Changing the Game

With an All-Black Cast, ‘The Blackening’ Flips Black Stereotypes in Horror on Their Head

· Updated on March 7, 2023

Take everything you know about horror movies and throw it out of the window because The Blackening is here to change the game. Directed by Tim Story and written by comedian Dewayne Perkins and Girls Trip creator Tracy Oliver, The Blackening is ready to bring in a new era of horror parodies. 

The Blackening focuses on a group of friends who escape to a cabin in the woods for a reunion. It’s all fun and games until a masked killer demands that the crew rank their degrees of Blackness to determine their killing order. To save themselves from a grisly fate, these friends must combine wits and their knowledge of horror film tropes in order to survive the night. 

Starring Perkins, the film also features Antoinette Robinson, Grace Byers, Sinqua Walls, X Mayo, Melvin Gregg, Jermaine Fowler, Insecure’s Yvonne Orji, and SNL’s Jay Pharaoh. With all-Black cast, writing team, and director, The Blackening is pushing horror comedies in a more inclusive direction. 

The film is equal parts hilarious, as it is scary, and originally started as a comedy sketch written by Perkins during his improv days. His improv group 3Peat brought the sketch to life for Comedy Central 4 years ago.

After a fateful phone call with Oliver, what was once a comedy sketch became a feature-length film that debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. 

“It’s a really interesting journey with the hindsight of it all,” said Perkins for INTO. “To remember where I was in the different stages and knowing what expectations I had of it, which was none. I really was just out here making art because what else am I going to do?”

Well, we’re glad he put his free time to good use and thankfully, Perkins sees it the same way.

“To see a joke turn into a movie, it feels very unique and specific to me in my journey,” said Perkins. “I love that this experience has been something that is of me. And yeah, that’s something that I’ll forever be grateful for.”

The Blackening is ready to rewrite the horror genre, when it comes to theaters on June 16, 2023.

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