"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…

''I knew that King Kong was a metaphor for blackness''

On the one hand seeing Ken Foree, Kieth David, Rusty Cundieff, and Ernest R Dickerson talk about their childhood experiences seeing black people in horror films for the first time, and their experiences within that industry later in life, was genuinely interesting.

On the other hand, having 40% of the film be Twitter famous UCLA professors who teach Black Cinema courses spurt absurd deconstructionist takes on old cinema—such as the idea that all monsters from 50s sci-fi movies, including Creature From the Black Lagoon, The Fly, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, are direct manifestations of the white man's fear of blackness—was agonising.

This film is billed as a…

an interesting look at the history of black people in horror juxtaposed with the perspectives of black people who both grew up on these depictions of themselves in movies and who have worked in the industry themselves. it's got some Takes with varying degrees of spiciness, but even the ones that seem like unfair leaps are interesting, if only insofar as it's eye-opening to see how some of these recurring archetypes and tropes affect those watching who see themselves (or rather, a stereotype of themselves) in them. the doc mentions some films I'd never heard of that I'm now definitely going to check out, as well as shedding light on the importance of films I had heard of (notably Night…

''I knew that King Kong was a metaphor for blackness''

On the one hand seeing Ken Foree, Kieth David, Rusty Cundieff, and Ernest R Dickerson talk about their childhood experiences seeing black people in horror films for the first time, and their experiences within that industry later in life, was genuinely interesting.

On the other hand, having 40% of the film be Twitter famous UCLA professors who teach Black Cinema courses spurt absurd deconstructionist takes on old cinema—such as the idea that all monsters from 50s sci-fi movies, including Creature From the Black Lagoon, The Fly, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, are direct manifestations of the white man's fear of blackness—was agonising.

This film is billed as a…