This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s fall editorial intern Alayna Thomas. Find her on Instagram at @ratatoolie. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Black horror is in somewhat of a golden age. Started by Jordan Peele’s release of Get Out in 2017, many have tried to recreate the magic that Peele created, often with varying degrees of success. Black horror is near and dear to my heart, as horror is one of my favorite genres and I identify with the themes of them a lot.
Much of Black horror falls under social horror, which is horror that thematically tackles issues in society. In general, much of horror focuses on the fear of the ‘other’, whether that other be monsters, zombies, or ghosts. Social horror has these elements as a stand-in for something else, such as the treatment of a minority group.
For this article, I will be defining Black horror as horror movies that have a mostly Black main cast or protagonist or is a movie directed or written by a Black creator. Many of these films have an interesting subtextual analysis and discuss themes of being Black in the United States.
If you’re interested in learning about some of the best Black horror movies, look no further. This list includes some of my favorites!
Blacula
I mentioned this blaxploitation classic when I covered Tubi movies a while back. This film focuses on an African Prince, Mamuwalde, who travels to Transylvania with his wife, Lina, to convince Dracula to end the transatlantic slave trade. Dracula refuses, killing Lina, biting Mamuwalde and cursing him with a new name, Blacula. A couple of home decorators buy the coffin that he was locked in and Blacula wakes up centuries later in 1970’s Los Angeles. He goes around the city biting everyone in sight while trying to keep his secret.
This film is by no means perfect, the home decorators’ perceived gayness is played up for laughs and the character Mamuwalde can be seen as a stereotype of an ‘uncivilized savage’, but this film was a watershed moment for Black horror. This is a must see for those who like blaxploitation and vampire films.
Tales From The Hood
This movie is a modern classic, and one of my favorite horror anthology films. Even though it came out in the 1990’s, the themes are still pertinent to today. This movie focuses on a mortician in a funeral home who traps three drug dealers and tells them four tales. All four stories focus on problems that the black community face, such as police brutality, child abuse, racist politicians, and gang violence. All of the stories have a magical realism element to them, which I really enjoy. I found the first story, the one focused on police brutality, to be especially intriguing. The brutality scene was quite a lot, but the revenge that took after was so sweet.
All the stories have no (clear) connection, but they weave together quite well. The last story leads the way for a crazy plot twist and ending which had me floored, I didn’t see it coming. It was captivating and gave me some laughs.
The First Purge
The Purge as a series is very interesting to me because I find the idea behind it very interesting, but the execution doesn’t always come off well. However, I do think they executed their social message the best in The First Purge, which is technically the fourth film in the franchise.
This movie focuses on how The Purge was created and what happened on the first commencement of The Purge. The Purge originated as an experiment in a majority Black and Brown neighborhood in New York City, and residents who stay during the experiment are promised money. Many of the residents take advantage of The Purge to do non violent crimes, such as having block parties without a permit or partaking in drug use. However, outside agitators are determined to artificially drive up crime so that The Purge is seen as successful and is instated nationwide.
Although the plot is a bit outlandish, it does speak to the issues that many Black and Brown people who live in the inner-city face and I found it especially relatable as a Black New Yorker.
Dr Black, Mr Hyde
This is another blaxploitation horror film. In this one, a Black doctor is working hard on a cure for cirrhosis of the liver. The problem? The medicine turns its recipient into a white, albino-like vampire shortly after injection and the recipient blacks out. When they come to, they have no recollection of the violence they’ve done while in their White state. The doctor working on the cure continuously injects himself with the medicine. This turns him into a White being who kills Black drug dealers, sex workers, and prostitutes.
I found the themes of this film to be very interesting. It deals with revenge, as the doctor’s mom was involved with drugs and sex work. I also found the theme of Whiteness being aspirational interesting as well. The doctor is depicted as being someone who looks down on Blackness, but it’s Whiteness that turns him into a monster.
The People Under The Stairs
Wes Craven might be more well-known for his franchises ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘Scream’, but this film of his is also one of my favorites.
This movie focuses on Fool, a kid living in Watts, a mostly Black neighborhood in Los Angeles. He and some neighbors break into his landlord’s house to steal coins to cover their rent, only to discover that they are an incestuous couple with a few people living under the stairs.
This movie offers great commentary on gentrification, a topic that is still relevant, even though this film is from 1991. There is also slight commentary on class struggle transcending racial lines. The Black people from the neighborhood team up with the underprivileged White people under the stairs to defeat the landlords.
The Blackening
This movie, although scary, was outright hilarious. The Blackening follows a group of Black friends who rent out a cabin on Juneteenth weekend. They are targeted by an unknown killer. The characters play a game called ‘The Blackening’. The game tests the friends’ knowledge of Black trivia; this is how they are picked off.
The movie was funny for its satirization of horror movies tropes, such as ‘the Black person always dies first’. What I really enjoyed was the discussion on what it means to be Black. Some of the characters are other Black ethnicities other than African American, such as West African. This movie really was created with Black people in mind first!
Do you have ideas on what the best Black horror movies are? Do you like horror? Let us know in the comments below!
Leave a Reply