Featured

Horror movies tend to be thought of as hollow entertainment, but horror has a long history of addressing heavy social issues, whether directly or through symbolic or allegorical means. Perhaps the heaviest of heavy social issues is race relations -- especially in the United States -- but these horror/suspense movies dared to wade into those troubled waters by revolving...

Originally posted on Pretty-Scary.net Black women in cinematic history have long faced the double-barreled Hollywood stigma of race and gender "otherness," their fleeting moment of glory coming in the '90s when "You go, girl!" was introduced into the popular lexicon. On the more formal level of Oscar recognition, meanwhile, the black female images thus far celebrated by the Academy of...

Representations of Africa in Horror Movies When Toto sang about Africa back in the day, it sounded so much more inviting than what we see coming out of Hollywood. Horror movies in particular have been guilty of perpetuating the image of “darkest Africa”, filled with ravenous animals and wild-eyed natives who wouldn’t even shake your hand before biting it off....

Black people originated the slang of bad meaning good, but that doesn't mean they can't also be bad meaning bad. They've played some of the more memorable baddies in horror history. Here are some of the baddest black villains to grace a horror movie screen. Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? Blacula, Blacula and Scream, Blacula, Scream The poster child...

There was a time not too long ago that it would be difficult to create a “best of” list of horror movies featuring black leads in any given year, since there were so few of them, and the ones that did exist were of such dubious quality. But thankfully, things have changed in both quantity and quality over the...

Originally published on MadAtoms.com You've seen him in every horror movie since 1984: the black guy who hangs out with a group of white people he has nothing in common with, whose only purpose, it seems, is to die first. He's been sliced into pieces in Resident Evil, de-armed in Predator, and he had his head punched off in Friday...

These actors and actresses aren't usually the leads in horror movies, but they keep busy in supporting roles as the best friends, the partners, the safari guides and other assorted capacities that probably ensure death. You know their faces, but you don't know their names or even where you know them from. Before you walk up and ask them, "Do...

Be they stereotypes or monotypes, they're the "types" that most black characters in horror films inevitably fall into... The Spook As the name implies, the spook is spooked by all things spooky. Typically the comic sidekick, he's often spared from death by his ability to make people laugh. The "classic spook" (most widely represented by Mantan Moreland and the catchphrase often...

Most actors and actresses have to pay their dues before they become famous, and one genre well versed in due-paying is horror. Popular with producers out to make a quick buck yet reviled by critics, horror movies are both high in number and low in esteem, making them perfect entry-level fare for aspiring thespians. In fact, some of the...

Originally published on eHow.com Introduction Being a black person in a horror movie isn't easy. You're rarely the hero, hardly ever the villain and more often than not you end up dead. But as they say, "When in Rome…die as a Roman," or something like that. At least there are steps you can take to make your inevitable demise run as...