The Blackening
But you could at least give it a red hot go
dir: Tim Story
2023
I will be the first to admit, and honestly have to be the first to admit, that I am not the target audience for this movie. My opinion about this movie, like all my opinions about anything, are therefore even more important / authoritative than usual (ie. utterly worthless).
I am, however, a fan of movies / pop culture, and in the American context, of Black cinema / African-American cinema. I went into this assuming this flick, ostensibly a horror flick, was specifically about playing with the tropes of horror movies in terms of how poorly they serve African-American characters usually, but what I ended up getting was vastly different.
Tim Story is probably best known for directing Barbershop way back in the day, if he is known by international audiences at all. I am not sure that he would be well known as the director of the pretty terrible Fantastic Four movies, or the very ordinary Ride Along movies, or the terrible *belches loudly* Think Like a Man movies.
So, whatever. I have no doubt he has fans, and that he’s a talented, commercial director, in all senses of the word. He is a very successful African-American director, and he certainly has knowledge and a feel for how African-Americans are portrayed in movies, because he’s in the business of portraying them for fun and profit, and has been for decades.
This flick is replete with references that will fly by most people, I would guess, and I say that as someone who gets the references, but only because I’ve watched everything and remember all the dumbest, lamest trivia from any old tv show you care to mention. I also remember the various controversies that arose with many of those shows, like who got fired and why, and who they were replaced with, because… Well, I don’t really have an explanation for it.
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