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Black horror

Posted on October 21, 2026

Brooklyn Horror Film Festival – Culture Shock: Black Horror Shorts

Dawn Keetley

Culture Shock: Black Horror Shorts was a program of excellent horror shorts by Black filmmakers that screened on October 20, 2026, at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. It was followed by a fabulous Q&A with creatives involved in all but one of the six films.

Here are some highlights!

Grampa (2026)

The six films were all very different, but I have to say my favorite was the horror comedy, Grampa, directed by Justice Smith and starring Nicholas L. Ashe as the main character, James. James is visiting his white boyfriend’s family home for Thanksgiving dinner, and things take a turn for the grotesque, the terrifying, and the hilarious when Grampa lumbers to the table. You may think you’ve seen this story somewhere before, but Grampa is perennially surprising and downright hilarious (I can’t stress that enough). A huge portion of the humor is due to Ashe’s performance as James: he plays the role with a wide-eyed incredulity that had the whole theatre laughing – absolute disbelief that he’s seeing what he’s seeing and that no one else thinks that what he’s seeing is absolutely batshit crazy. There’s an absolutely brilliant scene filmed mostly from above in a tiny bathroom in which James’s boyfriend persistently tries to bring what’s going on outside into the realm of totally normal relationship conflict. In the Q&A at the end, Ashe talked about why horror’s so great – and one of the things he said was about the way the genre can spectacularize the everyday. Grampa totally does this. Interestingly, he also said that Train to Busan (Yeon Sang-ho, 2016), with its fast zombies, was one of the inspirations for the film. Watch this if and when you can!

You can check out a trailer for Grampa on YouTube:

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Posted on April 28, 2025

Black Joy, White Interruptions: Sinners and the Afrofuturism of Black Horror

Guest Post

Nicole Huff

The newest addition to our current Black Horror Renaissance comes from none other than Ryan Coogler in his vampire horror debut Sinners. As a Black person from the South, I was in awe of how Coogler portrays the Jim Crow South as still full of Black hope and joy despite its cotton-field-filled backdrops. And, as an Afrofuturist, it was these themes of liberation and unmitigated joy that drew me in.

Already I’ve seen commentary on Sinners negating its status as a horror movie. Even Spike Lee has stated that this is a “new genre” rather than a horror film. But I want to reiterate that this, amidst all its historical exploration of the Black South, is a horror film. In fact, it’s a particular horror film— a vampire film! The tendency to label this film anything other than horror I believe stems from a long history of Black art and literature needing to legitimize itself and prove itself worthy thus rejecting genres and mediums that have been effectively ghettoized. Why would we associate ourselves with a ghettoized genre like horror? Well, that’s exactly what Coogler, and many other Black artists, have done as there is a potential within horror and especially in Black Horror and that potential lies in the hopefulness embedded in the genre.

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Posted on March 15, 2021

What’s Wrong with Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh?

Dawn Keetley

After the success of 1992’s Candyman (directed by Bernard Rose), a sequel was inevitable. The 1995 Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh was directed by Bill Condon, who would go on to write and direct the acclaimed 1998 film, Gods and Monsters. Despite Condon’s later success, Farewell to the Flesh only makes it strikingly clear how badly we need the upcoming “spiritual sequel” to Candyman written by Jordan Peele and directed by Nia DaCosta. DaCosta’s Candyman will pick up from the 1992 original film, ignoring the sequels from 1995 and 1999—not a bad choice.

While the original Candyman has received—and deserves—much praise, it is not without its problems. In Horror Noire (2011), Robin Means Coleman has pointed out that Rose’s Candyman gives the white protagonist Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) and, indeed, all whites a pass: “Rather, he punishes Blacks” (189). And, in the end, Helen Lyle proves herself the hero of her own story and destroys Candyman (Tony Todd), emerging herself as the powerful monster poised to move the narrative forward. Again, as Means Coleman has pointed out, “this is a movie about celebrating White womanhood.” Candyman himself, she continues, “disappears along with the history of racism he brings. It is all about Helen as she becomes monstrous” (190).

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