Despite the lack of diversity in Oscar nominations for 2019 movies, the year may be remembered in hindsight as a watershed moment for black women in a genre long snubbed by the Academy Awards: horror. 2019 witnessed black actresses play lead or featured roles in more than a dozen...
2013’s Ghetto Goblin was a cheapie from South Africa whose name change from Blood Tokoloshe reflected a cheesiness inherent in the production, but The Tokoloshe is a much more polished, professional affair that thankfully avoided a name change for American consumption, so we don’t have to deal with watching...
Unlike Halloween and Christmas, Thanksgiving has struggled to find a foothold within the horror genre -- unless, perhaps, you’re a Native American who tells campfire stories about the White Man’s arrival, spreading pestilence, genocide and gluten intolerance. Cinematically speaking, though, Thanksgiving has been a famine for horror; even lesser...
47 Meters Down: Uncaged has about as much in common with 47 Meters Down as it does with 47 Ronin. Sure, it revolves around sharks trying to eat people, but it’s nowhere near 47 meters below the surface and it doesn’t involve any sort of Mandy Moore-adjacent caging mishap,...
Having rewatched the original Jacob’s Ladder recently, I found that, although the whole “shaky head” effect has become something of a horror cliche over the years, it holds up well as a visually striking and narratively challenging -- but ultimately rewarding -- paranoid thriller with a poignant emotional core....
Although she’s starred in more acclaimed films, Little Monsters might just be the movie that best embodies the spirit of the Cult of Lupita Nyong'o. All of the qualities we’ve come to love about her -- beauty, style, class, wit, charisma, smarts, vivacity -- are on full display in...
For most of America (and the world, for that matter), the name Buckout Road means very little, but in and around Westchester County, New York, it’s apparently famous for being haunted. Or cursed. Or maybe both. Less famous than regional legends like the Headless Horseman and the Jersey Devil,...
For a while, it seemed that the go-to move for an established film franchise that had reached a shark-jumping level of creative desperation was to shoot it into outer space -- the cinematic equivalent of a family sitcom adding a baby into the mix. James Bond, Hellraiser, Airplane, Leprechaun,...
It’s sad that in 2019, it’s still rare enough for a black woman to be the primary love interest in a “non-black” horror movie that when it happens, it’s noteworthy. Leading black male love interests aren’t particularly common either, but black guys at least seem to get more supporting...
Over the past decade, suspense thrillers with black protagonists have multiplied to previously unknown heights, and like all great cultural developments on planet Earth, we have Beyonce to thank. The success of her 2009 film Obsessed helped convince major Hollywood studios (or more precisely, a single studio, since most...
