Interviews
‘The Blackening’ Stars Melvin Gregg and Jay Pharoah on What Sets This Horror-Comedy Apart [Interview]
One of the year’s most infectious horror comedies, The Blackening, arrives in theaters this Friday, June 16, 2023.
The Blackening centers around a group of Black friends who reunite for a Juneteenth weekend getaway only to find themselves trapped in a remote cabin with a twisted killer. Forced to play by his rules, the friends soon realize this ain’t no motherf****** game.
Directed by Tim Story (Ride Along, Think Like A Man, Barbershop) and co-written by Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip, Harlem) and Dewayne Perkins (“The Amber Ruffin Show,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”), The Blackening skewers genre tropes and poses the sarcastic question: if the entire cast of a horror movie is Black, who dies first?
The Blackening stars Antoinette Robertson, Dewayne Perkins, Sinqua Walls, Grace Byers, X Mayo, Melvin Gregg, Jermaine Fowler, Yvonne Orji, and Jay Pharoah.
Melvin Gregg as King, Grace Byers as Allison, Antoinette Robertson as Lisa, Sinqua Walls as Nnamdi, Jermaine Fowler as Clifton, Dewayne Perkins as Dewayne, and Xochitl Mayo as Shanika in The Blackening. Photo Credit: Glen Wilson
Ahead of the film’s release, Bloody Disgusting spoke with Melvin Gregg (The Way Back) and Jay Pharoah (Bad Hair, Unsane), who play characters King and Shawn, respectively. The pair revealed whether they were horror fans coming into this movie and shared more about their characters.
Former “Saturday Night Life” main cast member and comedian Pharoah’s reputation for comedy precedes him, but how does he feel about horror?
“I love horror films,” Pharoah says. “I never find them to be scary. I always end up laughing. Unless it’s like The Exorcist or something, that ain’t funny. That’s real right there. We don’t mess with the spooks now. We don’t do that. We don’t do that. But I love Texas Chainsaw, Jason, the Halloween franchise, and even Scary Movie. I love it all. I think horror is one of the best genres ever. And we’ve done such justice with this movie that could be one of the biggest comedy horrors that’s ever been created. I have to say that.”
Gregg was a tougher sell when it came to horror, but The Blackening‘s approach addressed his typical frustrations with the genre. Gregg explains, “I wasn’t a big horror fan because I felt like the horror films aren’t realistic. They don’t act like they want to survive. They do the dumbest stuff ever and die. It’s like rightfully so. And this film approaches it from a different perspective, you know? I mean, you got a cast of all Black friends, and of course, we can’t all die first, but our goal is to actually survive and do things that would get us out of danger. That’s what I didn’t like about the other films; they didn’t feel like they wanted to survive, so this was a breath of fresh air in the genre.”
More than just breaking from horror conventions, The Blackening provided the opportunity to break from familiar roles. The actor shares how he found a kindred spirit in King, “Before this project, I had done a lot of characters who fit in that thug realm. I was like, ‘I don’t want to do that anymore. I’ve done it a couple of years; move on to something else.’ That’s what my character was dealing with. He was struggling with creating a new image of himself and wanted his friends to receive him as something more than the image that he had prior as a college student, as a kid. He had grown from that time and wanted people to see him as that and not the thug guy anymore. So I found that parallel to be attractive as an actor.”
Pharoah found the opposite to be the case with Shawn. He cracks, “I feel like a lot of the time, the characters I played are not like Shawn. Shawn is, he’s overzealous, and he’s super optimistic. That’s not usually something I do. Usually, I’m the first one, ‘Yeah, Nah, nope, I ain’t messing with this,’ and I’ll be out the door. But this guy, he was like on it like, ‘Ooh, yo, it’s spooky. Let’s try it out.’ I would never do that in real life, never do that in real life, and I’ve never been able to do that with any of my other characters. So to play that is fun. That was different for me, for Shawn.”
While Shawn might not know the rules of surviving horror, it’s clear that Pharoah does. The actor reveals why horror and comedy are two sides of the same coin.
“There’s so much of the same flavor, “Pharoah states. “I mean the execution of it, the command that actor has. When you watch them, you want to see what’s going to happen next—the same thing with a comedy. You want to be shocked. You want it to come from left field. And that’s how horror is. Horror comes from left field. You have to come from the left to scare somebody. You know what I mean? If I see you standing there, I’m not going to be scared. If you see the punchline, you’re not going to laugh at it. So it’s like sneaky.”
“Element of surprise,” Gregg adds.
“Element of surprise,” Pharoah confirms. “Comedy and horror do the same thing. It’s the same. It’s like boxing almost. It’s the same thing. Bop, bop.”
The Blackening releases in theaters on June 16.
In the meantime, check out the character posters for King and Shawn below.
As the inaugural season of Apple TV+’s stellar new series “Widow’s Bay” barrels toward its finale in two weeks, the latest episode gives Kate O’Flynn the spotlight as her character revisits her trauma with the Boogeyman.
“Your Baggage“, directed by Andrew DeYoung (Friendship), sees O’Flynn’s scene-stealing Patricia once again renew her fight with the Michael Myers-like stalker that slaughtered her peers during her adolescence. Thrillingly, it makes for one extended chase sequence that sees Patricia trying to warn others, while evading the undead killer.
In short, this episode’s incredible riff on Halloween and the slasher subgenre transformed Patricia into a fierce Final Girl.
“Well, that felt like a bucket list that I didn’t know was on my bucket list until I did it, but when I did it, I just lapped up every minute,” O’Flynn tells Bloody Disgusting of her triumphant turn this episode. “It felt fantastic for her to get that moment where she is becoming a badass. That was amazing.”
The actress turned to a few notable references for her performance. “Horror-wise, I go back to my youth, which was referenced in some of the episodes: Wicker Man, Carrie, and Rosemary’s Baby, that sort of thing is my kind of vibe.”
O’Flynn also notes how the series’ unique tone allows for so much creative freedom to make bold swings. “There’s something very freeing about it. Every moment is up for grabs, so it’s like we don’t have to totally land in one direction or another. It keeps it alive.“
Patricia is the eccentric assistant to Matthew Rhys‘ Mayor Tom Loftis, who’s at the forefront of trying to solve the island’s pesky curse predicament. Rhys felt the same about “Widow’s Bay” and its rare ability to make you laugh and scream in equal measure, stemming from series creator Katie Dippold.
“The mandate was, ‘It’s a real world with real people. You play for real.’ There’s no playing for comedy or horror,” Rhys echoes O’Flynn’s sentiments on how freeing the series’ tone has been.
New episodes will release every Wednesday through June 17 only on Apple TV+.
Kate O’Flynn in “Widow’s Bay,” now streaming on Apple TV.
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