Editorials
Toni Morrison’s ‘Beloved’: A Gothic Classic of Black Horror Media
Long before Get Out, the film Beloved took on the horror of systemic racism and the harms that it causes Black folx. The movie, directed by Jonathan Demme and based on Toni Morrison‘s 1987 novel of the same name is a masterpiece of Southern Gothic terror that grapples with grief and taboo all wrapped in an haunting cinematic package. It flopped in theaters but it remains a powerful example of Black horror.
Morrison, who recently passed, had some misgivings about a film being made of her lauded, but very difficult book. For as haunting as the film managed to be, the book is even heavier and more brutal. Even so, the movie stayed incredibly close to the source material. It captures the mood and message of the original work and provides a vehicle for people to engage with the story who likely would never have picked up Morrison’s book, phenomenal as it was.
Beloved deals with slavery and in that it is not an unusual film as there is no shortage of cinematic portrayals of America’s history of chattel slavery. Amistad, Glory, Roots, etc all explore that same history from different vantage points. Beloved is different though because it is not a historical retelling. It is a horror film that treats the violence of slavery and the effects it has on the psyche of the people who endured it as horror. Much in the same way that Get Out treated racism as a source of horror. But where Jordan Peele crafted his story through layers of metaphor and satire, the horror in Beloved is visceral and real. The horror is history and the supernatural is a metaphor for handling the real trauma that results from it.
The story revolves around Sethe, played by, of all people, Oprah Winfrey, an escaped enslaved woman with four children. They all make it to freedom but the man who held them in captivity finds them and comes to take them back. Upon realizing who is coming for them, Sethe murders her children rather than let them return to the life they escaped from. The slaver, seeing what she has done, leaves in disgust. As it turns out, only one of her children is actually killed, her oldest daughter, Beloved. After this event, the family is haunted and then, after many years, Beloved shows up “in the flesh”
This is a very Gothic tale and in true Gothic fashion, focuses on women. The narrative is built around Sethe, her living daughter Denver and of course, Beloved. The root of the haunting is trauma and slavery, combined with a deeply taboo act: a mother murdering her own children. This second point is only hinted at, leaving you, the viewer, to try and unravel what is going on in the house. Until, of course, the secret is revealed. For most of the movie you question if the supernatural is truly supernatural or if Beloved is a very clever con artist. Was there ever a ghost or is Sethe just mad? Does the answer even matter when the trauma and taboo that these questions are built on are very, very real?
This is why the film is such an important piece of Black horror. There is nothing in it that is for shock value. There is no romancing of the bones of the story. It is beautifully shot and atmospheric but remains a brutal and haunting tale. It deals with slavery but is about Black trauma presented in a non-sensational manner, despite it’s supernatural elements, which is uncommon for a genre film. There are no voodoo priests, no ancient curses. There is only the horror that was done to Sethe, the horror that she acted out in return and the terrible reality of living with that. Or not living with that.
Beloved absolutely bombed at the box office. It didn’t even come close to making back its $80 million budget. Even powerful performances by Winfrey, Danny Glover, and an up and coming Thandie Newton weren’t enough to sell this movie to audiences in ’98. But like most horror, how it does on the big screen isn’t really indicative of its overall worth.
When we talk about Black horror, it is often movies like Tales From the Hood and Candyman that we remember and discuss as testaments to the genre. But Beloved also deserves our recognition for being so unflinching in its capture of trauma, Blackness and the taboo.
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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