The Blackening Star Grace Byers Explains How Horror and Humor Was Balanced (Exclusive)

The Blackening offers moviegoers an impressive balance of humor, horror, and racial commentary, as a group of black characters find themselves in a slasher-horror movie situation, and are asked to arrange themselves for execution according to their respective levels of blackness.

In an interview with ComicBook.com, The Blackening star Grace Byers (Empire) explained how director Tim Story (Fantastic Four, Barbershop), writers/actors Tracy Oliver, Dewayne Perkins, and the rest of the cast found the throughline to making The Blackening into a fun, funny movie experience, that also said something significant: 

“I actually don’t think that was a challenge – I really want to say I don’t think it was a challenge. Only because horror and comedy are both rooted in the truth of the moment, right? So I really think we’ve been blessed to have a cast who are just spectacular at what they do. And that’s for real. I feel like each person brings such a talent to their version of the craft. And so we truly invested in each of these moments, right? It’s not rocket science, it’s life or death: Do we want to live? Or are we trying to die? 

And so I think with that being the umbrella under which we’re all kind of operating as these characters the comedy will come. That’s where we get the license to play and to ad-lib – that’s where we lean in on the brilliance of the script, and trust that these moments are going to land. But I think that as long as you understand what your goal is in the moment, the horror and the comedy dance around.”

Synopsis: The Blackening interrogates the trope that the African-American character is often the first to die in horror movies by placing an all-Black group of friends at a cabin in the woods, where they are confronted with a masked killer who demands that they rank their degrees of blackness so that he can determine the correct order in which to kill them, and must rely on a combination of street smarts and their own knowledge of horror film tropes to survive.

In addition to Grace Byers, The Blackening stars Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Dewayne Perkins, Antoinette Robertson, Sinqua Walls, Jay Pharoah, and Yvonne Orji. 

The Blackening will open in theaters on June 14th.