This weekend, Tim Story’s buzzworthy new horror-comedy The Blackening hits theaters (just in time for Juneteenth!), and is by most accounts one of the better “audience experiences” you might have at the multiplex in 2023. With an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, a boatload of tropes to satirize, and a very funny cast in place, The Blackening seems primed to deliver the type of studio-comedy experience we rarely get anymore. Go for the horror, yes – but also go for the comedy.
Those of you who haven’t followed The Blackening‘s journey to the screen may not know that it started life all the way back in 2018, as a Comedy Central short. Short films being turned into features is a somewhat common practice in the horror genre (see Mama, Lights Out, and Smile for recent examples), but those shorts usually start out by making the rounds on the genre festival circuit, showcased in places like the Overlook Film Festival, Fantastic Fest or SXSW, which makes The Blackening somewhat unique.
Co-written by Dewayne Perkins and directed by Chioke Nassor, the sketch version of The Blackening offers a good look at what you can expect from Story’s feature adaptation (which was also co-written by, and co-stars, Perkins). Whether you’re seeing this sketch for the first time, paying it a revisit, or you’re just on the fence and wondering if The Blackening is for you, we feel like the below is well worth your four minutes.
Tim Story’s The Blackening hits theaters this weekend. See you there?
