Welcome to the 31 Days of Horror Redux, a month-long celebration of genre filmmaking. Last time around, I made the recommendations. This time, I will be watching 31 days of films that are completely new to me. I hope you will join me on this journey of discovery.
Day 3: Horror Noire, various directors
The horror anthology is a tradition that stretches back well before the advent of film. Without any hard proof, I would suggest it goes back to the beginning of language. There is something inherently human about sitting around a fire and trading scary stories, each one trying to top the terror of the last. That is the energy, the primal force the best of these films can conjure.
Produced by Shudder and AMC, Horror Noire does not quite reach those heights, but it provides plenty of exhilaration and terror along the way. This is a series of six, unconnected short horror films by black filmmakers. If the title seems familiar, that is because it comes from a documentary released two years prior called Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, which I cannot recommend highly enough. The intent behind this anthology is to give six black filmmakers access and opportunity to a horror project that spoke to them. Some of these shorts are more successful than others, but I wholeheartedly endorse any project that gives opportunities to marginalized creators.
The first short is The Lake, directed by Joe West, about a teacher running from her past who moves into a lake house in a new town. There is a swampy, gothic quality to the filmmaking here, and the body horror elements are fun and well executed, but the story feels underbaked. There is something wrong with the lake and people are dying, but the way that is executed in the film ends up more confusing than haunting.
Next up is Brand of Evil, directed by Director X., which follows a graphic designer who sells his soul, figuratively at first then maybe literally, for a payday. The actual mechanics of what plays out are a little muddled, but all of it works if taken on a purely thematic and moral level. Nekani (Brandon Mychal Smith) takes money from white supremacists to recreate their symbols of hate, then those symbols of hate take corporeal form and kill black people in the community.
Allegorically, of course, we understand that indulging symbols of hate like the confederate flag or Proud Boys symbols – either through active participation or passive allowance – leads directly to both psychological and physical harm. There is also an interesting meta-commentary on the idea of a black filmmaker taking money from a major corporation to create art for that corporation.
Zandashé Brown’s Bride Before You comes next and ramps up the horror with a woman desperate for a child who turns to mysticism in order to achieve her aims. Of course, the result is more a curse than a blessing, and the creature design here is the finest in the film. There is an emotional heft to this tale that is missing from the rest of the shorts, but the pacing is just a tad slow to be fully effective.
Fugue State, directed by Rob J. Greenlea, is a fascinating exploration of the way religion preys on people and specifically on the black community. The film stars Rachel True as a woman whose husband (Malcolm Barrett) falls under the spell of a maniacal preacher and cult leader known as Pike. Horror legend Tony Todd (Final Destination, Candyman) plays Pike and delivers a stirring speech at the end of this short that spells out all of the filmmakers’ concerns and intents. What it lacks in subtlety it makes up in panache, and Todd gamely brings the audience along to the inevitable violent conclusion.
Daddy, directed by Rob Givens (yes, that Robin Givens), is about the universal concern of being a good father and the fear that maybe you cannot live up to yours or your child’s expectations. Luke James is solid in the lead role as Red, a man who becomes obsessed with protecting his child from outside forces but cannot see the danger lurking on the inside. This is the least overtly horrific of the six shorts, but Givens does a good job of infusing the film with a constant state of dread.
The final short is also the best of the bunch: Sundown, directed by Kimani Ray Smith, which takes the idea of sundown towns to its logical, if ironic, conclusion. The white people are vampires. The action is thrilling, the comedy is on point, and the film provides a showcase for the sadly departed Erica Ash, who died of breast cancer in July of this year. Ash was a tremendous talent, and her part here suggests all the wonderful performances we are missing out on. Peter Stormare is also fun as the mayor of the town and the leader of the vampire clan.
There is a lot to recommend in Horror Noire, and while some its stories are uneven or underdeveloped – something that is true of all horror anthologies to one degree or another – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. For everything it represents and everything it does accomplish, this is a film well worth seeking out.
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