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Rappers are busy people, what with all the ho juggling, money stacking, and ride pimping. That's why so few of them have time to fully devote to the craft of acting. And yet so many of them are doing it, mucking up our precious horror films with their half-assed performances. Now, the time has come to set them straight...

Horror movies tend to be thought of as hollow entertainment, but horror has a long history of addressing heavy social issues, whether directly or through symbolic or allegorical means. Perhaps the heaviest of heavy social issues is race relations -- especially in the United States -- but these horror/suspense movies dared to wade into those troubled waters by revolving...

Originally published on MadAtoms.com You've seen him in every horror movie since 1984: the black guy who hangs out with a group of white people he has nothing in common with, whose only purpose, it seems, is to die first. He's been sliced into pieces in Resident Evil, de-armed in Predator, and he had his head punched off in Friday...

These actors and actresses aren't usually the leads in horror movies, but they keep busy in supporting roles as the best friends, the partners, the safari guides and other assorted capacities that probably ensure death. You know their faces, but you don't know their names or even where you know them from. Before you walk up and ask them, "Do...

Cinema in 2023 boasted a slew of surprise hits and surprise flops, but one constant was the Black presence in horror. Not necessarily a year of earth-shattering accomplishments, 2023 was for Black horror more about consistency and variety, broadening the typical Black roles into period pieces, ghost stories, mad scientist tales, horror-comedies, and family-friendly fare. As with last year,...

Like every other Internet gnome trolling the Web for treasure, I traced the progress of the film Snakes on a Plane for months, drinking in the online parodies and speculating on the possibility of sequels (Giraffes on a Speedboat) or even prequels (Dodos on a Frigate). I cheered when New Line Studios ordered five days of re-shoots to bump...

Everyone knows that the "black guy" (or gal) usually dies in horror movies -- so much so, in some instances, the characters themselves seem to be aware of their inevitable fate. Thus, we have the phenomenon of black "heroic death," in which black characters (usually peripheral) voluntarily sacrifice themselves -- or at least, volunteer for tasks that mean certain...

Historically, black people's contributions to horror cinema have been hailed about as much as Donald Trump's contributions to racial unity, but there are some noteworthy figures of color from the past and present who deserve some recognition within the genre, so I've taken it upon myself to create the Black Horror Movie Hall of Fame. Feel free to tip the...

Be they stereotypes or monotypes, they're the "types" that most black characters in horror films inevitably fall into... The Spook As the name implies, the spook is spooked by all things spooky. Typically the comic sidekick, he's often spared from death by his ability to make people laugh. The "classic spook" (most widely represented by Mantan Moreland and the catchphrase often...

There was a time not too long ago that it would be difficult to create a “best of” list of horror movies featuring black leads in any given year, since there were so few of them, and the ones that did exist were of such dubious quality. But thankfully, things have changed in both quantity and quality over the...