We've all heard this horror-movie premise before: a group of friends go to a remote cabin for a weekend of fun, only to be stalked by a sadistic killer. The Black character always gets killed first. But what if all the characters are Black? What happens then?
That's the premise of Lionsgate's upcoming movie The Blackening, a horror comedy from director Tim Story (Barbershop) and writers Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip) and Dewayne Perkins (Brooklyn Nine-Nine). The movie premiered as a Midnight Madness feature at the Toronto Film Fest, where it got a rave review from Indiewire and was soon the subject of a bidding war to distribute the movie.
The movie will be released on June 16, just in time for the summer movie blockbuster season.
Indiewire said in its review the horror-movie parody excels at interrogating "the idea of Blackness, and the stupid attempts made to quantify it. Embracing clichés and stereotypes, and then twisting them, allows the film to examine Blackness."
Actors Antoinette Robertson, Dewayne Perkins, Sinqua Walls, Jay Pharoah, and Yvonne Orji are among the cast. Check out the trailer below:
You can also see the original 3Peat Comedy Central sketch that inspired the movie.
