Black horror (also known asracial horror andhorror noir) is ahorror subgenre that focuses onAfrican-American characters and narratives. It often involves the use of social and political commentary to compare themes ofracism and other lived experiences of Black Americans to common horror themes and tropes. Early entries in the genre include theSpencer Williams Jr. filmSon of Ingagi (1940), andGeorge A. Romero's filmNight of the Living Dead (1968), which is considered one of the first Black horror films because its lead role is played by a Black actor,Duane Jones.Blaxploitation horror films of the 1970s, namelyBlacula (1972) and thevampire filmGanja & Hess (1973), became prominent examples of the genre. Other examples appeared during the 1990s, including theBernard Rose filmCandyman (1992) andTales from the Hood (1995), ananthology film directed byRusty Cundieff which has been described as the "godfather of Black horror".[1]
Black horror became especially popular afterGet Out, a horror film about racism and the 2017 directorial debut of comedianJordan Peele, became an international box office success, winning theAcademy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Peele went on to direct the Black horror filmsUs (2019) andNope (2022). He also produced theHBO Black horror television seriesLovecraft Country (2021), and the filmCandyman (2021) directed byNia DaCosta, a sequel to the 1992 film of the same name. Some critics argued that, by 2020, Black horror had entered itsGolden Age,[2] while others criticized many of the Black horror projects that followedGet Out—includingLovecraft Country, theAmazon seriesThem (2021), and the filmAntebellum (2020)—as unsubtle and exploitative of Black trauma.[3]
Black horror novels includeBrown Girl in the Ring byNalo Hopkinson (1998),Fledgling byOctavia E. Butler (2005),The Gilda Stories byJewelle Gomez (1991), andThe Ballad of Black Tom byVictor LaValle (2016).
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Black horror is typically defined as horror created by Black people, featuring Black protagonists or other prominent characters, and centered around Black culture.Robin R. Means Coleman, a professor atTexas A&M University and the author of the 2011 bookHorror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present, wrote in 2019 forThe Conversation that Black horror films were "created by blacks, star blacks or focus on black life and culture".[2]Tananarive Due, a Black horror author and professor atUniversity of California, Los Angeles who has been called the "queen of Black horror" and, as of 2019[update], teaches classes on Black horror, stated that Black horror "doesn't necessarily have to be made by Black creators" but that it typically "is made by Black filmmakers and does star black protagonists to tell a Black story".[4][5] She added, "Sometimes it is enough just to have a Black character in a film for it to be considered Black horror."[6] She also defined Black characters in Black horror films as "actually hav[ing] agency in the film and maybe even surviv[ing]" while exceeding the stereotypical roles of Black characters in horror films "who were just sidelined or monster bait".[7] Black horror is also sometimes referred to as racial horror or horror noir.[8][9]
Commentators have described Black horror as being largely informed and inspired byBlack history, particularly through its common theme of perserverance. In the 2019 documentaryHorror Noire: A History of Black Horror, Due stated, "Black history is Black horror."[10] Ryan Poll, for theJournal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, wrote, "For African Americans, horror is not a genre, but a structuring paradigm," adding that horror works "because White people fundamentally imagine the world without horror".[11] Due has stated that a more common theme than race in Black horror is "the will to fight back and survive against overwhelming force".[12] Means Coleman and author Mark Harris, owner of the website Black Horror Movies,[13] similarly wrote in their bookThe Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar that "the Black presence in horror, as in America, has always been about resilience".[14]
Black horror films often compare the lived experiences of Black people to horror narratives, depicting them through themes ofracism[10][15][16] and its effects, such aspolice brutality, theAtlantic slave trade,lynching,discrimination andtransgenerational trauma.[17][3][18][19] Jenna Benchretrit ofCBC wrote that Black horror was "an expansive subgenre that reclaims the Black community's place in a film tradition wherethey have often been the first to die or are depicted as the monster".[20] Mark Harris compared the horror film trope of killing off Black characters first tomarginalization, stating, "It epitomises how black characters in these movies and then other genres tend to be kind of second fiddle, thus expendable and so they get bumped off."[14][21] ForVulture, Robert Daniels defined Black horror films ashorror films "directed by and starring Black folks".[22] Stephanie Holland ofThe Root also described Black horror films as horror films "that feature prominent Black stories and heroes" despite horror not having "always been the most welcoming [genre] for Black characters".[23] Jason Parham ofWired wrote that Black horror filmmakers "let loose arguments about class conflict or policing or the psychological terror of race, and how whiteness eats at the mind".[24]
Black horror also frequently imparts messages about social, political, or moral issues. Tonja Renée Stidhum ofThe Root wrote that racial and social commentary were "basically the core of the genre, historically".[25] Laura Bradley ofThe Daily Beast noted that Black horror films often focus on "the fear of moral corruption, particularly by proximity to white people and institutions" and frequently include references to Christianity.[7] ForRefinery29, Ineye Komonibo wrote that Black horror films are "often ...imparting a moral lesson or highlighting some political struggle within our society".[26]
Before the first Black horror films were created, American horror films scarcely featured Black actors. Those that did often did so mockingly or depicted them as primitive in the vein ofD.W. Griffith's 1915 filmThe Birth of a Nation.[15][27] Black actors occasionally appeared in lead roles in horror films, such asJoel Fluellen's role of Arobi in the 1957 filmMonster from Green Hell orGeorgette Harvey's role of Mandy in the 1934 filmChloe, Love Is Calling You, or invoodoo films likeOuanga (1936), which starredFredi Washington as the mistress of a plantation owner, but even those roles were largely in the service of helping white characters.[2] Black actorsWillie Best andEddie "Rochester" Anderson became well known in the 1930s for their servant roles inmonster movies, in which they typically exaggeratedly bulged their eyes in shock before running away, but they often fed intoracial stereotypes.[14] According to Due, Black characters in horror films were often relegated to tropes such as theMagical Negro, Sacrificial Negro, or theSpiritual Guide.[28] The 1922Oscar Micheaux horrorrace filmThe Dungeon and theSpencer Williams Jr. filmsSon of Ingagi (1940), which was written about a mad scientist who brings a primate creature to life and was the first science fiction horror film to have an all-Black cast, andThe Blood of Jesus (1941) are considered some of the earliest Black horror films.[7][19][29] Ashlee Blackwell, a cowriter ofHorror Noire: A History of Black Horror, stated thatSon of Ingagi "fully flesh[ing] out its black characters" was "revolutionary";[30] Tabie Germain ofBET calledSon of Ingagi "a trailblazer for its time and a major milestone in Black film history".[31]
TheGeorge A. Romero filmNight of the Living Dead (1968) is considered one of the first Black horror films and highly influential on the genre of Black horror overall for its casting ofDuane Jones, a Black actor, in its lead role of Ben. In contrast to previous depictions of Black people in horror films as ineffectual, he was written to be smart, resourceful and heroic, and was also one of horror's first Black protagonists.[23][32][33] The film also ends with Ben being shot and killed by a group of white vigilantes, who proceed to burn him in a manner comparable to lynching.[27][34] Due framed the scene in the context of theassassination of Martin Luther King Jr., which took place earlier that year.[6]
TheBlaxploitation genre of the 1970s, which also featured predominantly Black casts and creators and was targeted towards Black audiences,[33] also produced numerous Black horror films.Blacula (1972) was directed by Black directorWilliam Crain and starredWilliam Marshall, who altered the script in order to make it more socially conscious, as Prince Mamuwalde, the first Black vampire portrayed on screen. In it, Prince Mamuwalde begs forCount Dracula not to support the Atlantic slave trade before being bitten by him and turned into a vampire, later waking up in 1972 after his coffin is opened by antique dealers.[14] Its box office success led to the creation of more Black horror films.[15] Its 1973 sequel,Scream Blacula Scream, starredPam Grier as the voodoo high priestess and African spirituality historian Lisa.[35] TheBill Gunn–directed Black horror filmGanja & Hess (1973) also starred Jones and won the Critics' Choice award at theCannes Film Festival upon its release.[30] According toPolygon's Max Deering, it was acult classic of Black horror by 2025.[36] OtherBlaxploitation horror films of the 1970s includedBlackenstein (1973),Abby (1974),Sugar Hill (1974) (one of the first horror films to feature a Black woman in its lead role),Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1976) andJ. D.'s Revenge (1976), all of which gained popularity and became early examples of Black horror.[2][12][17][37]
TheBernard Rose filmCandyman (1992)—which castTony Todd, a Black actor, as the film's titular villain, while also addressing lynching andhousing inequality, particularly in theCabrini–Green housing projects inChicago—led to a slight resurgence in Black horror films.[32][10] Sonaiya Kelley of theLos Angeles Times called it "inarguably one of the most seminal black horror films" and described Todd's character as "the first black supernatural killer depicted onscreen".[38] The success of the 1989urban filmDo the Right Thing was also responsible for an uptick in Black horror films in the 1990s,[14] including theTroma Entertainment filmsDef by Temptation (1990), directed byJames Baldwin III, andBugged! (1997), directed by Roland K. Armstrong; theWes Craven filmsThe Serpent and the Rainbow (1988),The People Under the Stairs (1991) andVampire in Brooklyn (1995);[12]Demon Knight (1995), which starredJada Pinkett Smith as the rare Blackfinal girl,[15][30] andBones (2001), both directed byErnest Dickerson, who Means Coleman has described as a "stalwart of the genre" of Black horror; andReginald Hudlin'sshort filmThe Space Traders, (1994), adapted fromthe short story of the same name byDerrick Bell.[35] TheKasi Lemmons filmEve's Bayou (1997),[31]Leprechaun in the Hood (2000), and theJonathan Demme filmBeloved (1998), an adaptation ofToni Morrison'snovel of the same name, are also considered Black horror films.[22][23][9]
The politically consciousanthology horror filmTales from the Hood (1995), directed byRusty Cundieff and executive produced bySpike Lee, features four Black horror stories about issues impacting Black Americans:police corruption,domestic violence,white supremacy andgang violence, respectively. Cundieff described it as "deal[ing] with problems in the African-American community and showing how the scariest things that happen to you are the human things that happen to you" while using "the supernatural as a redemptive element".[39] It became acult classic and Isaura Barbé-Brown of theBritish Film Institute wrote that it was "important to the history of horror and to Black horror in particular" for being "laced unabashedly with inside jokes specifically aimed at a Black audience".[3][18] It has been described as the "godfather of Black horror" by Camilo Hanninbal Smith of theHouston Chronicle and director Bomani J. Story.[1][40]
Following the release ofBones in 2001, Black horror largely died down until 2017,[32] with the exception of the 2014Spike Lee filmDa Sweet Blood of Jesus, which was a reimagining of the filmGanja & Hess (1973).[41]
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Black horror was brought to international prominence through the release ofJordan Peele's 2017 directorial debutGet Out, a horror film about racism,race relations andmicroaggressions.[37][42] It follows Chris Washington, played byDaniel Kaluuya, who leavesBrooklyn to visit the family of his white girlfriend, Rose Armitage, played byAllison Williams, in a white suburb, where it is revealed that they partake inmedical experimentation on Black people.[27] The film also opposed the notion of apost-racial America followingBarack Obama'selection as president of the United States in 2008.[10][14] ForThe Hollywood Reporter, Richard Newby wrote that Peele "changed the game" withGet Out, which "managed to encompass the horror blacks experience on a scale unlike any we'd seen before".[43] In 2023, Bethonie Butler ofThe Washington Post wrote thatGet Out "upped the ante when it came to discourse about horror and race" and that "few films ... have come close to the social commentary that madeGet Out a cultural phenomenon",[44] while Nick Schager ofThe Daily Beast wrote that it "ushered in a wave of Black horror films and TV series that investigate and exploit modern and historical racial dynamics for monstrous thrills".[45] For his writing of the film, Peele won theAcademy Award for Best Original Screenplay, making him the first African-American winner of the award, and the film's international $225 million gross led to a surge in other Black horror projects.[23][32] Black horror directors William Crain, Rusty Cundieff andJustin Simien also stated that the success ofGet Out offered more opportunities for Black horror filmmakers.[7][10]
Peele continued to explore Black horror in his follow-up films,Us (2019), which explored themes ofsocial class, andNope (2022), which criticized American spectacle.[14][20][22] After the release ofUs, Chris Vognar of theHouston Chronicle opined that one "could argue [Peele] is the best" to bring "a distinctively black flavor to the horror-movie genre", while Due stated thatUs was "not as directly about race asGet Out".[12] Peele went on to produce other Black horror films and television series of the 2010s and 2020s, includingCandyman (2021), a sequel to the 1992 film of the same name directed byNia DaCosta, who became the first Black female director of a film that debuted at number one in the U.S. box office.[7] It starredYahya Abdul-Mateen II as thetitular character and focused on police brutality andgentrification. Peele also producedLovecraft Country (2020), anHBO series created byMisha Green and based ona 2016 novel of the same name byMatt Ruff. In it, a Black family living in the United States during theJim Crow era of the 1950s must combat racism while fighting monsters inspired by the works ofH. P. Lovecraft, who held racist beliefs.[23][8][46] The 2019Shudder documentary filmHorror Noire: A History of Black Horror, which was executive produced by Due, directed by Xavier Burgin, and based on the 2011 book of the same name by Means Coleman, chronicled the history of the genre of Black horror and interviewed Black horror filmmakers and actors.[12][13][33] An anthology Black horror film featuring six films by Black directors and writers, also titledHorror Noire, was released on Shudder in 2021 as a follow-up to the documentary.[47][48]
Other Black horror films released in the late 2010s and 2020s includedThe First Purge (2018),[32] theTales from the Hood sequelsTales from the Hood 2 (2018) andTales from the Hood 3 (2020),[49]Kindred (2020),Black Box (2020),Antebellum (2020),[15]Bad Hair (2020),[10]Spell (2020),[50]Vampires vs. the Bronx (2020),[35]Two Distant Strangers (2020),[24]Sweetheart (2019),His House (2020),Master (2022),Nanny (2022),[51]Karen (2021),[25]The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster (2023),[52]The Blackening (2023),[44][53]Criblore, A Horror Anthology (2023),The Deliverance (2024),[54] andThe Front Room (2024).[55][23] New Fear Unlocked, a subsidiary ofTommy Oliver's production studio Confluential Films dedicated entirely to Black horror, was founded in 2024.[56] The 2019Tate Taylor filmMa, which featuredOctavia Spencer in its lead role as the outcast Sue Ann, has also been described by critics as a Black horror film.[2][6]Doreen St. Félix ofThe New Yorker wrote that "we should [not] mistake [Ma] for being a contribution to black horror" due to how the film downplays Sue Ann's Blackness.[57]
Black horror television series of the time included theAmazon seriesThem (2021), which focused on a Black family in the 1950s moving to a white section ofCompton, California and facing racial violence;The Other Black Girl (2023), an adaptation of the2021 novel of the same title byZakiya Dalila Harris about a woman who is the only Black person working at a publishing company; andSwarm (2023).[17][3][26]
According to critic Robert Daniels, "expectations for conversations about racism and structural inequities" led to "the advent of serious-minded Black horror" following the release ofGet Out.[22] In her bookImperiled Whiteness: How Hollywood and Media Make Race in "Postracial" America, Penelope Ingram wrote that the 2010s and the 2020s were a "renaissance of Black horror" spurred by the success of Peele's films,[58] while Means Coleman and writers fromCNN andEntertainment Weekly argued that Black horror had entered itsGolden Age by 2020.[2][10][15]
Several Black horror films and television series made afterGet Out (2017), includingLovecraft Country (2020),Antebellum (2020), andThem (2021), were decried by critics and audiences for violently exploiting Black trauma, particularly in the wake of themurder of George Floyd, and lacking subtlety in their depictions of racism.[3] ForThe Daily Beast, Nick Schager wrote that most Black horror afterGet Out, includingLovecraft Country,Them,Antebellum, andCandyman (2021), was "ho-hum at best and reductive at worst, failing to strike a successful balance between gory genre kicks and novel sociopolitical insights".[45] ForCollider, Tavius Allen suggested that many of the Black horror films and series inspired byGet Out, such asAntebellum andThem, "tend to have an exploitative angle", "frequently entertain a larger white audience", and strip their Black characters of agency "at the mercy of grotesque violence, demeaning language, or reaffirmed stereotypes".[59] In 2023, Nadira Goffe ofSlate opined that "the same bag of tricks ... defined much of Black horror" in the years prior, such as "the dangers of whiteness" and "the protagonist's dawning realization that 'I got what I wanted, but it wasn't what I thought it would be'". She wrote that the trope in Black satirical horror of "Black women's hair as a tortured metaphor forracial assimilation", which showed up inThe Other Black Girl (2023),Bad Hair, and the Blacksurrealist filmThey Cloned Tyrone (2023), was "exhausting" for "perpetuating the myth of 'good' and 'bad' hair" and representingmisogynoir.[60]
Critics also criticized films inspired byGet Out as attempting to piggyback off of its success despite lacking its substance. In a review of the filmKaren (2021), Briana Lawrence wrote forThe Mary Sue, "There has been a rallying cry to have more Black horror that isn't justracism bad y'all, but time and time again we keep getting films that tell us what we already know because, 'That's why you likedGet Out so much, right?'"[61] Charles Pulliam-Moore ofGizmodo Australia wrote in 2021, "In chasingGet Out's success, a number of studios seemingly lost sight of the reality that the movie wasn't good simply because it was a 'Black horror movie' about racist bodysnatchers."[62] Allen argued that most Black horror to come fromGet Out missed its point, writing, "It's not the reliving of the trauma that guidesGet Out, it's the overcoming."[59] Jason Parham ofWired criticizedThem andTwo Distant Strangers (2020) for not being "aware horror is not solely about horror", unlikeGet Out and the television seriesAtlanta (2016).[24] Cate Young ofThe American Prospect wrote that Black horror films and television series released afterGet Out—particularlyAntebellum,Bad Hair (2020), andLovecraft Country—"ultimately fail because they do not do the hard ideological work necessary to give them the cultural and political meaning to which they aspire" and because of their "reckless deployment of spectacle over substance".[63]
ForT, Gabrielle Bellot noted the influence of African-American folklore figures, namelyBr'er Rabbit, and the 1899 short story collectionThe Conjure Woman by authorCharles W. Chesnutt on Black horror. She also described the artworks ofKara Walker, theBetye Saar paintingBlack's Girl Window (1969), and the written works of authorsNalo Hopkinson,Octavia E. Butler andJewelle Gomez as progenitors of Black horror, and named the 1967 paintingThe American People Series 20: Die by Faith Ringgold a piece of Black horror in visual art.[17]
Black horror novels include Due'sThe Between (1995) andMy Soul to Keep (1997),[4][5] Gomez'sThe Gilda Stories (1991), Butler'sBloodchild and Other Stories (1995) andFledgling (2005), Morrison'sBeloved (1987), Hopkinson'sBrown Girl in the Ring (1998),Victor LaValle'sThe Ballad of Black Tom (2016) andThe Changeling (2017),Tiffany D. Jackson'sWhite Smoke (2021), Zakiya Dalila Harris'sThe Other Black Girl (2021), and Johnny Compton'sThe Spite House (2023).[64][65] Jordan Peele editedOut There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror, which compiled short Black horror stories by various authors, and it was released in 2023.[66] Theyoung adult Black horror anthology bookThe Black Girl Survives In This One, which focused on Black female final girls, was edited by Desiree S. Evans and Saraciea J. Fennell and released in 2024.[67] The Black horrorcomics anthologyShook! A Black Horror Anthology was released in 2024 byDark Horse Comics and Second Sight Publishing.[68][69]
In 2001, Black horror authorLinda Addison became the first Black author to win theBram Stoker Award. She was later awarded theHorror Writers Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. AfterGet Out was released, Black horror authors such as Addison, LaValle, Steven Van Patten, whose works addressed racism through horror, found wider audiences.[15]
In 1968'sNight of the Living Dead, he did this by casting a black man, Duane Jones, as his hero, then allowing that hero to be executed by a posse of vigilantes who mistake him for a monster—in a sequence that strongly evokes U.S. lynching photos.
Tim Story'sThe Blackening is ground-standing Black horror that'd make trendsetters from Rusty Cundieff to Jordan Peele proud.
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