 You know, I'm old enough to remember a trope that used to go around horror films where there was always one black dude or black woman in the film that inevitably would die before the film ended, often times the first to go. That was a thing at one point. Many, many, many years ago it seems. Yet director Tim Story thinks that in 2023 now is the time to really address this situation, this issue that I feel like has been addressed for many years. And he's made a film called The Blackening. The Blackening is about seven or eight best friends who head on vacation to a cabin home where they're going to play some board games, have a good time, and probably all die. Let's talk about it. This film stars a lot of people I've never heard of, one of which is named Ex-Mayo. I don't know if that's a rapper or if she's related to Aquafina. It's possible. They were all good, actually. I didn't mind any of the characters. They're all, they're all very up to date on the cultural references, a lot of the buzz terms going around. One person said, take the L like four times. It's, it's really cringy, OK? These people in the movie don't talk like people talk. They're constantly going on these rants or diatribes with each other about who's the blackest and who's acting white. And I understand the whitest guy in the room, probably not the target audience for this film, but I like films of all natures, all shapes and sizes and colors. And I thought this one looked funny from the trailer that I saw right before going in. My wife actually suggested, I see it said, Adam, the blackening looks really funny. You should check it out. Watch the trailer. I was like, yeah, this could have some legs. Unfortunately, it doesn't really have legs. It's got about 20 minutes of a premise and then the rest of it's just kind of there. It's just very tame all the way through. It is rated R. I would not suggest, you know, bringing the little ones out to this. They say the N word about a million times, Jango and Chained even looked at this movie and was like, wow, that's a bit much. So if that turns you off right out of the gates, there you go. Tread lightly. There's a lot of foul language that doesn't bother me in the slightest. I just was more bothered by the dialogue itself and the way they were constantly preaching at each other and in turn, the audience. So it breaks down like this. They go to this cabin home. This is spoiler free, by the way. I'm just going to give you the lay of the land. They go to the cabin home. There's a room in the back that's got a board game on a table in the middle. This board game is disgusting. It's racist. It looks like Jim Crow's monopoly. That's not my quote. That's from the film. Two different people say it at two different times. It was funny once for sure. But the second time I was just thinking, so we're reusing jokes now. OK, it turns out this nice vacay is anything but that. There is a racist psychopath that has invited them to this location in order to kill them. They have to play his game. It's like Jumanji for racists. This stuff kind of worked. Unfortunately, they don't play the game very much at all. Whenever they'd pick up a card, there'd be a funny question. They would have to answer it, think about it. That stuff I liked. That stuff played out. But a lot of the movies, unfortunately, spent meandering between some of the relationships, some of the tense stuff that didn't even need to be in this film. Thankfully, it's only an hour and a half. Really, it could have been an hour. That's how much material there should have been here. Now, it's rated R not just for the swearing, but also some of the kills. The kills are pretty damn tame. And I think a lot of it has to do with the, well, both, the uncreative ways that people die. And also the way this thing is shot, it doesn't look good. The production values are really bad in this thing. And most of it takes place in one central location. They're at this cabin the entire time. It's not very interesting to look at. Takes place at night. The night stuff is kind of ugly, has that day to night filter on it. A lot of times it feels like, that's what it seems like. Some of the blues in there, not working. Not working at all. It also doesn't help that the murderer is a mystery. And I figured out who it was 20 minutes into the picture. So then I'm just kind of waiting for the rest of them to catch up. Not saying you will do the same thing, but it seemed pretty obvious all around. This feels like a low budget movie you'd see on a streaming service like Hulu or Netflix. Definitely not a movie I would waste money going out to see in theaters. If you're looking for a funny horror flick, I'd watch Peter Jackson's The Frighteners personally. If you're looking for a horror film that's predominantly black cast, watch Nope. That movie's awesome. This film is slightly less than mid, as the kids say, or the people in this film because the writer knows that the kids say that for the next couple of weeks, so they're going to make them say it. That's how this movie feels all around. Hey, what's trending right now in the buzz terms? Let's throw them all in here. Well, what else can we talk about that's socially acceptable and somewhat relevant today? Let's throw it in there. This movie is going to age like ass. And it certainly already has, as far as the visuals look. All right, those are my thoughts on the blackening. A decent concept that was probably a little bit more relevant about a decade back. When this seemed a little bit more in your face. Now, not so much. There's plenty more representation in the horror industry, especially. This just feels like completely useless and pointless. Let me know in the comments, though. Did you see this? Am I wrong? Is it a great movie? Very, very clever, very different, a spin on the genre. I can agree to an extent. I just don't like the execution. Let me know, like the video if you had some fun. Please subscribe if you haven't as I post tons of movie content each and every week. I'd love to have you stick around. All right, take care.