Surely than can be no better time to gather together with friends than the Juneteenth weekend. Even if you're all still in each other's lives, more or less, this is a most important holiday on the Black American calendar, and one worth finding that well-situated cabin in the woods to celebrate. Except if that cabin in the woods leaves you vulnerable to a couple of racists. Who also happen to be physically imposing. And know the terrain and buildings. And have set up a board game designed to test your 'blackness' and failure will mean your death.
Given the familiarity with the 'cabin in the woods' trope, you wouldn't think a new spin could bring it fresh life. But combine the efforts of director Tim Story (Ride Along), co-writers Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip) and Dewayne Perkins (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), and a winning cast, and there is plenty of new ideas to bring to the trope in The Blackening. Its play on words, stereotypes, assumptions, and personal connections weave well into the horror that plagues these characters through a harrowing night.
Seven college friends - Allison, Lisa, Dewayne, Shanika, Nnamdi, King, and Clifton - have travelled to a cabin (somewhere above the Mason Dixon line), rented by their friends Morgan and Shawn, for a Juneteenth reunion weekend. They have some choice drugs, some signature cocktails, and their favourite card game of spades to pass the time while waiting for their oddly absent hosts. That is, until they discover a game room, with a rather unique board game with the racist Sambo image and a very cracker voice coming out of it. They discover that Morgan has been taken hostage by someone who forces them to answer questions on black history and culture. Right answers will save their friend, wrong answers will kill her.
There is no trouble believing that this group has been friends a long time, and like long-time friends, they both know each other too well and often not at all. When they choose their board game pieces, each is clearly meant for a specific character, and despite some misgivings, they all begrudingly agree with their representation. The jokes are clever and quick, and there is (thankfully) no pandering to any of the non-Black audience - if you get the reference, great, if you don't, tough - we're looking into their world and it's up to us to figure it out.
And while the initial question of who dies next when all the characters are black sets up the story, it by no means stops there. This is not just about black characters in a horror movie; there is plenty of drama within the group, adding layers to their fight for survival: arguments over what it means to be the blackest, how biracial people are treated within and without their culture, what if you marry a white person, why do people always assume a black person has the drugs. Oliver and Perkins' dialogue is not only spot-on in its commentary and incisive humour, but the cast deliver it with perfect timing. A key to both horror and comedy is timing, not letting your audience guess too much what's coming, and this story constantly keeps you on the proverbial edge of your seat.
And clearly, Story knows his horror. He and cinematographer Todd A. Dos Reis know just how to frame a shot going into black and hold it for just long enough to get our frightened juices flowing, while score cues have a wonderful old-school vibe that sets the tone. There exactly the right jokes about what they should and should not do now that they find themselves stalked by a slasher, and the text keeps just the right side of meta.
The Blackening is the perfect summer slasher: the scares are intense, yes, and the set-up sends shivers up your spine, but its heart is the cast that delivers pitch-perfect performances, quippy and clever dialogue that hits into the politics of black culture, and a pace that keeps the audience on its toes.
