The Blackening is a horror-comedy that aimed to be a self-aware film like the Scream franchise. The Blackening’s target is black tropes in horror cinema.
A group of old college friends plan to celebrate Juneteenth and plan to go to a cabin in the woods. They plan to have fun by playing games, drinking, and recreational drug taking. However, their night takes a dark turn when they find a racist board game and a psycho killer forces them to play it.
On paper, The Blackening is coming out at the right time. There has been a rise in meta, self-aware films. Two of the biggest films of 2023 were Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Barbie which were self-awareness films that aimed to subvert tropes. There has been a rich history in horror-comedies that subvert tropes of the genre: examples being New Nightmare, Scream, Shaun of the Dead, Cabin in the Woods, and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. The Blackening was living under a big shadow. The Blackening has been released when the public are more aware of racial issues and one of the biggest horror directors currently is Jordan Peele and his films have focused on African-American characters.
The Blackening did have a strong opening where two characters discover the board game and when they start playing, they get asked a movie question and taunted by a voice. It set out what the film wanted to do by being a commentary on racism, and racial tropes in horror films, and had an effective horror scene when the villain did strike. It was a multi-level homage to Scream, Saw, and Jumanji all in one go. It was a shame that the rest of the film didn’t live up to this.
The Blackening did have a good slasher villain. He was big and imposing, and armed with a crossbow. He wore a mask that was a demonic distortion of what was already a racist caricature. All this made the villain an intimidating presence who deserved to be in a better film.
The team behind The Blackening didn’t inspire hope. It was directed by Tim Story, best known for making the Fantastic Four movies in the 2000s and films like Barbershop and Taxi. One of the writers was Tracy Oliver whose credits include Girls Trip, Little, and the Amazon series Harlem. They have a history of making comedies that can appeal to an African-American audience and often have a broad approach to comedy. Considering that the film was trying to be a smart, satirical take on the horror genre, it needed a better creative team. Jordan Peele or Justin Simien would have been much more fitting.
During my screening of The Blackening there was a notable lack of laughter and a number of walkouts. I’ve seen fewer people walk out of Odeon Unseen screenings. The end gag was awful with its execution. Jokes about the black guest stars in Friends and one character being called ‘Carlton’ land flatly. Others just didn’t make much sense like some characters being able to communicate telepathically. It didn’t work in a film that was trying to be fairly grounded. The Blackening could have been an episode of The Cleveland Show due to its execution.
The Blackening was a film that had a great idea for a horror satire, but it ended up being a wasted opportunity that was ruined by weak direction and writing.
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