“A man has got to be able to see his face.” - Blacula (1972)

lotta good stuff in this but all i remember is rachel true gets horny for blacula

There is an incredibly insightful and personally very engaging documentary that takes us through the history of horror and black people in cinema and the evolution of how thsi has evolved throughout the years. The film mentions the horrific treatment people faced in the early days as portrayed in films like "Birth Of A Nation" and how the community has been boxed into various archetypes and stereotypes, thereby showing the racism of the system. There are also various positive and empowering aspects associated with blaxploitation, for example.

All in all, while those with a strong background in this topic may find little new in this documentary, the valuable commentary from the film's protagonists and academics makes it worth your time.

TODAY SCHEDULE
Do The Right Thing: 20 Years Later
Passing Strange
Horror Noire
Death On The Nile

More essential than ever. I wish it was longer.

Education matters.
Representation matters.
Black lives matter.

I haven't read the source book, but this plays very much like Rob Epstein's film adaptation of The Celluloid Closet, sharing not only the same general narrative trajectory, but also that film's use of filmmakers, actors, and academics to echo the same points and retell the same stories as the source text. It's an important subject and the film is generally well put together, though, like the Epstein film, I wish this went deeper and that the focus wasn't solely on Hollywood -- how about some coverage of outsiders like Chester Turner, or films like Breeders or Friday the 13th: Part V, neither of which fall as neatly into the categories of tropes that this spends much of its runtime defining? Still, very much worth a watch for the personality and personal observations that the assembled interviewees bring to the material.

Very good documentary! Love the behind the scenes perspectives from some of the film makers and actors and perspectives of those influenced by them. I felt prior to watching that it would trash black exploitation movies but found that we are in agreement that there are some really entertaining ones. I also found a few gems that I didn’t know about to check out.

A solid documentary from Shudder. All I had to see was Keith David (The Thing) and Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) to get excited. Now I just want to see them together in a horror flick.

This film takes the time to point out and deconstruct horror tropes, that are negative towards black people. The world has a long way to go, but it is nice to see things headed in a better direction by the end of the film.

Another good reason to check this out is to see what you can add to your watch list. Ganja & Hess, Tales From The Hood & Abby are all flicks I haven't seen and am now looking forward to.

Only true negative to me was how quickly they had to move. I think this would have been better served as a mini-series.

4 Shudder fucking rules out of 5

Sooooo lovely!! Such a good look at the history of black horror and racial themes in horror/ how they reflect the culture of the time. So awesome if u love film history

Black people in a movie theater talking about black people on a movie screen.

Tells you pretty much everything you would want to know on the subject in it’s trim 83 minutes.

I enjoyed hearing about the ‘black experience’ for these movies, but in some cases I felt the interpretation was more of a singular belief than a universally accepted ‘truth’ (Ex. the creatures from the 50’s monster movies represented black people).