*Warning! This post contains spoilers for Bodies Bodies Bodies.*
2011. Scream 4, the last Scream film directed by Wes Craven, premiered to subpar ratings and went on to be the lowest-grossing film of the Scream franchise.
2013. Carrie starred Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, and Judy Greer. Despite the star-powered cast, the film received abysmal reviews and grossed only $35 million domestically.
2016. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies became billed as the Austen adaptation no one asked for. Despite a cast that would later become Hollywood B-listers, the film grossed only $16 million against a $28 million budget.
2016. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies became billed as the Austen adaptation no one asked for. Despite a cast that would later become Hollywood B-listers, the film grossed only $16 million against a $28 million budget.
The early 2010s were a rough time for the modern horror movie genre, especially the comedy horror. Franchises like Scream would take over a decade to reemerge, reboots were grossing almost no money, and sequels like Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones were made with only a few million dollars.
Things began to look up in 2017. Get Out, written and directed by Jordan Peele, profited over $100 million and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. It grossed over $700 million and helped to launch the careers of young stars such as Sophia Lillis and Chosen Jacobs. There were some dark points, though. Mother!, written and directed by Darren Aronofsky was the subject of many think pieces and helped to oversaturate Jennifer Lawrence into an acting break for years.
Modern classics continued to emerge in the final year of the 2010s. For once, original films and sequels were seeing success. Us, It Chapter 2, and Ma scared audiences and created memes so nuclear, they’re still relevant years later. Ready or Not, directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, is a particular Gen-Z favorite. The film not only solidified Samara Weaving as a scream queen but introduced or refamiliarized its audience with the best of what a black comedy horror has to offer. You’re flinching, screaming, hiding behind your hands, and ready to root for your final girl to emerge successfully. 2019 was a great year for film altogether, but it was especially great for the horror genre.
After a rough start to the 2020s, 2022 quite literally began with the rebirth of the Scream franchise. Released in January (the month the industry sends films to die) Scream V profited over $50 million and helped launch Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega as the new Scream final girls. Scream VI was released the following year and became the highest-grossing film of the franchise, grossing nearly $170 million. 2022 continued to release hit horror films, including Barbarian, Fresh, M3GAN, and, my personal favorite, Bodies Bodies Bodies.
Theatrically released by A24 and directed by Halina Reijn, Bodies Bodies Bodies stars Amandla Stenberg, Rachel Sennott, Maria Bakalova, and Pete Davidson. The plot follows girlfriends Stenberg and Bakalova as they arrive at a mansion to visit old friends of Stenberg during a hurricane. After a night of drinking, dancing, and other debauchery, the group decides to play a game aptly called Bodies Bodies Bodies. The storm worsens as the game goes on, with the home soon losing power. The group soon finds Davidson outside with his throat slashed. Convinced there’s a murderer among them, the group soon turns on each other, and chaos ensues.
Bodies Bodies Bodies is not only full of blood and tense moments, it’s also genuinely funny. The humor and tension of the film are largely based on class status and privilege. Bakalova’s character is an outsider to the group and portrayed to be poor, which others, such as Sennott’s character, can financially get by with income brought in by a singular podcast. The group is full of virtue signallers, with the character portrayed by Myha’la Jael Herrold serving as the group’s voice of reason and calling out the ignorant members, one of whom is often Sennott.
(Despite her ignorance, Sennott’s character in particular is a fan favorite, and for good reason. Her delivery of the line“your parents are upper middle class” is award-worthy.)
Bodies Bodies Bodies is the comedy horror film that got me into the genre. I went in for the humor and left with a newfound appreciation for the tension building and the art of a great onscreen kill. I’ve watched more in the years since BBB but hadn’t found one that matched the humor of that one. Until recently, when I watched The Blackening.
The Blackening, directed by Tim Story, was released in the summer of 2023 to coincide with Juneteenth. The film was written by Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins and starred Perkins along with Grace Byers, X Mayo, Sinqua Walls, and more. The film follows a group of friends as they all get together at a cabin in the woods to celebrate Juneteenth. It’s established that this is the first time this entire group has been together in a decade.
The film begins with an opening kill, a classic of the horror genre. Without spoiling the kill, we watch as a couple analyze a board game called The Blackening. The game seemingly comes to life, asking the couple to pick a card. When they do, they’re presented with a trivia question. After failing to answer the question correctly, the couple appears to be killed.
We spend the rest of the film watching as the friend group, consisting entirely of black people, fights to survive. If you’re unaware, it’s an unfortunate trope that a black character is often the first to die in a horror movie. The Blackening faces this trope head-on, with one of the taglines of the film being, “We can’t all die first.”
The Blackening, similar to Bodies Bodies Bodies, laces its bloodshed with humor. The humor and tension of this film are largely based on race and what it means to be black. At one point, the twisted game makes the group choose who they think is the *most* black. Outside of torture, the trivia questions associated with the game are hilarious. My personal favorite consisted of naming five black characters on Friends. This moment was one of the many times I laughed out loud multiple times watching The Blackening.
One point against The Blackening is the lack of bloodshed. Don’t get me wrong, we quite literally watch as six characters lose their lives. But this film focuses less on stabbing and shooting and more on the mental anguish that characters in horror films go through as they fight.
I immediately began comparing The Blackening to Bodies Bodies Bodies after watching, mostly because of the humor. I noticed while perusing Letterboxd reviews that I wasn’t alone in this comparison. And while this comparison could be perceived as problematic, I disagree. I think that both films show the greatness that can be achieved in a comedy horror. I want to be laughing one minute and then gasping in horror the next. I want the one-liners to be trapped between a stabbing and a scream. I want to see Pete Davidson lying in a pool of blood because his character was an idiot who almost decapitated himself while filming a TikTok. Sue me.
If the lull of the horror genre in the early and mid-2010s showed us anything, it’s that a horror comedy movie needs to have a point of view. We as the audience want to see a connection – we want to care for the characters, especially if they die. Whether that’s done with jokes about a biracial character being more white than black or having an influencer podcaster vehemently call her friend’s family upper middle class, we need to see some depth. We need somebody to root for and someone to be suspicious of. Jump scares and elevators of blood aren’t going to accomplish that alone. We need smart dialogue to establish characters and keep the plot going. Without this, we’ll be stuck watching reboots for the rest of our lives, and I KNOW we don’t want that.
Bodies Bodies Bodies is available to watch now on Netflix. The Blackening is available to watch now on Starz US.
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