I’ve been a sucker for killer kid movies ever since The Bad Seed, so the prospect of a film featuring a homicidal little black girl -- in my dream scenario, with afro puffs instead of Bad Seed Rhoda’s trademark pigtails -- piqued my interest. Alas, as the cover art...
No, Thriller isn't a Michael Jackson-themed horror movie (that would be Leaving Neverland); rather, it's mega-producer Jason Blum’s latest attempt to further the black horror cause. Unlike his hits Get Out, Us and the Purge films, however, Thriller headed straight to Netflix rather than playing in your local multiplex...and...
Ma is two movies in one, and which one you experience may depend on whether you’re black or you’re white. Think of it as a racial Rorschach test.
On the surface, its plot doesn’t have much to do with race. It’s basically an intergenerational take on the “psycho stalker thriller”...
Over the past decade, suspense thrillers with black protagonists have multiplied to previously unknown heights, and like all great cultural developments on planet Earth, we have Beyonce to thank. The success of her 2009 film Obsessed helped convince major Hollywood studios (or more precisely, a single studio, since most...
It’s sad that in 2019, it’s still rare enough for a black woman to be the primary love interest in a “non-black” horror movie that when it happens, it’s noteworthy. Leading black male love interests aren’t particularly common either, but black guys at least seem to get more supporting...
For a while, it seemed that the go-to move for an established film franchise that had reached a shark-jumping level of creative desperation was to shoot it into outer space -- the cinematic equivalent of a family sitcom adding a baby into the mix. James Bond, Hellraiser, Airplane, Leprechaun,...
For most of America (and the world, for that matter), the name Buckout Road means very little, but in and around Westchester County, New York, it’s apparently famous for being haunted. Or cursed. Or maybe both. Less famous than regional legends like the Headless Horseman and the Jersey Devil,...
Although she’s starred in more acclaimed films, Little Monsters might just be the movie that best embodies the spirit of the Cult of Lupita Nyong'o. All of the qualities we’ve come to love about her -- beauty, style, class, wit, charisma, smarts, vivacity -- are on full display in...
Having rewatched the original Jacob’s Ladder recently, I found that, although the whole “shaky head” effect has become something of a horror cliche over the years, it holds up well as a visually striking and narratively challenging -- but ultimately rewarding -- paranoid thriller with a poignant emotional core....
47 Meters Down: Uncaged has about as much in common with 47 Meters Down as it does with 47 Ronin. Sure, it revolves around sharks trying to eat people, but it’s nowhere near 47 meters below the surface and it doesn’t involve any sort of Mandy Moore-adjacent caging mishap,...
