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.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
You must be logged in to post a comment.