“They can’t all die first,” reads the tagline for The Blackening, director Tim Story’s next horror comedy.
The Blackening has here!
“They can’t all die first,” begins the intro to the funny trailer for Tim Story’s (Ride Along, Think Like a Man, Barbershop) upcoming horror comedy that “skewers genre cliches.”
The Blackening “centers on a group of Black friends who gather for a Juneteenth weekend getaway only to find themselves imprisoned in a remote cabin with a deranged killer,” according to an official synopsis.
“Forced to follow his rules, the buddies quickly discover this ain’t no m——-f—-ing game,” the synopsis reads, adding that the film “poses the satirical question: If the whole cast of a horror film is Black, who dies first?”
Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Dewayne Perkins, Antoinette Robertson, Sinqua Walls, Jay Pharoah, and Yvonne Orji star in the film.
The screenplay was written by Perkins (The Amber Ruffin Show, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip, Harlem), while The Blackening’s producers include Oliver, Story, Jason Clark, Marcei A. Brown, E. Brian Dobbins, and Sharla Sumpter Bridgett.
In the trailer, the group of pals is happy about their trip until the lights in the cabin go out (naturally) and they walk into a room where they discover The Blackening, a sinister-looking, not-totally-unlike-Jumanji board game.
“That s—- definitely runs on racism,” one of the game’s friends jokes.
A vintage television soon begins to exhibit horrific pictures, leading the pals to conclude that they must play the game in order to survive.
One of the cards revealed reveals that in horror films, “the Black character is always the first to die,” and advises the group to “sacrifice the person you deem the Blackest” to save the others.
After experimenting with several horror-movie tropes (such as splitting up), the group hears the same voice telling them, “It’s time to die,” before a masked figure appears in person to inflict devastation.
“Why do Black women have to save everyone all the time?” As she beats someone with a candlestick, Robertson’s character yells.
The Blackening will be released in theatres on June 16.
