Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Tag: 1960s

Black Horror 101: A Brief History of African American Horror Cinema
  Black Is Boo-Tiful When Jordan Peeele’s Get Out became a breakout success in 2017, earning him the first Original Screenplay Oscar awarded to an African-American, "black horror movies" suddenly became the new hot property in Hollywood, with many people seeming to believe that this was an entirely new subset of...
The Leech Woman
The Leech Woman isn't exactly the creative zenith of Universal horror -- coming six years after the studio's last great monster movie of its golden era, Creature from the Black Lagoon -- but it might be its zenith of racial representation…not that that's exactly high praise. It basically means...
I Eat Your Skin horror movie poster
Cheesy white playboy author Tom Harris (William Joyce) comes to a Caribbean island to research the existence of voodoo, zombies, and virgins. He chases away a tall, lanky, Darby Jones-like black zombie who has the gall to ogle a white woman (Heather "Love" Hewitt) swimming in a river. Luckily,...
Konga horror movie poster
Along with Mighty Joe Young, Konga, also known as Attack of the Giant Ape from the Land of the Black People Part IV, illustrates the evolution of minority roles from older giant ape films like King Kong and Son of Kong. In the more recent flicks, the black natives...
George Romero's Night of the Living Dead horror movie poster
The movie that changed zombie lore forever, Night of the Living Dead is a classic not only of horror in general, but of black horror in particular. Supposedly, the racial commentary that can be read into the film was never intended, as the role of Ben wasn't written for a...
The Oblong Box horror movie poster
Once again, voodoo is up to no good. It ruins the party, gropes your girlfriend, and will never pay back that $10 it owes you. Won't people ever learn? The Oblong Box, a VERY loose interpretation of the Edgar Allan Poe short story, is one of those Technicolor horror-themed...
The Plague of the Zombies horror movie poster
I was disappointed to learn that "the Hammer Collection" didn't star MC Hammer. In fact, there few, if any, significant black characters -- just a bunch of pasty British people -- in any of the legendary UK studio's films, but I thought that a zombie/voodoo pic might be the...
The Rape of the Vampire horror movie poster
This French film gained a certain level of notoriety upon it release in 1968 for its violent and sexual content (Who knew it was possible to offend the French?), although in retrospect it's just as notorious for starting the career of erotic horror director Jean Rollin. One aspect of...
The Witches The Devil's Own horror movie poster
As with The Plague of the Zombies, the black characters in this Hammer production are tangential at best, but pretty much any appearances in this era are noteworthy. The film begins in Africa (country name not needed, apparently; it's like saying the setting is "Europe"), where British schoolteacher Gwen...
Africa Addio (AKA Africa Blood and Guts) movie poster
Shockumentary, or "mondo", films are trash. There, I said it. Some people love their sleaziness, some (I'd guess most) don't. I fall into the "don't" camp, and although I wouldn't lump them together with fictional horror, that's where they're generally found in the video store, so I figured I'd...