Thursday, March 28, 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.

Exorcist: The Beginning horror movie poster
Cain vs. Abel. Kobe vs. Shaq. O.J. vs. The Man. There have been many epic rivalries in history, but few matched the clusterfuck that was the fourth Exorcist film. That respected director Paul Schrader's original film (Dominion) was shelved in favor of a nearly complete re-shoot (The Beginning) by the...
Arachnia horror movie poster
This otherwise laughable giant spider movie is notable in that it features a black heroine, Chandra (Irene Joseph). Granted, Chandra is just as laughable as the rest of the film, but hey, she's there. The entire cast, Joseph included, acts as stiffly as understudies in a high school play,...
Devon's Ghost The Legend of Bloody Boy
An otherwise inept horror film, Devon's Ghost is noteworthy as one of the rare non-"urban" slashers to star a black woman as the "final girl". The gal in question is Karan Ashley, who also co-wrote, produced and edited the film, which goes a long way to explaining how she...
Inhumanity
What Inhumanity lacks in budget, it makes up for in reckless ambition. With a sprawling slasher-thriller-action-sci fi-mystery-suspense story that incorporates serial killers, police corruption, medical experimentation, an international crime ring, a murder whodunit, a love triangle and a myriad of crosses, double-crosses and plot twists, it admirably aims for...
Hood of the Living Dead horror movie
There's actually a good idea for a horror movie in here somewhere; where better to find a steady supply of corpses ripe for zombification than in the 'hood? The 'hood in question here is in Oakland. A scientist (Carl Washington, who hasn't let an inability to act stop him...
Night’s End
It will be interesting to see if, in a decade or so, there will have been established a very specific, very limited subgenre of film known as “COVID cinema.” These are not movies about COVID-19, mind you, but rather movies shot in and around the COVID shutdown of 2020-21...
Blackenstein horror movie poster
It would be easy to assume that Blacula is a cheesy throwaway with camp-only value, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Blackenstein, on the other hand, is a sad, sad excuse for a film. On some level, though, that's what makes it so good -- er, well,...
While the original remake (oxymoron?) of House on Haunted Hill was notable for having a black hero (Taye Diggs), this direct-to-video sequel is notable for NOT having a black hero. It basically steps over the fact that Diggs' character survived the first film, instead focusing on Ali Larter's character,...
Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid movie poster
Just as Anacondas multiplies the number of killer snakes from the original film for your viewing pleasure, so does it multiply the number of black characters. Are the filmmakers comparing black people to snakes? Ed Bradley investigates tonight at 7:00... Of the eight people who go troddin' through the jungles...
Breeders horror movie poster
This cheesy '80s monster movie stands out for two reasons: 1) It's directed by Tim Kincaid, who helmed the famously awful Robot Holocaust, which was parodied on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (He previously directed gay porn. Look it up.), and 2) It one of the rare horror films of...