NEW YORK (OSV News) – “The Blackening” (Lionsgate) is a brilliant comic riff on what constitutes authentic African American identity. In adapting the eponymous 2018 sketch by the comedy troupe 3Peat, director Tim Story and screenwriters Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins use the familiar structure of a horror flick as a framing device.
Perkins also plays a character named Dewayne, one of nine friends from college who have planned to gather at a remote house in the woods to celebrate Juneteenth. The place isn’t haunted, but it’s visited by a couple of mysterious figures with murderous intent, and, of course, doors slam shut at key moments and then can’t be opened.
In the basement is a creepy board game with a caricatured Sambo face (big red lips, bulging eyes) that barks harsh, difficult questions about Black culture and history. It asks the group, for example, to name all the actors of color who appeared on “Friends.”
Rather than fully developed individuals, the characters are instead quickly limned stereotypes designed as vessels for rapid-fire quips. Besides Perkins, the ensemble cast includes Grace Byers, Melvin Gregg, Sinqua Walls, Antoinette Robertson, X Mayo and Jermaine Fowler.
As tipped off by the picture’s ad campaign, the plot also deals with the decades-old trope of an African American character — usually a guy — being the first to die in any cinematic killing spree. But the script turns this on its head when the Sambo face demands to know who among the pals is the Blackest.
Since she has a white father, Byers’ Allison doesn’t qualify. Nnamdi (Walls), despite having grown up in California, has African parentage and thus draws the wry observation: “You’re a still-in-its-original-packaging Black.”
Is racial identification a matter of genetics, upbringing or attitude? The moment, like everything else in the movie, passes quickly, yet lingers.
As with all satire based on in-jokes, the effectiveness of the humor is uneven. But Story keeps the wisecracks flowing with a pleasant rapidity. More substantially, there’s obvious deep affection underlying the way in which the female characters express sisterhood telepathically.
Overall, grown moviegoers will appreciate the sharp wit “The Blackening” brings to bear on the issues and topics it explores.
The film contains physical violence played for laughs, fleeting gore, offscreen casual sexual activity, racial slurs, mature references, including to homosexuality, and frequent rough and crude language. The OSV News classification is A-III – adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
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