Horror Movie Review: The Blackening (2022)

The Blackening is a 2022 American comedy horror film directed by Tim Story and written by Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins.

Morgan (Yvonne Orji) and Shawn (Jay Pharoah) arrive to a cabin in the woods where they plan on celebrating Juneteenth with their group of friends. In the basement, the couple discovers a board game called “The Blackening”, which features racist caricatures. Suddenly, the lights go out and a mysterious voice demands the couple to play. Shawn answers a question incorrectly and is promptly killed with an arrow to the neck. Morgan attempts to escape but is captured.

The next day, Lisa (Antoinette Robertson), Allison (Grace Byers), and Dewayne (Dewayne Perkins) make their way to the cabin. They discuss King (Melvin Gregg) bringing Lisa’s unfaithful ex-boyfriend Nnamdi (Sinqua Walls) for the weekend’s festivities. On her way to the cabin, Shanika (X Mayo) runs into a former schoolmate named Clifton (Jermaine Fowler) at the gas station. He reveals he’s also joining the group. Before leaving, Shanika is unnerved by the facially disfigured clerk (James Preston Rogers) who stands by her menacingly. Once the group is all together, they find Ranger White (Diedrich Bader) not allowing them entry. After settling the dispute, the friends begin to set up for a night of partying.

Drinks, drugs, and games ensue and the group questions who specifically invited Clifton. The lights go out again, the friends go to find a power box, only to come across The Blackening with game pieces correlating to their personalities. The voice speaks to them, revealing that he is keeping Morgan prisoner. The voice forces the friends to play the game to save Morgan and begins by asking trivia questions about African-American culture. Unfortunately, the friends fail to sufficiently answer a question about all the black actors that guest-starred on Friends and Morgan is attacked.

They are ordered to sacrifice one of their own based on whom they deem to be “the blackest”. Each of them comes up with their own defense. But everyone ends up choosing Clifton after he admits he voted for Donald Trump in both elections. Clifton goes outside and is shot in the chest with an arrow by the killer.

Who’s behind this sick game and can the gang escape? Watch and find out.

I was initially pretty excited about this movie. The Blackening starts off interesting, all centring around a games night and the discovery of an extremely racist and mysterious board game. Unfortunately it quickly descends into a very generic, by the numbers horror movie.

The decisions are dumb, the dialogue is clunky and overly modern at times and the mastermind behind it all, is easy to point out straight away.

There are some hilarious moments and the social commentary is naturally on point, however it’s too much and too obvious. Subtlety and nuance is dead.

I enjoyed the intelligent things the characters were saying but then they would go back on it straight away. For example, exclaiming that it’s stupid to go into the basement but then promptly going down there. The stupidity ground me down and I came to the conclusion that either this film is purposely full of obnoxious, dumb characters or they’re just simply that generic.

The gore is severely lacking, all deaths happen off screen. And finally, I absolutely do not care if Nnamdi and Lisa get back together!

Overall, The Blackening was ripe for possibilities and does have some pretty funny moments. It just misses the mark and squanders what it has and ends up being disappointing in the end.