Flasz On Film

The summer of 2000, almost a quarter of a century ago, saw the release of Scary Movie, a meta-horror comedy aimed to parody and poke fun at the 90s Slasher Revival movies such as Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Let’s be honest, it was a film you would not be able to release today, as it would have been too raunchy and controversial for the current generation of moviegoers, increasingly opposed to any form risque entertainment. 

However, the idea of making light of genre movies has never been extinguished and the language of parody has every so often been used to provide some much-needed commentary on the evolution of horror and perhaps to add a few wrinkles to the overall conversation advanced subliminally within the genre itself. Bu it has already been a long time since we saw Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland or Tucker and Dale vs Evil and the time has come for someone to come along and have a giggle at the expense of the recent trends in horror. Which is why The Blackening exists.  

This movie – directed by Tim Story (of the Fantastic Four, Ride Along and Tom & Jerry extraction) and based on a Comedy Central short – attempts, at least in principle, to corral the last decade in genre filmmaking and use its parodic powers to fire cultural references at the audience and hence contextualize some aspects of the current zeitgeist. Put simply, The Blackening is a movie that tries to repackage some things we tend to care about the most these days as a society and deliver it in a dark comedy format. And what do we care about? Just a cursory glance at some of the most important genre movies from the recent past like Get Out, Us or Candyman should lead you to think we want our horror movies to have a conscience and to reflect our own thoughts regarding social justice, inclusion and diversity.   

The Blackening positions itself as a tongue-in-cheek satire, rather than an outright parody. It sets up its all-black cast (Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Antoinette Robinson and others) in a familiar setting of a cabin in the woods where they all get together to celebrate Juneteenth, play games and get hammered. What they don’t realize is that intruders are about to descend on their location and in order to survive, they will have to participate in the game of titular “The Blackening” – a game of trivia awash in truly insensitive imagery testing both their and the viewer’s knowledge of black history where the penalty is death and where there can be no winners. Because we are, after all, in a horror movie.  

Thus, the stage is set for the movie to run its course and to take us on a journey where we’d be able to pinpoint lines pulled out of iconic horror movies like Scream or Saw, or where the keen eye will pick up on visual nods to The Evil Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and many more. Simples. The problem is that the movie doesn’t work according to this plan and at this point I don’t think I am sure what its intentions were in the first place. And that’s because you can never be too sure whether The Blackening is trying to be funny or scary. Truth be told, I don’t think it sets out to be either of the two and it is rather more consumed with being poignant and deep. Which is anathema to a parody because you are never supposed to even think for a second that the filmmakers are trying to preach to you while serving jokes. When you do, the magic is gone and you are no longer in a parody, but at a sermon or a political rally, which is where I thought I was for the most part.  

Granted, there are elements of this movie that work in isolation, and it is true that The Blackening has its moments of funny elevation, but the problem is that a parody needs to commit. A horror movie needs to commit as well, by the way. This kind of half-in-half-out approach of sometimes being funny and sometimes being serious adds up over time to feeling disingenuous. Which I think this movie is because it seems more organically at home during its many politically charged soliloquies, than it is when concocting comedic sequences or generating whatever suspense it could get out of its familiar predicament. In fact, if Roger Ebert was alive today, he would have a field day writing about how this movie spends nearly a third of its running time succumbing to what Ebert would call “The curse of the talking killer” (which I remember from his unfairly negative review of Broken Arrow, if you are interested) without having a clear plan as to whether it wanted to resolve things by means of a joke or something more serious.  

This is indicative of the simple fact that the filmmakers didn’t perhaps care half as much about making their movie organically entertaining, as they were about making sure its message was heard. So, they insisted the characters would talk. A lot. Again, such a heavy-handed approach is the death of satire because the viewer, instead of chuckling away at what’s happening on the screen while subconsciously registering that what they find funny has a false bottom and that there is a message in there to be found as they make their way home, is constantly reminded that this is serious stuff, you know? It is as though the filmmakers had no idea how to distance themselves from the material they were handling.  

As a result, The Blackening isn’t a parody using the language of cultural references, sight gags and well-engineered jokes to contextualize the last decade in genre filmmaking and then to send me home with a socially relevant message, it is a frustrated political rant punctuated with parody-derived humour. And the two are not the same thing.  

In actuality, I would suggest that The Blackening as it stands now is probably less of a descendant of a horror parody as it is a genuine attempt to exist on the same plane with other, more serious horror satires, like Get Out or Candyman. The problem is that it is nowhere near as elevated, suspenseful or inspired to join the ranks of more serious satirical ventures. Moreover, ever since Scream (and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, I suppose), horror movies have been getting progressively more self-aware and capable of having fun at their own expense, while remaining fundamentally effective as horror movies as well. Ready or Not, Scream 5 (and Scream 6), The Guest, Evil Dead Rise, and You’re Next, just to name a few, all have stuff to say about the world at large. They are all drenched in references. They are all occasionally comedic. But they all understand the assignment to be scary and effective. And The Blackening just is not.  

Hence, I am forced to surmise that The Blackening is an unsuccessful attempt at I don’t exactly know what because I can’t tell you – hand on heart – if it wants to be a parody, a genuine satire, a political rally or a culturally-loaded meta-horror movie in the tradition of Scream. Something tells me the movie wants to be Tucker and Dale vs Evil of this generation, but it forgets that subtlety is the best – and recently often overlooked – weapons of advancing societally relevant messaging. I appreciate the effort, but I prefer my comedies funnier and my slashers slashier. By refusing to lean into either direction, The Blackening is just a neutered rant that even at a tight ninety-minute running time becomes tiresome before it has a chance to leave a lasting impression.