One that piqued my interest based on the premise and tagline alone. 'The Blackening' is a horror comedy with a fairly simple premise: Take an all black cast, lock them in the equivalent of a 'Saw' style trap and see what happens, because; as the tagline quips, they 'Cant all die first.'

As a result, the film is a mixture of self aware comedy highlighting black oppression and poking fun of how the media percieve black characters in horror films, while also presenting an actually quite compelling Slasher movie. Initially when I landed on this on Tubi, I was expecting something of the same vein and ilk as the 'Scary Movie' films…But having now seen it, I can say this is much MUCH more thoughtful and much more subtle than I had anticipated.

At this point i'd usually talk about the plot, but what I described in the opening of this review *IS* essentially the plot of the movie, a group of friends take some time to hang out in a log cabin style house in the woods, they find a boardgame called 'The Blackening' and that triggers a 'Saw' style fight to survive with the friends quipping and arguing about who is 'The blackest' while crossbow armed killers stalk the grounds and try to slowly pick them off.

The script itself is a little slowburn truthfully, but its a satisfying burn that delivers on the premise *IF* you go into this knowing that its not going to be an intense 'in your face' style slapstick comedy, and is in fact something a bit more thoughtful in what it wants to say. The pacing may be a bit on the slower side, but it eeks out a satisfying narrative and tone across the runtime that I thought was quite endearing honestly.

The dialogues a little mixed in terms of some rock solid one liners that made me gut laugh, through to some lines that felt a little thin on the ground. But its the topics the film deals with (such as how 'black' a bi-racial woman is vs how 'black' a guy who's parents were from south africa is) that fuel a lot of the humour and push the film along.

Tonally I think it gets the balance about right, leading with a horror edge, but contrasting at a 40/60 rate with largely intelligent humour aimed at making the audience think a bit beyond the usual slapstick. Can I say I laughed at every little thing the film threw at me? No. But I can say it kept my attention for the full runtime, and I did a few gut laughs along the way, which worked for me.

The film actually does a pretty good job of keeping the characters fairly shallow in terms of complexity and depth. But still managing to make them endearing and enjoyable to watch. I think its a good sign when I still care and am invested in the characters when the film doesnt really do a lot to bed them into having a history that extends beyond the titles and credits. So that definitely is working in its favour.

It has a fairly solid 3 act structure, seamless transitions between those 3 acts, the ending is pretty satisfying, and while there were no plot twists that made me double take, it was still fun seeing the twists unfold and how the characters reacted to them.

The direction and cine is relatively strong, given this was more of a 'mid budget' production, I think its definitely in the upper half of the bracket for creative quality, cinematography, sequence building and the edit was pretty rock solid too. Its nothing groundbreaking. But its a rock solid production that does take some risks here and there, that largely pays off what it tries to put in. So its a big win in my books.

The performances are fine as well, nothing incredible, maybe just a smidge too eager to lean into stereotyping for a quick laugh than I personally would have liked, but the cast deliver the lines almost word perfect, bring a good physicality to proceedings and made me laugh with reactions to scenarios and their joke pacing/deliveries. So I'll say they're a solid bunch honestly.

As for the soundtrack? while its nice to get away from ambient drone music thats plagued the horror genre now for over 15 years. The score for this is mainly rap and R&B tracks…which isnt entirely surprising. But at the same time I dont feel it always *quite* works with the narrative and edit thats being presented. there are moments where it feels a bit out of step with the action or story on screen, and i'd say it maybe hits about 30-40% of the time. It would have been nice to have seen the score editing be a bit tighter, as it does somewhat let the film down and gives it a vibe that more closely resembles a 'Straight to Tubi' film.

All in all? I was quite surprised by 'The Blackening' Is it one of the best horror films of 2022? No. but I was expecting a campy and tacky stereotypical, 'lowest common denominator' comedy horror film, and what I got was an actually pretty solidly made horror film with decent social commentary and some good laughs in there too. Put it this way, theres a sequel, and after seeing this im MORE than curious to go check that one out too. So I guess i'd say, if your curious, its more than worth checking out at least once. Will it change your life? No. But its definitely worth the price of admission, even if it is a 'one time watch.'

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-blackening/