A group of friends who stay in a cabin in the woods have no choice but to play a deadly game. If they don’t find the right answers in the required time, a person risks losing their life…
Black people are often the first to die in horror movies. A theory that was notably stated at the beginning of Scream 2 and which has been verified in a few classics of the genre, from The Shining to the Gremlins.
It is this cliché in particular that is tackled in this horror comedy which is part of the post-Get Out era. Our seven friends – all African-American – take part in a Jumanji-style game and they must correctly answer questions, including one that asks to sacrifice the darkest person in the lot…
This extremely promising concept unfortunately does not hold up over time as the scenario seems unable to exploit it properly. It doesn’t help that the situations are rarely funny and the humor lapses into repetition. There’s even a vomit scene, just like in the Scary Movie era.
It’s not much better on the horrifying level. The inoperative sequences are roughly constructed, always supported by the music, to remind us that we are faced with a satire. The feature pokes fun at slashers — particularly Friday the 13th and its derivatives — with a crossbow-masked villain. Except that he does it by pouring into the facility, without taking the slightest risk.
This is no doubt explained by the presence behind the camera of Tim Story, an experienced filmmaker (we owe him the recent Tom
At least, there are the accomplice actors who have fun in verbomotor and voluntarily stereotyped roles. An often disjointed group which rightly reminds us that we must remain united if we want to remain alive in this type of story.
A brilliant idea doesn’t make a movie, and The Blackening learns that the hard way. The effort would no doubt have yielded a great short in the Tales from the Hood anthologies. Except that in the long format, we will only retain a few rather gratifying meta moments to better forget everything else.
