Saturday, September 23, 2023

Tag: 1990s

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...
Spawn movie poster
I've never read the Spawn comic books, but I remember that when the movie adaptation came out in 1997, I felt a sense of eager anticipation because it was a black superhero film that wasn’t a cheesy kids flick like The Meteor Man, a silly spoof like Blankman and,...
Critters 4
For a while, it seemed that the go-to move for an established film franchise that had reached a shark-jumping level of creative desperation was to shoot it into outer space -- the cinematic equivalent of a family sitcom adding a baby into the mix. James Bond, Hellraiser, Airplane, Leprechaun,...
The Suckling
Let's face it: 1990 was basically the after party for the '80s, as the cultural trends of the old decade carried over into the new one -- or don't you remember the shoulder pads that could impale a horse? As such, even though The Suckling came out in 1990,...
Voodoo Dolls
The Canadian production Voodoo Dolls feels like a relic -- even more so than the nearly three-decades-old film already is. Its images of a shirtless black man clad in tribal paint and beaded necklaces, drumming in a trance-like state and menacing the white female protagonist seem like they're straight...
Congo movie poster
When I was in college, I took an African history class in which my professor went on a tirade about how much she hated the movie Congo. I can't remember the specifics of why, but let's just say at the very least that the historical accuracy of the story...
Spirit Lost movie poster
Really more of an erotic drama than a horror movie, Spirit Lost is like an episode of Black Shoe Diaries with a supernatural twist. Although it's a BET production, it wasn't made to air on the network (the nekkid boobies are a hint), so we're not subjected to cheesy cameos...
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer horror movie poster
Apparently, what you did last summer was make a crappy movie. This is the type of sequel that's so bad, it diminishes the memory of the otherwise enjoyable original (see also Resident Evil: Apocalypse). This pointless, unimaginative rehash (which even revisits the overhead shot of Jennifer Love Hewitt yelling...
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday horror movie poster
While Chucky never succeeding in becoming a "bro" in Child's Play 3, for a brief period in time, Jason Vorhees was a black man. In a shark-, whale- and sea horse-jumping plot wrinkle, Jason's immortality is explained in Jason Goes to Hell as his being an evil worm-like entity...
Necronomicon: Book of the Dead horror movie poster
The third and final tale in this gory H.P. Lovecraft-inspired horror anthology is intriguing in that it revolves around an interracial couple in Sarah (Signy Coleman) and Paul (the fun-to-say Obba Babatunde). They're partners on the Philadelphia police force, and apparently Paul's been slipping Sarah his nightstick, because she...