TIFF Midnight Madness title The Blackening is a horror comedy finds that situates itself somewhere between Scary Movie and Cabin In The Woods. Writer and actor Dewayne Perkins is totally fine with that comparison since both of those movies are inspirations.
The comedian joined the NOW What podcast alongside star Antoinette Robinson (Dear White People) to discuss the film about college friends reuniting at a cottage and then challenged to a deadly game where they are compelled to measure how Black they are. Or else …
Perkins and Robinson discussed using horror comedy to have a conversation about race, where their movie is situated in the evolution of Black horror and why they chose not to go the trauma porn route as so much post-Jordan Peele movies have.
Listen to the whole conversation on the NOW What podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the player below, or read the edited and condensed version further down.
NOW: Let’s start with the origin story. Where did this come from and when did you decide to make it
Dewayne Perkins (DP): I was a part of a improv theater company in Chicago. I originally wrote it at the opening of a sketch show. From there I pitched it to Comedy Central as a digital short for my improv group 3Peat. It went viral. And then [writer Tracy Oliver] saw that video. She called me and was like, “Hey, this could be made into a movie Do you want to?” And I said, “Girl, yeah.”
NOW: But what was the original nugget?
DP: The sketch show was an all-Black sketch show, one of the first for the company that I was working at. I was just thinking like, what is a sketch that really embodies and speaks to Blackness, but in a way that’s like interesting, fun and diverts what people would expect. Instead of outright wanting to talk about Blackness, I wanted it in a device that was mainly comedic. I thought that the trope that the Black person dies first was very much a thing. I was like, “But what if everybody Black? Then what? It’s that simple of a petty question? Like, now what? And then figuring out the fun of what that situation would look like.
NOW: Even here in Canada, we have a writer named Amanda Parris who made a sketch show called Revenge Of The Black Best Friend that plays with this very horror trope.It’s so ripe for comedy. Her show is about sending up all the way stereotypes that we’ve had to live with and grow up with in movies that we loved. What are the horror movies that you love?
DP: I love Cabin in the Woods. I love the Halloween series. It really just had an impact on me. Of course, Jordan Peele has done some amazing work. There’s a range from Tales From The Hood. T I think within the genre of horror, there’s so many different genres. That’s why I like horror. I think comedy really fits well with horror because it comes from the same place.
Rad: How did you feel when L.L. Cool J and Busta Rhymes entered the Halloween series?
DP: Uh huh, and I was like, “they both gonna a die.” And I was like, “that’s cause they are famous.”
NOW: The meat of this movie is this competition of who is the Blackest. It resonates so much because it’s something we see on Twitter a lot. We see conversations about who is Blacker or who has it harder depending on the type of Black experience youcome from.
DP: I think the conversation supersedes Black Twitter. I think it’s just a conversation of being Black and what that means and it is determined by the experience, by the lived personal experience of that Black person. Forcing people – especially within the sketch and in the film – to decide who’s the Blackest, the point is that you can’t. There’s no way to quantify that in a way that feels succinct and right, because Blackness can’t be quantified to these monolithic things. AThat conversation is ripe and that’s why we wanted to satirize it. The exploration of that question hopefully gets people to a place of not asking the question. We know that that is not a thing that can be quantified. So just let people be the Black that they want to be.
NOW: Antoinette, did this material sound like the conversations you’re having everyday?
Antoinette Robinson: Most definitely. I grew up in Jamaica. When I came to the States, there was a question of my Blackness. “Well you’re not Black American. You’re Caribbean. That’s different.” So when I read [this], I loved that this is such an insightful tak, having this conversation of [how] you can’t quantify Blackness. We’re having these conversations behind closed doors and not necessarily in open forums.
NOW: What I love is that the reason these Black people are fighting, arguing or debating among themselves who is the Blackest, is because a white man’s making them. It’s outside forces.
DP: That was the intent with the original sketch: to examine Blackness through the lens of whiteness because they’re always pit against each other. I can only quantify this through whiteness because that is what the litmus is.
NOW: I also love that you don’t necessarily make concessions for someone like me who is outside of this. One of the things that I like I was totally lost on is Spades. I never played this game before. Antoinette, your eyes lit up. Did you play this game growing up?
AR: I didn’t grow up playing the game. So when I went to college, I was shamed because I didn’t know how to play Spades. So, I completely understand. So when they have that conversation, I was like, “I’ve been on the other side of that.”
DP: That was something that was also purposely done. Being a fan of film, I am such a product of film and TV, even being able to love the horror knowing the way that Black people are often treated in that genre. I still enjoy it.
This film in particular takes the nostalgia of what we already know and presents that. Anybody that sees this, they know that it’s a comedy, it’s a horror. It has everything that you need to have a commercially successful horror comedy movie.
But there’s also no pandering. If you know, you know. Similarly to how I watch movies with a bunch of white people and I’m like, that’s not my life, but there’s enough here that I can relate to because we are human. I think allowing Black people that space to not explain themselves is what I think equality is. It’s been like, “Yeah learn, go figure it out.” That’s how you absorb culture. That’s how you grow as a person. That’s how I’ve had to absorb media as a gay Black man where my point of view is not heavily seen. I wanted people that watched it who didn’t personally know some of these smaller things to be inspired to go figure out what they are so that they can gain a greater sense of Blackness. Because it’s not my job to explain it to you.
NOW: Dewayne, you mentioned Jordan Peele. The arrival of Jordan Peele has created this entire renaissance of Black horror. I want to place your movie The Blackening on the historical spectrum of Black presence in horror movies, which for me begins with Night of the Living Dead. It isn’t a Black horror movie, but it is very significant.
DP: There’s a Black protagonist. And that ending is wild.
NOW: There’s a conversation to be had there. Here’s a spoilers for The Night of the Living Dead. There is a Black protagonist during this zombie invasion that takes place around the civil rights era. After he survives the zombie apocalypse he gets shot by white police.
DP: Yes.
AR: I would expected that.
DP: He survives the whole horror movie and then the people that’s supposed to protect him was just like gotta kill that Black man.
NOW: I think that is part of what made Night of the Living Dead so powerful. People looked at that as civil rights commentary. But if you look at something like that now, we might talk about how its dwelling on trauma.
DP: I think it’s a reflection of the times. For when that movie was made, that was pretty revolutionary to have a Black protagonist. And then to end the movie with that ending speaks to the reality of that time. That was revolutionary for the space because there wasn’t much else. That was the one film speaking to that issue. But as time goes on, I think there’s more examples. And I think the idea of awareness becomes stale. Because it’s like, “Y’all know. How much do I have to keep telling y’all?” And for myself, I think art is escapism. I do think that there is very much a space still use race within content to really have commentary and comment on the state of the world. But I think as there’s more outlets and lanes, you have more options. This is a horror comedy. There’s ways to use the horror and the comedy to both speak to the commentary that feels appropriate for what we want to do and for the vibe that we want to curate for the audience.
NOW: What I enjoyed about The Blackening is that here’s a Black horror movie post-Jordan Peele that finds alternate ways to have this conversation. I think Get Out is absolutely brilliant. The interesting thing about Get Out is tyou don’t see a lot of the violence [towards Black people]. It’s not shown to you on screen. Whereas a lot of the things that imitate Get Out, they shove a lot of trauma in your face, shove a lot of violence in your face and use that for horror movie fodder. That’s why I was appreciative of The Blackening for not doing that.
DP: I make choices in my art based off the things I want to watch. So I’m just like, “What’s my vibe? Do I want to see a bunch of violence? Do I want to see alternate ways to tell stories? What is the freshest way to tell the story?” I think The Blackening was an opportunity to combine horror and comedy in a way that felt fresh and new and presenting that same commentary in a packaging that is now and new. I still think that it is a like descendant of these other films, but just hipper, cool, now, me.
AR: The world itself is to be perfectly honest quite terrifying as a woman and as a Black person. When when I saw the police car in Get Out , I was more terrified of that moment than any of the other moments in the [movie[. It speaks essentially to what I’m what we deal with in everyday life. We’re just so used to just seeing that kind of trauma consistently. And that’s why I love how fun and fresh the take of The Blackening is because it’s not not Black trauma porn that the world has a tendency to digest. We get to see people also experience joy, also have these hilariously terrifying scenarios that leave you at the edge of your seat. It’s entertaining and it’s fun to watch. Even though it’s unapologetically black, it’s universally accepted and it’ll be fun.
AR: I do want to acknowledge the Scary Movie franchise and what Marlon Wayans did with his spoofs. Because back then, the only way you could ever imagine Black people in proximity to narratives like Scream or Fifty Shades of Grey is when Marlon Wayans spoofed those movies. That’s what I think is so significant about those movies. And also Regina Hall.
DP: I am a comedian by nature. Those movies were very formidable in my youth and my point of view as a creator. I’ve been such a fan of Marlon Wayans since I was a kid. I’ve always wanted to emulate his energy and comedic power. I’m very honoured even having The Blackening in the same realm of conversation as Scary Movie. I’m very honored. They really did something that stayed in pop culture. I would just hope to follow in those footsteps.
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