Black Culture in Modern Horror Movies
Horror movies have had their tropes set for decades. Especially in some of their early genre-forming slashers, you know the characters are going to go into the haunted-looking house or wander into the supposedly haunted forest. I’m sure you know that there's going to be a final girl and that the black character would die first (because for some reason it was always limited to one black character).
But in 2021, every director is trying to do something different. Some are changing the tropes for entertainment purposes, making their characters smarter, or having no characters survive. But some are changing tropes for representation purposes, like making the cast mostly black. These movies are often directed by and written by up-and-coming black talents, like Jordan Peele.
Some of these recent movies include “Get Out”, “Us”, “Spell”, the recent “Candyman” remake, “Ma”, and “Overlord”. Three of those six are produced by Jordan’s Peele’s production company, Monkeypaw Productions. He started his horror career in early 2017, with the hit movie Get Out. Another film written and directed by Peele “Nope” will be their next 2022 release, so they are still going strong.
The recent rise in black-driven horror has added a new flavor and unique perspective to horror, especially when directed or written by a black voice. Spell, a recent film released in 2020, is a pretty freaky movie that I enjoyed watching. It brings up some interesting topics and makes itself fairly unique in comparison with other black magic movies I’ve seen recently. It’s on Hulu and Paramount Plus to stream if you’re interested.
Jordan Peele also worked on the revival of “The Twilight Zone”, which had a really good first season, and an alright second season. Jordan Peele acted as the narrator, and a couple of episodes centered around racism, and many episodes starred people of color, which was a nice change for the horror anthology genre.
The newest “Saw” franchise movie, “Spiral”, stars Chris Rock who actually pitched the idea for the film. It was the first “Saw” movie to have an original soundtrack that included mostly rap. The entire movie was a bit different from the “Saw” movies that came before, not entirely due to Chris Rock's influence, but a great deal of it is.
My main goal with this article is to reach horror fans, and tell them that if they haven’t looked much into black horror movies, they seriously should. If you’re a horror fan of any kind, I’m sure you’ve seen the more popular ones, like “Get Out”, and “Us”. But there is so much more than just Jordan Peele’s movies. There are smaller movies like Spell that are captivating in their own respects.
I would recommend searching for them. Not even just black directed, but people of color in general. Even some foreign horror films, such as the modern zombie classic “Train To Busan”, and its sequel, “Peninsula”, both from Korea (Both of them are available on Shudder) are top recommendations.
As October approaches I encourage you to watch some unique horror movies. If not to support diversity, just do it to enjoy something different.