phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2023

The Blackening



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 37m
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre Tags: Comedy, Horror, Thriller
Plot Summary: Seven Black friends go away for the weekend and end up trapped in a cabin with a killer who has a vendetta. Will their street smarts and knowledge of horror movies help them stay alive? Probably not.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: Black horror comedy made by black people, for black people. It's more comedy than horror, but that doesn't make it any less fun. Best watched with a group of friends. It's a real hoot.


Outside Reviews:

Peyton Robinson
3.5 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

"We can't all die first" is an excellent tagline perfectly fulfilled by Tim Story's "The Blackening," an ode to horror parodies like "Scary Movie." This film's comedy, characters, and commentary will be hilarious to all audiences but scratch a familiar itch among Black viewers. Of all of the film-watching customs within the Black community, shouting at and ridiculing horror movie characters for their ludicrous decision-making is integral, as is the expectation that we won't see our people live until the end. It's what inspired the title of Jordan Peele's "Nope" and much of the "Scary Movie" franchise, but "The Blackening" takes nuggets of its predecessors and makes something entirely singular.


Timothy Cogshell
Grade: B - Slasher satire slaughters tired tropes

In an America as socially stressed as it is today, The Blackening feels a lot like a BLM rally at the movie theater—the irony of which is not lost on Black people or our friends and allies. The movie is highly entertaining, while being oddly validating and very funny. It cleverly weaves the horror tropes that it rebukes right into the narrative. And it's done without slipping into parody like the Scary Movie series, where similar notions are skewered more broadly and, with The Blackening now on the table, way less successfully.