If you think of self-aware horror movies like those Russian nesting dolls, you could start with “Scream” and then open the doll to reveal “Scary Movie,” and then open THAT doll to reveal “The Blackening,” a fantastically funny and razor-sharp social satire that kicks off with a prologue paying homage to the “Scream” movies and references horror classics such as “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” “Friday the 13th,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Saw” and many others along the way.
Even the marketing campaign for “The Blackening” is a nod to the trope about Black characters being the first to die in horror films (which is more of a long-running joke and a perception than documented fact). With a poster featuring the all-Black lead cast and the tagline “WE CAN’T ALL DIE FIRST,” the film is based on a live sketch formulated by Dewayne Perkins when Perkins was on the Chicago comedy circuit, which was then turned into a Comedy Central short film and is now a subversive and slyly effective feature-length film, directed by Tim Story (“Barbershop,” “Ride Along”) and co-written by Perkins (who also co-stars) and Tracy Oliver (“Girls Trip,” “The Sun Is Also a Star.”)
