Saturday, September 23, 2023

Tag: blaxploitation

Night of the Strangler
Having been balls deep in black horror for a number of years, it’s always fascinating to come across a film of significance that’s been hidden in plain sight for so long. Nothing about the generically titled Night of the Strangler and its lily white poster screams blackness (and what...
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...
Lord Shango movie poster
A couple of years after co-starring in the landmark black horror film Ganja & Hess, scream queen Marlene Clark headlined Lord Shango, and while Ganja & Hess has emerged from the shadows in recent years to gain some mainstream notoriety (and an ill-fated Spike Lee remake), Lord Shango remains...
Black Santa's Revenge is a Blaxploitation-inspired short film that's as much an action thriller as it is horror, but given the dearth of Christmas horror movies starring black actors (I'll pause while you try to think of one), it's close enough for me. Horror icon Ken Foree stars as...
The Black Die Young: The Internal Struggle of a Black Horror Movie Fan
Originally published on PopMatters.com I have a secret passion; the less addicted of you might call it an addiction. I like to watch. I rent base, filthy movies and slip them into brown paper bags so no one can tell. I sit alone in seedy, near-empty theaters, pleasuring myself with...
Scream Blacula Scream horror movie poster
A decent follow-up to the original blaxploitation classic, Scream, Blacula, Scream finds Mamuwalde awakened by aspiring voodoo priest "Whatchoo Talkin' 'Bout" Willis (Richard Lawson) because, well, he' s an idiot. Mamuwalde proceeds to turn him into a vampire slave, and then Willis turns his girlfriend Denny (Lynne Moody) into...
The Zebra Killer movie poster
From William Girdler, director of Exorcist rip-off Abby, comes an intriguing and -- get this -- original plot: a racist white man (James Pickett) named Mac, pissed off that his father was sentenced to the electric chair, decides to kill everyone involved with the conviction (no word on the...
The Thing with Two Head movie poster
With a title like The Thing With Two Heads, you might expect some sort of, well, "thing". Instead, we get a two-headed man -- or if you prefer, a one-bodied two-person. With no gore, no death, no scares and no monster, it's a stretch to call this a horror...
Soul Vengeance Welcome Home Brother Charles movie poster
Soul Vengeance is not generally considered horror, but what else would you call a film in which a guy strangles people with his mutated penis? A helluva good time, that's what! In this cult film from writer-director Jamaa Fanaka (Penitentiary), Charles (Marlo Monte) is arrested and nearly castrated by...
Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son-in-Law horror movie poster Rudy Ray Moore blaxploitation
To say that Rudy Ray Moore is an acquired taste is like saying that Paris Hilton has no talent. Duh. His blue stand-up act aside, his films are low on budget and even lower on subtlety. Petey Wheatstraw, based on one of his acts, is the closest any of...