The Blackening

 

Director Tim Story takes a funny and insightful screenplay by Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins and turns it into if not comedic gold then certainly sterling silver.

Nine Black college friends plan a reunion in a secluded cabin for a Juneteenth celebration, but the party is interrupted by masked murderers with crossbows who threaten to kill them all if they don't play a game -- The Blackening. The game is -- for all intents and purposes -- a test of knowledge of African American history and culture, despite the racist minstrel centerpiece on the board.

The movie is 80 percent social commentary and 20 percent slasher cinema and pits the nine (Antoinette Robertson, Dewayne Perkins, Sinqua Walls, Grace Byers, X Mayo, Melvin Gregg, Jermaine Fowler, Yvonne Orji and Jay Pharoah) alternately against their masked captors and themselves. Narrative gaps don't derail the proceedings, mainly because viewers are likely to quickly forget this is a thriller.

The internal warring offers the heartiest laughs and cultural chestnuts that, I suspect, will be most impactful among people familiar with racial stereotypes and cultural tropes that often don't make it to the big screen. Here, they are wall-to-wall.

They are used here as measures of "authenticity" with the central cast representing different sectors of Black life in the U.S. who more or less unite to battle existential threats.

The Blackening, which seems to be addressing larger issues than racial authenticity, is a knowing and entertaining picture.