Friday, April 19, 2024

Movie Reviews

Reviews of primarily American movies featuring actors and actresses of Black / African-American descent in the horror-movie, slasher, gore, supernatural and related spooky film genres.

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 Blob
I will go to my grave saying that The Blob is one of the best horror movies of the 1980s. It combines the throwback alien invasion mayhem of the 1950s with the grisly creature feature effects of the '80s and tosses in some fun, Spielbergian adventure overtones to boot....
The Purge: Anarchy
A year after the events of The Purge, The Purge: Anarchy focuses on a group of disparate individuals in downtown Los Angeles on the night of the Purge of 2023. Shane (Zach Gilford) and Liz (Kiele Sanchez) are a couple on the verge of separating who are heading to...
Attack the Block
Although it received widespread critical acclaim, I feel like Attack the Block hasn't really gotten the props it deserves. I don't mean just as a cult fave -- it's debatable whether it's even achieved that status -- but frankly, as one of the best horror movies of the 21st...
Brian De Palma's Sisters horror movie poster
I recall the unexpected joy I felt when I first sat down to watch Sisters and saw that it seemed to star (or at least co-star) a black man. And not your typical 1970s Hollywood black man either -- struttin', jive talkin', ho slappin' -- but rather, an honest-to-goodness...
Good Manners
One of the most unjustly overlooked movies of 2018, Brazil’s Good Manners (As Boas Maneiras) is a bewitching blend of horror, fantasy and musical that veers from humorous to heartbreaking, romantic to tragic, all while maintaining the sort of childlike sense of wonder and storybook lore that could draw...
The First Purge
Every movie in the Purge franchise has been more overtly sociopolitical than the one before it, and The First Purge takes the series to new, gloriously radical heights in a powerful, if unsubtle, expression of the fear, frustration and anger of people of color in the United States. It's...
Black Box
Buried within an avalanche of horror offerings featuring black folks during the Halloween 2020 season (including Antebellum, Bad Hair, His House, Spell, Vampires vs. the Bronx, Don’t Look Back, Synchronic and Kindred, plus family offerings The Witches and A Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting and the ubiquitous TV series...
Nope
*OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING* With the release of Jordan Peele’s eagerly anticipated third film, Nope, it’s fair to say that his filmmaking style has been established. A Peelian movie is horror-skewed genre fare that seeks to entertain but also convey underlying social commentary -- directly or indirectly racial in nature and...
Barbarian
In the late summer of 2022, a movie was released about a young black woman who arrives for a stay at a rental property she reserved, only to discover that it’s been double booked and is currently occupied by a strange white man with unknown intentions. Suspicious, she reluctantly...