane Fowler as Clifton, the dorky member of the group. Maybe it’s the glasses he wears but Clifton reminds me so much of a grown-up Steve Urkel if he was being stalked by Jason Vorhees. It’s as funny as it sounds. What’s even weirder is that Clifton, by his own admission, has never seen “Friday.” What the hell man? I’m white as hell and even I’ve seen “Friday.” It’s a comedic masterpiece.
Overall, “The Blackening” does leave much to be desired in terms of scaring you. However, if you’re looking for a film to make you laugh with some fun action and dynamic characters, then “The Blackening” should be enough to satisfy this craving.
