Movie Night: The Blackening (2023)

“The Blackening” is a refreshing addition to the horror-comedy, delivering plenty of wit while bringing something new to the table.

The Blackening (2023) opens with a group of close friends from college who celebrate Juneteenth every year, a holiday that celebrates the emancipation of all the enslaved in 1863.

There are the first two who arrive, Shawn and Morgan, who the audience doesn’t get to know very well. Then we meet Lisa, who was dating the previously unfaithful Nnamdi and didn’t tell her gay best friend, Dewayne. Allison is their bi-racial bestie. King is a former gangster married to a white woman. And Shanika is the party girl.

They all fill what could be two-bit stereotypes and bring something fun to the table.

They celebrate this Juneteenth in a cabin in the woods, complete with creepy “you will die” harbingers of death greeting them before they arrive and a nerdy former classmate that they reluctantly invite named Clifton. Unfortunately, the friends all become embroiled in a racist Jumanji-like game called The Blackening that tests their black history. If they get a question wrong, someone dies or is horribly injured.

In a surprising twist, very few people die, a departure (thankfully) from the all-too-common trope of the black character dying first. Almost all of them are wounded in various ways but use their collective skills to make it out.

Unfortunately, I did see the villain coming from a mile away and even figured out their motive, but the whodunit aspect isn’t a main part of the movie.

What I loved about The Blackening, besides all the genius black horror references, was how real the friendships felt.

There were jokes between certain characters that had continuity throughout the film.

It never felt like a struggle to follow and understand each character; they became like people you feel you know (perhaps even based on those actors’ personalities because that’s how real they felt). It should also be noted that the jokes about white people are fair: “White people scare me.” I am white, and they scare me, too.

The movie was infused with various references to pop culture but specifically black culture; it served as a biting critique of our times while also providing hilarious commentary.

Most white people may not know about or fully understand Juneteenth (I didn’t until a few years ago). Thus, this movie may encourage people to finally look it up and familiarize themselves with something important outside their purview. 

It questions white people and their motivations, but it also challenges ideas of biracial questioning and the need to have to justify one’s own “blackness”. 

The juxtaposition of the white savior complex (who ultimately saves no one, a mirror to society) combined with a black woman’s rage at having to be the one saving everyone else gave levity to the socioeconomic issues of today.

The Blackening brilliantly explores just how tired women, in general, are as the breaking backbones of society — especially marginalized women of color who receive the brunt of this weight.

Other injustices exposed in the last several years are explored, including the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality, something black people have been trying to explain to white people for decades.

It’s a well-done satire that doesn’t take itself too seriously. My only gripe is that some of the sequences lacked true imagination.

However, this film isn’t trying to reinvent horror but rather comment on the representation of the films that have preceded it while holding a mirror up to society. All this is done without ever sacrificing entertainment, laughs, and enjoyment.  

Watch The Blackening if you need a laugh, and keep a cushion on the floor in case you fall off because it will leave you dying/pounding the floor with how funny it is.