Editorials
Why the World Needs More Diversity in Black Horror
English poet William Cowper coined the saying “variety’s the very spice of life” in the late 1700s. Knowing who he is isn’t as important as understanding what was correct in his time is still valid in ours. Especially when it comes to horror. A world with just slashers or just ghost stories or only monster movies isn’t a world any of us want to think about, much less live in. Seriously, just writing that sentence makes me sleepy.
Solely relying on one type of movie hinders the genre and blows out any ember of creative fire. More importantly, it continuously reinforces one image while cementing a larger narrative that’s hard to diffuse.
This is why Black trauma can’t be the only form Black horror movies exist in. At the moment, it’s tough to look at and continues an American tradition of profiting from Black pain.
Get Out started a trend of filmmakers and studios mining America’s most pronounced sin—racism—for scary movie material. How couldn’t it? Jordan Peele’s rookie movie is a masterpiece that made money hand over fist and is now part of our country’s shared lexicon. We got content like Lovecraft Country, an exploration of systemic racism through pretty damn artful sci-fi and horror in its wake. Artists found creative ways to have conversations that some still view as “uncomfortable” while doing their very best to entertain.
Through their eyes, we saw Black people beaten, berated, harassed by cops, and harassed by neighbors, all for the crime of being Black people in a white country. Yet they survived. Some of them even became superhuman and thrived. In short, it felt great. It’s cathartic seeing people who look like you triumph over true evil in ways our ancestors could only dream of. And even then, just dreaming about getting even was reason enough for them to lose their lives to a rope or a gun.
“Lovecraft Country”
But then 2021 kicked off with more Black men and women dying at the hands of cops. More families were crying on TV because their loved ones are no longer breathing. Which, of course, meant more continuous coverage of Rev. Al Sharpton, Benjamin Crump, and state press conferences. At one point, we heard from Daunte Wright’s grieving mother during the recess of the Derek Chauvin murder trial. Our pain—Black pain—was once again on display for the entire world.
Whether on TV, social media, or movies, Black trauma is a staple of American pop culture. Struggling to survive and the will to overcome historically define an entire race partially because those images are fed to the world on a semi-regular basis. To George Floyd’s family, he was flesh and blood with hopes and dreams. But the world sees him as a symbol, another short film about our trials and tribulations, with another family’s tears as the soundtrack. We are more than physical and emotional punching bags for racists who claim there’s no prejudice bone in their bodies.
Believe it or not, Black people also fear haunted houses and getting lost in unfamiliar territory with a group of friends. We, too, worry about falling asleep one night and not waking up the following day. And yeah, a boogeyman in a William Shatner mask gets our heart rate making wind sprints just as much as the next person’s. Zombies don’t scare us because we’re Black; they scare us because we’re human. Like all people on this planet who breathe oxygen, there is complexity in what keeps us up at night. But there’s a reason universal fears are precisely that.
Putting too much focus on a particular fear that only afflicts one group of people is an easy way to dehumanize and “other” them rather than empathize. That’s why Antebellum, Them, and even Lovecraft Country are hard to reckon with. Their shared message of things changing only to stay the same is needed since there are still people who believe racism went the way of the do-do bird or the Model-T. Antebellum even goes so far as to point out Black bodies and Black pain are used to entertain. But all three perpetuate images we’re way too used to in this country. Also, it’s not like the market overflowed with Black horror films, even before the pandemic. We have minimal real estate to build on, so we need more than one type of horror flick with more than one message.
‘Antebellum’
Black characters can occupy the same spaces usually dominated by white characters. I love the idea of a group of Black teenagers trying to outsmart Freddy Krueger or fleeing from Jason. No, not as the token diversity members of an ensemble, but as part of a cast of fully-realized Black characters who are easy to love, hate, and everything in between. Just like any white person in any horror movie ever made.
This isn’t to say horror as graphic as Lovecraft Country doesn’t have merit in 2021. There is always a need for horror to say something important when the world feels like it’s falling off its axis. And unfortunately, some people don’t respond to subtlety. However, we need balance. Not just for multifaceted stories and scares, but also for the well-being of Black horror fans. Seeing the latest update on the most recent woman or man slaughtered in the street because of the melanin in their skin is depressing. Turning to horror for a brief respite only to relive that trauma is emotionally taxing. And I’m just tired.
A little variety goes a long way.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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