Monday, December 9, 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.

Event Horizon movie poster
Paul W.S. Anderson will never win an Academy Award. Still, he's got a knack for mindless, lightweight horror and action with mainstream blockbuster-y tendancies. Event Horizon is easily his most uncompromising Hollywood film, a dark, unsettling work with some fairly graphic imagery (including a topless Sam Neill). It came...
Frankenstein horror movie poster
Like Freaks, both Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein have no overt racial messages, but one could conceivably read into them a deeper racial connotation (and indeed, some film scholars have done so). Certainly, the lynch mob scenes, particularly in Bride, are intense even to this day, and the scenes...
The People Under the Stairs horror movie poster
The People Under the Stairs is not a perfect movie by any means, but it's one of the most unique, unpredictable, energetic horror experiences you'll find in mainstream cinema. You have to admire its ambition, which is, by and large, successful. Really a modern fairy tale, TPUTS revolves around a...
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator movie poster
In this sci fi-action-horror classic, not only are there two black members (Carl Weathers and the perpetually sweaty Bill Duke) in Arnold Schwarzenegger's team sent to the Central American jungle to die -- er, I mean to rescue some kidnapped airmen -- but the alien Predator who wipes them...
Trilogy of Terror horror movie DVD
This relatively tame made-for-TV anthology has achieved cult status amongst even the most hardcore horror fans for three simple words: Zuni...fetish...doll. The little African bugger (I say African because although the Zuni are a Native American tribe, the doll was confirmed in the sequel to be African.) has become...
Zombie Zombi 2 horror movie poster
I don't expect Italian horror movies to have too many black people, but when they revolve around zombies on a Caribbean island, as Zombi 2 does (Zombi being the name Dawn of the Dead was released under in Italy), I'd expect more than a few. I should learn to...
The Transfiguration
It remains to be seen whether the success of Get Out propels us into a Golden Age of black horror movies -- or at least, black folks appearing in horror movies -- but if it does, one film that might not initially garner much attention but might in hindsight...
It Comes At Night
NOTE: POSSIBLE (MINOR, NON-SPECIFIC) SPOILERS BELOW Having watched the movie It Comes At Night in its entirety, I can honestly say that I don't know what the hell comes at night. And as much as I like the film, this fact reflects the misleading nature of its marketing. Between the...
The Strange Thing About the Johnsons
It's hard enough finding time to review all the full-length movies I want to discuss on this site, so I generally don't delve into short films very much unless there's historical significance, but The Strange Thing About the Johnsons is so striking, it's literally impossible to ignore. Its images...
Bird Box
*POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD if you’re one of the few people who hasn’t seen Bird Box* Amidst the ubiquitous memes, late-night show parodies and herd-thinning viral "challenges" inspired by the Netflix sensation Bird Box, the significance of it being a major mainstream motion picture featuring a black male romantic lead (Trevante...