Featured

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...

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...

Rappers are busy people, what with all the ho juggling, money stacking, and ride pimping. That's why so few of them have time to fully devote to the craft of acting. And yet so many of them are doing it, mucking up our precious horror films with their half-assed performances. Now, the time has come to set them straight...

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...

2024 had its share of disappointments in Black horror cinema, but it had so many entertaining entries that it could afford the misfires. There's perhaps nothing more reflective of the growth of Black horror over the years than the fact that it is now allowed room to fail. The mere fact that I could compile a list with 30...

"No way. I've seen this movie. The black dude dies first." - Professor Harry Phineas Block (Orlando Jones), Evolution "Ooh, I'm done! Brothers never make it out of situations like this!" - Sherman "Preacher" Dudley (LL Cool J), Deep Blue Sea "Did you know that the black guy doesn't always die first?" - sinister email, The Mangler 2 "Everybody knows black guys get it...

It goes without saying that over the years, Hollywood has had some issues with adequate racial representation in starring roles, and horror is certainly not immune to that problem. However, that doesn't mean there haven't been some excellent "mainstream" (for lack of a better word) fright flicks starring black folk. For this list, I'm excluding all-black films (e.g., Blaxploitation, "urban,"...

Like every other Internet gnome trolling the Web for treasure, I traced the progress of the film Snakes on a Plane for months, drinking in the online parodies and speculating on the possibility of sequels (Giraffes on a Speedboat) or even prequels (Dodos on a Frigate). I cheered when New Line Studios ordered five days of re-shoots to bump...

Everyone knows that the "black guy" (or gal) usually dies in horror movies -- so much so, in some instances, the characters themselves seem to be aware of their inevitable fate. Thus, we have the phenomenon of black "heroic death," in which black characters (usually peripheral) voluntarily sacrifice themselves -- or at least, volunteer for tasks that mean certain...

Cinema in 2023 boasted a slew of surprise hits and surprise flops, but one constant was the Black presence in horror. Not necessarily a year of earth-shattering accomplishments, 2023 was for Black horror more about consistency and variety, broadening the typical Black roles into period pieces, ghost stories, mad scientist tales, horror-comedies, and family-friendly fare. As with last year,...