The Blackening (2023)

The Blackening is that rare horror-comedy that actually understands both halves of its DNA: it delivers real slasher tension while skewering the genre’s tired assumptions with sharp, culturally specific wit. Tim Story keeps the pace lively and the tone gleefully mischievous, letting the jokes land without deflating the danger, and the ensemble—especially Jermaine Fowler—brings the kind of charisma that makes you want to stay in the room with these people even when the room is a very bad place to be. It’s smart about what it’s satirizing, but never preachy, and it has the confidence to be both a crowd-pleaser and a little bit of a provocation. If you’re allergic to heavy profanity or R-rated violence, it may be a tough hang, but if you like your scares with bite and your laughs with brains, this one’s a wickedly good time.

The Blackening is clearly trying to be a smart, crowd-pleasing riff on cabin-in-the-woods slashers, using sharp cultural jokes and horror-movie “rules” as the engine. When it leans into comedy, it’s lively and often genuinely funny, with a game cast that keeps the banter moving. But if you’re coming for real scares, sustained tension, or a horror parody that still feels scary, the movie’s light, jokey tone undercuts the suspense and the satire can feel more like sketch comedy beats than a tight horror-thriller. Watch it with friends as a raunchy, R-rated comedy with some blood, and skip it if you want a properly chilling slasher or a more affectionate, balanced genre send-up.