Popular reviews

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  Review by Jacob Knight ★★★★

  “A man has got to be able to see his face.” - Blacula (1972)

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  Review by pd187 ★★★½

  lotta good stuff in this but all i remember is rachel true gets horny for blacula

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  Review by {Todd} ★★★★ 4

  "We gotta flip the scales and make horror redemptive" - Rusty Cundieff,

  -2019 Ranked: boxd.it/2lsbC

  Keith David and Ken Foree sitting together in a theater talking about the film industry is one of my favorite things I've ever seen in a documentary.

  Jordan Peele and a series of horror legends star in this historical analysis. The film runs through a history of black people in horror, intermixed with commentary from talking head experts and two person groupings from the horror industry. There are a lot of great pairings (i.e. Miguel Nunez Jr and Kelly Jo Minter, Rusty Cundieff and Ernest Dickerson). Scholars in the film such as Robin Means occasionally over-simplify a few film interpretations in my opinion (Poltergeist, Creature…

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  Review by Rafael Jovine ★★★★ 2

  There is an incredibly insightful and personally very engaging documentary that takes us through the history of horror and black people in cinema and the evolution of how thsi has evolved throughout the years. The film mentions the horrific treatment people faced in the early days as portrayed in films like "Birth Of A Nation" and how the community has been boxed into various archetypes and stereotypes, thereby showing the racism of the system. There are also various positive and empowering aspects associated with blaxploitation, for example.

  All in all, while those with a strong background in this topic may find little new in this documentary, the valuable commentary from the film's protagonists and academics makes it worth your time.

  TODAY SCHEDULE
  Do The Right Thing: 20 Years Later
  Passing Strange
  Horror Noire
  Death On The Nile

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  Review by Zay ★★★★★ 2

  As a proud black man who lives for horror films I'm happy as hell that this horror documentary exists! Horror Noire actually gives us a well documented look at black history in horror from the blaxploitation era to the token black era of the 80s to the the present day where black ppl are seen as equals in the horror industry.

  All of these fabulous actors n actresses having genuine convos about their experiences being black in horror movies as well as being black in the real world was great to see. There were also many tidbits of info that I'd never really paid attention to such as the black male/white woman dynamic prevalent in alot of older horror films.…

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  Review by Dyrnott ★★★½

  Very good documentary! Love the behind the scenes perspectives from some of the film makers and actors and perspectives of those influenced by them. I felt prior to watching that it would trash black exploitation movies but found that we are in agreement that there are some really entertaining ones. I also found a few gems that I didn’t know about to check out.

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  Review by Jordan Pickens ★★★★ 2

  A solid documentary from Shudder. All I had to see was Keith David (The Thing) and Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) to get excited. Now I just want to see them together in a horror flick.

  This film takes the time to point out and deconstruct horror tropes, that are negative towards black people. The world has a long way to go, but it is nice to see things headed in a better direction by the end of the film.

  Another good reason to check this out is to see what you can add to your watch list. Ganja & Hess, Tales From The Hood & Abby are all flicks I haven't seen and am now looking forward to.

  Only true negative to me was how quickly they had to move. I think this would have been better served as a mini-series.

  4 Shudder fucking rules out of 5

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  Review by Henry ★★★★

  This is a great documentary that takes a look at the portrayal of black people in horror films over the last century. As someone that has gotten much more into horror over the last year or so I really appreciated a look at how the genre has changed throughout history and how black people are finally getting their rightful representation in cinema and horror specifically. It was interesting to see how these tropes changed every decade and which films broke the mold. This also made me very excited for Jordan Peele’s next film, because he is clearly a visionary when it comes to storytelling and representation. I have a lot of horror movies to add to my watchlist now, and this is a documentary I would recommend to any horror movie lovers.

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  Review by Liz ★★★ 7

  I haven't read the source book, but this plays very much like Rob Epstein's film adaptation of The Celluloid Closet, sharing not only the same general narrative trajectory, but also that film's use of filmmakers, actors, and academics to echo the same points and retell the same stories as the source text. It's an important subject and the film is generally well put together, though, like the Epstein film, I wish this went deeper and that the focus wasn't solely on Hollywood -- how about some coverage of outsiders like Chester Turner, or films like Breeders or Friday the 13th: Part V, neither of which fall as neatly into the categories of tropes that this spends much of its runtime defining? Still, very much worth a watch for the personality and personal observations that the assembled interviewees bring to the material.

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  Review by Dave Taylor ★★★ 2

  Black people in a movie theater talking about black people on a movie screen.

  Tells you pretty much everything you would want to know on the subject in it’s trim 83 minutes.

  I enjoyed hearing about the ‘black experience’ for these movies, but in some cases I felt the interpretation was more of a singular belief than a universally accepted ‘truth’ (Ex. the creatures from the 50’s monster movies represented black people).

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  Review by Chadwin ★★★★

  Important and insightful and just an overall good horror doc.

  —2019 Films Ranked—
  Current Position: #1/17

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  Review by Phil Nobile Jr. 1

  Exec-produced by me, so recusing myself from a rating 😜