‘The Blackening’ Tribeca Movie Review: An Unfunny Waste of Potential

While the comparison is inevitable, it is certainly a bit unfair to compare Tim Story‘s The Blackening to Jordan Peele‘s Get Out. Both are horror comedies starring black characters and attempt to be both entertaining while also providing social commentary on black identity.

While both films obviously have different goals and approaches, it makes sense as to why the two films are being compared. However, while the comparison may be a bit unfair, it is also not unjustifiable either because in terms of being both a horror film and a comedy, Get Out is the superior film that manages to be both more entertaining and socially purposeful in a way that The Blackening fails to achieve.

Everything about The Blackening is incredibly surface level from its comedy to the social commentary about black identity to its obvious satire on the tropes pertaining to black characters in horror films and everything in between.

The film overall lacks any sort of substance or depth, and while it is perfectly fine for a film to just be pure entertainment and nothing more, to call The Blackening “pure entertainment” would be an exaggeration as I was more agonized or annoyed than entertained. While I did chuckle a bit more times than I expected and there were some clever ideas here and there, when the best joke in the film is just about how the nerdy Clifton (Jermaine Fowler) voted for Trump twice, then something has gone awry. Granted, this is very much a subjective viewpoint as the film’s humor is very much not my cup of tea, but there are still elements that simply do not work.

For starters, while I understand that the film prioritizes being a comedy above all else, it’s incredibly frustrating when the characters are constantly making the same type of joke. This film has this repetitive, cyclical nature involving the characters constantly cracking jokes after some horrific event or situation occurs whether it involves The Blackening board game or the slasher villains trying to kill the protagonists, and after about 30 minutes, this whole shtick becomes incredibly stale and agonizing.

While the film’s cast of characters (Antoinette Robertson, Sinqua Walls, Dewayne Perkins, X Mayo, Melvin Gregg, Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler) have great chemistry with each other and are clearly talented, the humor very rarely lands. It would not be so bad if the film changed up its approach to the humor, but because the set-ups and punchlines are the exact same throughout the film’s runtime, The Blackening just completely loses steam too quickly.

Additionally, for a film that supposedly plays on the cliches and tropes of black characters in horror movies, The Blackening does very little with its supposed satire and simply makes the most obvious, surface-level observations. It’s completely frustrating when the film points out certain horror movie cliches and tropes before proceeding to act out said cliches and tropes because the end result is a film that is no different from any other slasher film except for being slightly more self-aware.

This would have been more acceptable had the film stylistically looked more like an older movie where they could play around with the tropes and while gleefully indulging in them like Ti West‘s X and Pearl, but the film simply looks like another slasher film that came out in 2023, so I can’t help but feel disappointed by the wasted potential this film squandered.

Overall, while the film is not a completely joyless experience, The Blackening is still a frustrating watch. In the hands of a different director with a better feel for the actual genre (horror) filmmaking, this would have been something unique, but as it is, I cannot help but feel disappointed.