In your predicament, the black character is always the first to die. Ten years after graduating, friends Morgan (Yvonne Orji) and Shawn (Jay Pharoah) arrive at a cabin in the woods where they plan on celebrating Juneteenth on a weekend getaway with their group from college. In the game room, they find a board game called ‘The Blackening’ which features a racist Little Black Sambo caricature. The lights go out and a mysterious voice demands that the couple play. Shawn answers a question incorrectly and is promptly killed with an arrow to the neck. Morgan attempts to escape but is captured. The next day, Lisa (Antoinette Robinson), Allison (Grace Byers) and Dewayne (Dewayne Perkins) make their way to the cabin and discuss King (Melvin Gregg) bringing Lisa’s unfaithful ex-boyfriend Nnamdi (Sinqua Walls) for the weekend’s festivities. On her way to the cabin, Shanika runs into a former schoolmate named Clifton (Jermaine Fowler) while shopping at the gas station and he tells her he is also joining the party but she can’t figure out who might have invited him. Before leaving, Shanika is unnerved by the facially disfigured clerk Clive Connor (James Preston Rogers) who stands watching her menacingly. Once the group is all together at the cabin, they find Park Ranger White (Diedrich Bader) querying their right to be there and not allowing them entry until they produce evidence they’ve booked in. After settling the disagreement – the Connors usually let the property to white families – the friends prepare for a night of partying. White people scare me. After drinks, drugs, and games ensue, the group questions who specifically invited Clifton. After the lights go out again, the friends go to find a power box, only to come across The Blackening with game pieces which correlate to their personalities. The voice speaks to them, revealing that he is keeping Morgan prisoner. The voice forces the friends to play the game to save Morgan, and begins by asking trivia questions about black American culture. This game is impossible to win. Unfortunately, the friends fail to sufficiently answer a question about all the black actors that guest-starred on the TV show Friends and Morgan is attacked. They are ordered to sacrifice one of their own based on whom they deem to be the blackest – the most black person among them will be sacrificed. Each then comes up with their own defence of why it cannot be them. After Clifton admits he voted for Donald Trump in both elections everyone chooses him out of spite. Clifton goes outside and is shot in the chest with an arrow by the killer. The rules are simple – survive. When the friends are freed from the room, they attempt to go look for Morgan and find help. Despite knowing better, they agree with Allison’s idea to split up. She goes off with King and Shanika (X Mayo). Dewayne has to go with Lisa and Nnamdi who end up running into Ranger White who is willing to help them until the killer shoots him in the neck with an arrow. Then Allison, King and Shanika encounter the killer … Time to die! If Get Out and Us played with horror tropes in the realm of political allegory, this is more akin to Scary Movie and its satirical relationship to the Scream franchise – which itself was founded on a fond homage to the legendary slashers Halloween, Friday the 13th et al. Written by Tracy Oliver and DeWayne Perkins of the comedy troupe 3Peat and based on their 2018 short film of the same name, this is both resonant in terms of stereotypes and smart with its targets, the cabin in the woods being just the first trope utilised, skewered and trussed up, and a masked killer concealing a dual identity – who isn’t really the culprit at all which means there are three of him. The one game I could never get a handle on was Spades. It may be a reunion of college friends but Return of the Secaucus Seven it is not. Taking its subject as the genre itself and making it from a black perspective pushes the parameters because once the first person killed is black – who do you kill next? More black characters. What about the characters who have sex? How long will they last? I’ve never been so happy to see a white saviour! And so it proceeds, wittily batting away the tropes with a mix of finely tuned wit and a deal of slapstick. What about a final girl? Well, the girl who knows the black anthem has a white father and she’s the one who has the courage to go after the killer. Who won’t stay dead. And he suggests that the colourist scenario he proposes is a black Sophie’s Choice. Lucky they can all do that handy ‘mind talking’ thang – which is all very well until the killer can too. More funny than scary, this makes no concession to anyone who doesn’t understand the references and simply hurtles through an action-packed narrative with verve and sociopolitical swipes. Directed by Tim Story. We are all alone in a cabin in the woods!
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