Is Black Horror Fatigue On Us or The Industry?
Black creators are some of the only groups that are tasked with making things with deep meanings. More specifically, black horror is always attached to trauma and racism. While an entertaining combination, fans are restless. Recently, Amazon Prime announced a new series titled Them by Lena Waithe and Little Marvin. It’s giving fans Get Out vibes and for good reason.
The evil white people trope has been around since the beginning of black leads being the face of horror films. Hell, even older classics like Night of The Living Dead and The People Under centralized race as a means to madness. This is deeply rooted in the way we make movies. Don’t forget that we got opportunities in the blaxploitation era. Those stories were integral to the great content we have today. But there’s a lot of other stories that need to be told. The genre has evolved, but for us, it’s staying formulaic.
The last thing we need to do is blame the creators. At the end of the day, there is someone that’s approving scripts and green-lighting concepts. Woke cinema with black leads are big business!
- Get Out cleared $255.4 million on a $4.5 million budget at the box office.
- The First Purge made $137.1 million on a $13 million budget.
And in every situation, the money will be followed to where it resides.
As fans, we can be contradictory and avoid some of the movies we claim we need. For example, His House was a phenomenal turn on the head of the haunted house story. Antebellum, despite its flaws and derivative premise, is unique in its twist and worth a watch.
(Credit: Wunmi Mosaku as Rialand and Sope Dirisu as Bol in Remi Weeke’s His House. Photograph: Aidan Monaghan/NETFLIX)
Most importantly, we have to amplify the independent creators trying to break through to inject new juice into the industry. For every Jordan Peele, there’s a Bobby Huntley. And with every Nia Da Costa, there is a Nikyatu Jusu.
Remember: AMPLIFY!
And studios need to open their minds and then their wallets!
We got out of the found footage loop during its era. We’re slowly moving away from the shady “based on a true story” tags. Let’s continue to go onward and upward. At the day’s end, both fans and studios play a part in consumption. Now it’s up to us all to change.
