The Blackening

Seven friends from college go away for a Juneteenth weekend of re-connecting and reunion, only to find themselves trapped in a remote cabin by a killer with a vendetta, who then forces them to play a ridiculous and racist board game in order to stay alive. Together, they must depend on their long shared histories, their street smarts, and their knowledge of horror movies in order to avoid becoming the first one to die.

With its jumble of influences worn clearly on its sleeve—Scream, Nope, Get Out, Cabin in the Woods, Saw, Scary Movie, amongst many others—the BLACKENING is a familiar horror-comedy set-up at it’s core, but this time it’s filtered through the lens of Black culture. It’s also a film that is generally more concerned with its comedy than its horror, meaning there’s some light frights, some jump scares, and a bit of gore, but for the most part, it’s just hilarious and fun.

There is a lot of social commentary going on within the film, but given the regularity of its rapid-fire jokes, and the easy appeal of the cast, you wouldn’t be blamed for not spending too much time thinking about its subtext. And in all honestly, that subtext is not nearly as sharp as something like GET OUT anyway, so its all right. But to be fair, I also don’t believe the film’s intent was to try to compete with those other more socially-relevant-concerned films either.

It’s mostly just cutting up and have a good time.

But… through the strength and believability of the cast, the interplay of characters, and the whole idea of the board game they are forced to play—called the Blackening—the film really is a well-crafted examination of the role of Black people often end up playing in genre stories, something that is not only done through exploitation at the hands of greater (white) society, with their incessant demand to define, co-opt, and commodify Black culture, but also by Black people themselves, with the way they can embrace and reenforce some of those very same ideas, whether in jest or not.

But again… that all of this is happening while the film is also being a generally funny and clever good time, the kind of movie that is packed full of moments where you can shout and laugh out loud, is why you might not spend too much time discussing some of the bigger issues it considers.

In the end, this is a good time. Big thumbs up.