Following in the footsteps of "Scream" and other horror-comedies, "The Blackening" is the latest movie to successfully mashup humor and murder, resulting in a funny new twist on the horror film trope which shows Black characters as the first to die.
"I was thinking of a way in which I can discuss Blackness, but in a way that wasn't too on-the-nose," says Dewayne Perkins, co-writer and star of the recently-released film.
In his feature, which includes the tagline "We can't all die first," Perkins cleverly puts his spin on that long-standing trope by directly questioning who dies first when all the characters in a horror film are Black.
"I decided that if we were to put that cast in a horror movie, that in order for the Black person to die first, we'd have to have a system to figure out who's the Blackest. And that's where the premise came from," Perkins tells TODAY.com.
Originally pitched as a sketch for a Chicago stage show, the skit eventually made it to Comedy Central in 2018, where it went viral. It caught the eye of producer and writer, Tracy Oliver ("Girls Trip") who co-wrote the script for the movie with Perkins.
"It's been so cool to expand it, to see it's journey from a stage sketch to a full feature film," says the 32-year-old comedian.
The plot revolves around a group of college friends who meet up for a weekend reunion at a cabin only to discover they're being stalked by a maniacal serial killer. In order to survive, they must sacrifice the least "Blackest" member of the group, or the one who appears to be the most disconnected to Black culture.
"There are genuine jump scares, like horror, but also there's so much comedy," Perkins says. "I think they play so well with each other and I love the tone that we manage to hit."
Scoring a 86 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and deemed "tartly amusing" by the New York Times, Perkins says that "The Blackening" was inspired, in part, by his own love of horror movies and says one horror film, in particular, holds a special place in his heart.
“I love the movie 'Candyman,' the actor says of the 1992 supernatural film loosely based on Clive Barker’s 1985 short story “The Forbidden.”
“That was a movie that was very impactful to me as a kid,” he says, explaining that because the movie was mostly filmed in Cabrini-Green, near his hometown in Chicago, it held extra significance.
"I have a lot of family members, and my godmother, they all lived in Cabrini-Green, so ("Candyman") was the first horror movie that felt real to me because it was very close to my actual life," Perkins says.
"Candyman" also left its mark on the young filmmaker. Perkins recalls that when he watched the thriller for the first time, the power went out in his house.
"I remember my father was in the hallway and I saw his silhouette and I just saw that it was Candyman. I remember thinking, 'Oh, well, this is the end for us."
Along with "Candyman," Perkins says his love of the genre came from watching other films like "Cabin in the Woods," "Scream," "Ready or Not" and "The Bride of Chucky."
He admits that while these type of movies inspired him as a kid, they also completely freaked him out.
"I would not want to use the bathroom," he laughs. "And our parents were like, 'If you pee on yourself, you're gonna get in trouble."
As an alum of The Second City comedy improv group in Chicago, Perkins says it's gratifying to see what began as a short comedy sketch, evolve into a full-fledged film.
"To be able to have 'The Blackening' come out with the journey that it has attached it, for me, it's very inspiring to my younger self and I hope that people in similar positions can see that creating your own stuff and what can happen from it," the comedian tells TODAY.com.
"There are moments where I'm by myself and I'll just think about it and I'm like, 'Oh, can't think too hard or I will cry, because this is crazy.'"
