Original subtitles

TANANARIVE DUE: We've always loved horror.

It's just that horror, unfortunately,

hasn't always loved us.

[suspenseful music]

- Zombie! [indistinct]!

- What have we got here?

- [shouting]

NARRATOR: Terror and voodoo and all the weird black magic

that the white man seldom see.

- [screams] I'm gettin' outta here now!

BEN: You can be the boss down there.

I'm boss up here.

- Yes! That's history.

- [screams]

- "The name is Blacula!"

- [laughs] - [screaming]

- Is there any more scary imagery than this?

- I wanna hear you scream.

- It's cool to see yourself on the screen.

- There's something so powerful about scaring someone.

- [screams]

- Oh, my goodness.

CANDYMAN: Allow me at least a kiss.

- I've been waiting for you, boy.

- Phew!

- [screaming]

- Oh, my God.

- Yes, get rid of that, son.

- [growling]

[screaming]

- Isn't that beautiful?

DRE: [chuckling] It's crazy.

You got me all here in this creepy, confusing ass subarba.

[laughs] You all so serious, though?

I feel like a sore thumb out here.

RUSTY CUNDIEFF: Lakeith. ERNEST DICKERSON: Oh, yeah.

Walking down the...

RUSTY CUNDIEFF: Walking down the sidewalk at night.

- In a suburban neighborhood. - In a suburban neighborhood.

- On the cellphone by himself.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Shit! - All of that.

- [scoffs] I've been there. - Yeah, yeah.

- It was the perfect black horror story.

- Yeah, really.

- [grunts and groans]

- I've never felt so ill at ease

because, for me, there was so much riding on this film

in that is he going to get this right,

not just in quality,

but for the way that we understand black people.

- If there's too many white people,

I get nervous, you know?

JORDAN PEELE: When I found out they were gonna let me

actually direct "Get Out",

I knew something big was going to happen.

I thought there was a chance something very bad could happen,

that I would get run out of town, that, you know,

I thought there's a possibility that people, you know,

don't want to see entertainment about something that...

you know, has been traditionally dealt with

with a certain reverence.

But I also thought, you know,

this is the movie I wanted to see.

- To have a black protagonist,

first of all, just in a horror trailer,

had my attention.

"Huh? Wait, he might survive this."

[laughs] He might not be the magical Negro

or the sacrificial Negro or the first to die

and all those tropes, so it's like,

"This is a story through a black lens by a black artist

and it's horror."

I thought I was in heaven.

ANNOUNCER: Jordan Peele, "Get Out".

[loud cheering]

RACHEL TRUE: This had never happened before

to have an Oscar-nominated black horror movie.

- And I think it really shows

how horror films can really talk about things

that are affecting us.

- Black history is black horror.

- Before we think about horror

as we know it today, we can go back to the films

that perhaps wouldn't be on our radar as horror.

- [title music of movie playing]

- There's a character, Gus.

Gus is a white actor in blackface

who was depicted as being in pursuit of

a young white girl.

Gus is essentially lynched by the Klan.

TANANARIVE DUE: "The Birth of a Nation" was a horror film,

especially if you were a black person.

KEN FOREE: Most people, at that point,

were getting to know what African Americans were like

through that film because they lived in communities

where they had no African Americans.

This was the only source of information

and a lot of people got the wrong impression

of who we are, certainly.

- It's one of the first films

to be screened in the White House,

in Woodrow Wilson's White House.

KEN FOREE: Didn't help that Woodrow Wilson said,

"That's exactly the way it is."

- Oh, you know, I mean...

KEN FOREE: You know, he was a contributor to the problem.

- With the endorsement of the president,

it feels like policy.

There were even advertisements and promotions

that said this was essentially based on a true story

and it was as close to fact as one could get.

- The Ku Klux Klan

is being heralded as the solution to the black menace.

- This is a movie that really solidifies

that there's this sort of

odd black lust on the part of black men

towards white women.

You see it time and time again then

throughout the horror genre,

from "King Kong"... [screaming]

...to "Candyman".

- It reigned as thepicture of black life

for so many years.

Hollywood could use its messaging

to create fear around black people,

especially fear around black men.

- It sets up black life and culture

as so deficient and so deviant

and I think we see that kind of history

in forming race relationships even today.

- Dr. Clinton?

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: Filmmakers in this period

really want black actors to be what they think blackness is.

- Don't bite on this time, Ms. Yoga.

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: These are the kinds of films

that are coming out in the '20s and '30s,

leading up to Oscar Micheaux and Spencer Williams

sort of saying, "Enough."

TONY TODD: Oscar Michaeux,

who was one of the first African American directors,

who would, like a lot of people

doing today in the independent world,

he would have his own film crew, he would gather his actors,

he would write a script around the actors.

- What Oscar Michaeux's films do

is say, "Don't engage in these behaviors,

don't engage in these acts,"

which ultimately could sort of bring down the race

or sully the reputation of the race.

Oscar Michauex's making arguments

that we are equal and to be respected

and to be valued as human beings.

TANANARIVE DUE: Spencer Williams' film

from 1940, "The Son of Ingagi", is as interesting case.

Its genesis was a little bit odd

because there was a film called "Ingagi".

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: "Ingagi" was an earlier

low budget effort by a white director.

- Which basically purported

that black Africans were mating with gorilla-like creatures.

- "Ingagi" promises

that it is a true story and that this mating

has produced half-ape, half-human babies.

The whole thing is a scam.

- Even whites were like, "But that's not true, you know."

The "Son of Ingagi" is basically considered

the first black-made horror film.

The makeup isn't great,

and they didn't have much of a budget.

- [growling]

- But Spencer got it made. - Got it made, exactly.

- And I look at that to this day as a testament.

- It stars a black woman as a scientist.

She has a scientific lab in her basement

and there is this ape-man that resides there

that she has been taming

and sort of helping this ape-man to thrive.

- If it does what I think it will,

I've done more for humanity than anyone else on Earth.

- So, Spencer Williams actually

kind of does the first black women in stem kind of film.

You really get to see the black middle class

on full display.

- [laughter]

TANANARIVE DUE: You're seeing a bunch of black folks

coming back from a wedding.

It doesn't sound revolutionary, but in that era, in 1940,

when did you ever see black people just being themselves?

It was a way to show that not all black people

were the way they had been depicted in films

up to that time.

So we have a doctor and a lawyer,

everyone is well-spoken, and in that way,

it was a slice of black life that, to me,

is one of the most important aspects of that film.

- And if you know anything about television,

Spencer Williams sounds familiar, right?

He starred in the television situation comedy "Amos 'N Andy".

- Oh, Andy, I love jokes! [laughs]

- Then you gonna like this one

because I bought this gun at a joke store.

[laughter]

- So, what's sad about that

is that people will always know Williams

as from "Amos 'N Andy",

but what Spencer Williams contributes

to the history of film is absolutely unmatched.

He sets up what we really probably think of is

modern black cinema today.

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: By this time, Hollywood realized

that horror was big business,

especially during the Great Depression.

I think people were looking for that kind of escapism in films

and film going was like huge.

That's where you get those Universal Studio classics like

"Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Mummy", "Dracula",

"Frankenstein", "The Bride of Frankenstein".

I love all of those films but clearly in the 1930s,

they weren't really big on racial representation.

MARK H. HARRIS: Back in the '30s and '40s

in those days, you know,

there were only a few roles for black people.

TINA MABRY: Yeah. - It was like a quiet servant

who's just basically furniture, tribesmen like in Africa

or voodoo priestesses, that sort of thing.

- Hmm... At the theatre. - It was like...

- It was like the comedic buffoon

who was like scared of his own shadow.

-[growling] - [screams]

- Mantan Mulan. - Yes.

- Was the last actor to play that kind of character

and that was in spite of the baby,

and after that, I would just say they were ready to move on.

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: We are moving into this period

of kind of the scientific or atomic age.

There's not a lot of room for servants,

so in laboratories,

there's no really place for blacks in that space.

MARK H. HARRIS: In the '50s and '60s,

no studio wanted to put a black scientist in there.

That was a place where they felt black people weren't allowed in,

so like in hidden figures how hard it was for black people

to get into the space race and that sort of things,

so it has another reason I think that black people

would pretty much disappear during the whole, you know,

the decade or two.

- In all of those classic alien movies...

like"The Day the Earth Stood Still"

and all that stuff, there are no black people

but the "other" is this monster thing

that I think is supposed to represent all people

that are not white.

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: "Creature from the Black Lagoon"

looks so much like those advertisements

from the '20s and the '30s and the '40s.

The bulging lips looks just like those awful ads

for Nigger Head Shrimp.

- It's like first we weren't in it,

we were played by white people...

- Yeah. - Then we were in it

but we looked like aliens.

- [screaming]

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: So here I am, this 10-year-old,

in a drive-in theater with my mom,

but even then, I knew that there was something

that horror was saying to me about blackness, about race.

I knew that King Kong was a metaphor for blackness.

- [snarling]

- Even as a kid, there was something

uncomfortable about it.

- Monsters and aliens

are stand-ins for black folks

but we're not actually present in the story.

- But then there's this moment...

NARRATOR: "Night of the Living Dead".

- It's 1968, and that's important.

- [dogs barking]

[snarling dogs, people screaming]

ERNEST DICKERSON: I don't scare easily.

"Night of the Living Dead" I think gave me nightmares.

- It was a frightening, frightening film,

and the black and white of it...

[gunshots]

...play such a huge part in what makes it scary.

NARRATOR: All law enforcement agencies and the military

have been organized to search out and destroy

the marauding ghouls.

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: There's a zombie apocalypse

and we have a small group of folks

who all sort of converge on a cabin house to survive.

- It has a black protagonist in Duane Jones.

- You can be the boss down there.

I'm boss up here.

- He's in charge.

- If you stay up here, you take orders from me!

- You can never quite tell if the white woman

who Duane Jones is essentially saving

is more creeped out by the fact that there's zombies outside

or the fact that there's a black man in the house.

- I was probably way too young to see it

but I was absolutely fascinated by the fact

that there is this a beautiful, handsome black man.

That was the first time I probably saw somebody black

in a movie, and they weren't a criminal,

and they weren't gangster, and they were the hero.

- At that time, there was not a black character

who was really a man,

who was, again, who took charge of his fate.

Who wasn't waiting for the white man to save him.

TONY TODD: Duane Jones' performance stood out for me.

By that point, I knew I wanted to be an actor

and I said, "Okay, I was gonna be fearless."

- He's slapping white people up inside the head.

He's killing white zombie after white zombie

after white zombie.

This had to be horrifying to racists.

- The '60s was a turbulent time, you know.

We had assassination after assassination.

We had riot after riot.

- Civil rights movement and all those movements

were combining together and we were producing those men

that were standing up and saying, "Not here.

Not again. Not me."

At the same time, he comes up and he does this film

and that's the character, that's the man,

that's the man I saw.

"Night of the Living Dead" was so important

because for the first time, we're not just the victims.

We were the destroyers and the protectors

for other people against monsters,

That's a good point.

TONY TODD: Years later, I got to know George Romero.

I asked him, I said, "Why Duane?"

and he said, "The role wasn't even written,

it wasn't written black.

Duane just happened to be the best actor

to show up on that day."

MARK H. HARRIS: This is like in the '60s

when people being hosed, people in sit-ins

and stuff like that. - Jim Crow era.

- Exactly. - Yeah.

- It just blew my mind that

this was a black guy who was doing all this,

taking charge, he was the hero,

even though it didn't turn out for him in the end.

- Alright then, hit him in the head,

right between the eyes.

[ gun shot ]

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: I can remember seeing this

and not being able to move.

- Okay, he's dead. Let's go get him.

That's another one for the fire.

TANANARIVE DUE: He's killed by the white mob

which had to look a lot like white mobs

that were roaming throughout the South,

menacing black folks and terrorizing black folks.

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: You see lynchings.

You think of Emmett Till and it's just too much.

And so you are left just sitting there going,

"My God. Did this just happen?"

George Romero tells the story of putting the film cans

in the trunk of his car, driving to New York City,

and they hear it.

They hear it on the radio.

RADIO ANNOUNCER: The Reverend Dr. Martin King, Jr.

was killed by an assassin's bullet

tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

- And I can't imagine

what happens in that car, what that feeling is like,

the crush, the blow, the sinking,

and I want to believe that they know what they have.

"Night of the Living Dead" becomes what it is

exactly because of what's happening in this country

while he's filming it.

- I think the tenseness of the time

and the turbulence that was going on in society

and the political drama all fed into people

all of a sudden having a need to wanna see themselves on screen

and that gave birth to the blacksploitation period.

[peppy music]

- We call 1970s film

"blacksploitation" and it's really a portmanteau

for "black" and "exploitation".

Blacks are on the big screen.

Black audiences are really joyful for the inclusion

but the representations are sometimes just not right.

KEITH DAVID: We went from maids to pimps and hos.

At that time, we didn't use that word

profile... - No, no.

- But we were horrifically profiled.

I like to wear hats and I bought me a new hat

and some white boy yells at me, "Hey, pimp!" you know,

and I think he's thinking

that he thinks he's complimented me.

RICHARD LAWSON: The big hats and collars

and they were images that were perpetrated by white people

who exploited these images for their own gain.

Sam Arkoff owned American International Pictures, AIP,

they were the great producers of films

that fell under the blacksploitation period.

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: There are studios who get in

on the blacksploitation craze.

And AIP's business model was, "We're not going to lead.

We're going to look, see what's happening out there,

what might be popular,

and then we're going to get on kind of the back side of this

and produce more of it."

Theirs was a strictly for-profit budget model,

investing as little as they could

and hoping something stuck.

Their films would go on just a few screens in some cases,

often in black neighborhoods, very low investment,

very low quality.

- At the time, I was astute enough

to look up AIP's budget,

but they weren't making any money at all.

I mean, the rumor was, was that they were in deep water,

and then "Blacula" brought in a lot of money for them.

- The name is Blacula!

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: Starring William Marshall,

a black actor,

directed by William Crain, a black director.

And so here's where you see

how knowledgeable black directors and actors

can have an extraordinary impact on a film.

- They wanted to do "Count Brown's in Town".

- "Brown's in Town"? Really? - Yeah.

It was really...Yeah. - "Brown's in Town"?

- So, we decided we were gonna do something else.

I wasn't the favorite person there for them...

- No, of course not. - ...because we had

something else in mind.

- The movie opens with him with his queen

trying to argue with Count Dracula

to end the transatlantic slave trade.

- To totally cease the slave trade?

TANANARIVE DUE: When is the last time

black audiences had seen themselves

expressed visually in the 1700s as erudite and intelligent

and holding court and trying to discuss world affairs?

- Slavery has merit, I believe.

- Merit? You find "merit" in barbarity?

- But it was a big deal! - It was a big deal.

I just remember right out of school

everyone say Black Dracula.

- Vampires, I think they're possibly

the most fascinatin of all.

- That's all I remember.

"What? A black Dracula?"

And it gave you a sense of something I can't even explain.

I wanted to be an actor. Something opened up

'cause I think that affected me in a way

that probably I don't even understand.

- I was still in high school

and I had dreams of being the first black Dracula.

[laughs]

- [Blacula laughs]

- But when William Marshall, who came out with it,

I was like, "Who could be mad about that?"

I mean, it was-- because he was...

I've loved William Marshall.

- When I was a kid,

the vampires and the Draculas that had been going on

were these really soft, metrosexual white guys

who didn't really have an energy to them for me,

and then, Blacula.

Okay, so he's this yummy, yummy chocolate, dark, sexy man

and so it was sort of,

it was this really confusing thing as a child

because I'm like, "Oh, my God, I'm scared!

But I'm excited. But I'm scared.

But I'm interested. I think I wanna kiss him."

And I hadn't really experienced that with a "villain" before,

so I would say Blacula scared the fuck out of me.

- I was proud that a black man

was kicking some butt. - Was eating people.

- Kicking butt, yeah. - Hi, what'll you have?

- Make is a Bloody Mary.

- [laughs] He was having a Bloody Mary!

WILLIAM CRAIN: I found a lot of tangible resistance

and maybe even tangible resentment...

- Racism? - Yeah. Well, for racism,

I mean, nobody... - Because I'm sure your crew

was predominantly white.

- Everybody was white. - All right.

- Right now, I can't remember

anyone else black that was on that set.

WILLIAM MARSHALL: There was something of a resentment

on the part of many producers

who didn't want our voices to ring resonantly about

and create a new kind of genre.

[disco music]

WILLIAM CRAIN: Remember the night club scene?

And the 150 actors in that club scene, right?

- Right, right, right.

- And so, there was a mix of white and black.

PAUL JAI PARKER: Right. Beautiful.

WILLIAM CRAIN: It really worked.

And once the music was supposed to start,

kids were supposed to be dancing and I watched the AD,

the assistant director, he had the black couples

and he had white couples, so I had this...

- He didn't mix it up? - No, he didn't. He didn't.

They didn't have gloves to throw down but I said,

"Hold up, we're not gonna do this.

This is what you're gonna do.

You're gonna mix these people up."

And it went all the way up to Sam Arkoff.

- He got some resistance

but his pushback helped even the higher-ups

doing this film understand that he was making

something really meaty and meaningful.

It makes the film so memorable and impactful even to this day.

WILLIAM CRAIN: We're sitting in this wonderful

old police station, and I saw this long range

of about at least 20 yards,

and then I asked them

for a high-speed camera. - Okay.

- Which would be a slow-motion camera.

- Right. Okay.

- They didn't wanna do it. I wasn't gonna get it.

This went on for at least a week.

- Right. - And so, I was waiting

for this camera to show up.

Never did show up.

On the morning that we got ready to do that,

this extra van pulls up...

- And they gave it to you? - And these guys come out

with this high-speed, slow motion camera.

- Okay.

- They decided to give it to you.

- I bet they did after they start seeing

those dailies, right?

- People are still talking about that shot.

[screaming]

TINA MABRY: And it created kind of a cultural shift

and to have that awareness to say, "Me, too,"

and then to come back with "Scream Blacula Scream",

Pam Grier and Richard Lawson's first role.

RICHARD LAWSON: "Scream Blacula Scream"

I did with William Marshall, Pam Grier, Don Mitchell,

and a host of other wonderful black actors.

PAULA JAI PARKER: I'm a Pam Grier fan.

She ends up becoming the lead of the film

which to me is fun because, in my opinion,

it's one of the only times they let her act,

like she really got to be a real person

and not a sex symbol.

- Stay away! Who are you?

- This is when you start to see women really emerge.

Women are now starting to take the center stage.

- How about that?

- She got to use her mind. - Change her wardrobe,

she used her mind,

of course she saves the two guys

at the end. - Yes.

And she's like an historian of black antiquity,

you know... - Exactly.

PAULA JAI PARKER: That whole diaspora.

- In the white horror movies,

the voodoo is always like the evil force.

- Yeah. - And the villain.

But in like "Scream Blacula Scream"

it was like the force of good, it was kind of...

- Exactly. - They relied on that

to conquer his curse basically.

They were using it to remove his curse.

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: The cross horrors history voodoo

is explicitly a sign to black people.

All black people know voodoo!

And it's really helpful if they're in Louisiana.

- How do you kill someone with voodoo?

- You often see black women

associated with voodoo on screen.

Commonly, we've seen black women be voodoo priestesses

and things of that nature, and always use it for ill-will.

- A [indistinct] is gonna growl, and rain is gonna rain.

- Black women were very much centered

as frightening because they wielded power.

"Abby" the blacksploitation era film, is a really good example

of both fear of black women in general

but fear of black women's sexuality in particular.

- [growling]

ABBY: You're mine now! Mine!

- Abby. - That's Abby.

This scared me so much when I was a kid

because she was pretty, but then she went crazy.

- [laughs] - Yeah.

- What do you think of my powers now?

[evil laughter]

- Black women, of course, have always been depicted

as highly sexualized.

This is definitely something that came to the fore with Abby.

On the one level, you could say she's sort of

resisting her defined role as sort of a church wife,

becoming possessed by a sex demon

who basically attacks men through sex. [laughs]

It's a silly film,

but what's not silly about it is it does point to this fear

of black women and black womanhood.

- There is this one, I think,

kind of cool movie. It's called "Sugar Hill".

- [loud laughter]

- Sugar's community is under siege

by some corrupt white gangsters.

- [grunting]

MARK H. HARRIS: She conjured this voodoo god

to get revenge on these gangsters

who killed her boyfriend.

- I want the power to destroy my enemies.

RICHARD LAWSON: It was one of the early films

where a black woman was the lead.

- Remember me?

- She had made her own determinations,

was not suppressed by men and the system.

She was smart, powerful, she was sexy,

she was intelligent, and she was willful.

- Show us what big man you are.

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: This is a narrative

that isn't entirely unproblematic.

It does resurrect these early notions of black men

lusting for white women.

- [loud laughter]

- And so, for female audiences to watch

these movies on the big screen,

certainly came with a bit of conflict.

- So, the blacksploitation era

probably gets mixed marks in terms of, you know,

overall how black life was being portrayed,

but you can see in even just these horror films

that there's an effort to do more.

- One movie from the '70s

that gets lumped in with blacksploitation

is "Ganja & Hess".

It's really cool and it's from a black director.

Bill Gunn is his name.

- Bill Gunn is a guy

who a lot of people don't know about

because he was a playwright, a screenwriter.

He wrote the screenplay for a movie called "The Landlord"

that Hal Ashby did.

Bill Gunn was in episodes of "The Outer Limits",

"Man From U.N.C.L.E.", you know,

they just wanted him to make

a horror film. - Right.

- You know, with black folks in it.

And the story is that he just,

I think the producers were out of town or something,

and he took the whole cast and crew

up to some place at New York and rewrote it and shot it.

- Wow. - You know, to talk about

the history of blood, the history of African blood,

and how it's passed down to the ancestors.

[screem]

- This is a film about a very erudite scholar

who struggles with addiction,

so he's using blood as an addiction metaphor

which is something that spoke to this director

and in his mind, I'm sure spoke to his community.

- He was recently turned into a vampire

and he falls in love with this woman

and he kinda has to decide whether to turn her

and that sort of thing.

And it's very slow and meditative.

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: Throughout the movie, Hess,

no matter how wealthy he is, no matter how educated,

is still very fearful of the police.

- There's no possible way for you to know this

but I'm the only colored on the block, you see,

and if another black man washes ashore around here,

you can believe

the authorities will drag me out for questioning.

- The police still remain a threat

to even this very wealthy, well-educated black man.

- It got like a standing ovation

at the Cannes Film Festival. - Yeah.

- It played at Cannes and got a lot of awards there.

When it got to America, not so much.

- Hollywood hates this movie

because it doesn't look anything like

the blacksploitation films of this period.

Frankly, it's a little too smart.

It's a little too stylistic.

The characters are really a bit too developed and realized.

They wanted something cruder.

- They recut it. [indistinct] before years, you know,

I used to go some video stores and it was recut as a movie

called "Blood Couple".

TANANARIVE DUE: For the longest time,

it was sort of in this netherworld

where the true version of the film

was at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

- It was a film that I heard about for years

before I was finally to see it.

- Hmm-mm.

- Actually, Bill Gunn, when I was at Howard, came.

He didn't come with a print of the film.

- He just came to talk about it?

- Yeah, 'cause the only print was available,

the only print in existence was at the Museum of Modern Art.

He was an interesting cat,

and "Ganja & Hess" was his chance

to elevate a vampire story into something more meaningful.

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: "Ganja & Hess"

is like this beautiful, artistic film

but it wasn't the only film during that time

that was making these broad stroke statements

about what was going on in society.

There's a lot of blacksploitation horror films

that kind of deal with kind of involuntary experimentation

and it doesn't feel like a coincidence.

The Tuskeegee Experiment was this medical experiment

that spanned a 40-year time.

There were these tests done on Southern men in the South,

some had syphilis, some didn't,

but they all thought they were being treated

for what was called "bad blood".

They were promised free healthcare, free meals,

free burial, but they weren't even treated.

They were pretty much being tested

to see the effects of syphilis over a lifetime.

Some of those men lost their lives

without knowing what they were fully consenting to,

and there was this big investigation

and it came a halt in early to mid-1970s.

- You wanna use me for some type of human guinea pig, is that it?

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: "Dr. Black & Mr. Hyde",

"Blackenstein",

those are films that were lackluster in quality

and maybe even story, but they are centered around

medical experimentation on black males.

And so, you couldn't help but notice

those two things coming together and kind of converging.

- This could be a good chance to try out that serum.

- No, you can't try that serum on a human.

That's not right.

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: Since blacks were brought here

during slavery, we were treated as lab rats

and for various, different medical purposes,

they treated us as inhuman, as we were seen,

and so, you see a lot of that even today

with movies like "Get Out".

- Why us, huh?

Why black people?

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: Also "The Girl with All the Gifts"

and even "The First Purge".

- Should you choose to actively participate,

we'll implant a tracking device.

After that, you'll be all set, as they say, to purge.

- As sort of bad as

some of these blacksploitation films were,

they just simply got worse.

- [screaming, grunting]

- "Blackenstein" is so bad,

literally, you can't see the film.

I mean, you're like,

Did they purposefully shoot it in shadow

or just completely in the dark?

In addition to that,

civil rights groups are protesting these films

and saying that they're not good for black culture,

they're not good for black representations.

- We may not have liked necessarily what we saw.

- [screaming]

- It was stereotypical,

but those doors slowly started to open.

So, as all things in life, there's a double-edged sword.

- We're finally seeing a number of movies

where black people are on the big screen.

And so, you think, "Okay,

the momentum is going to continue

and maybe in the '80s,

we're going to get these representations right."

Exactly the opposite happens.

- [grunting]

- I always knew that if there was somebody black

in the horror film, they will be the first to die.

MIGUEL A. NUÑEZ: I remember one of the first things I did

was when I got the script

was count the number of pages before I died.

[laughter]

- If we're not dead in the first 15 minutes,

we're certainly dead by the last 30 minutes.

- It's like the red shirt phenomenon

in "Star Trek".

You know you can't kill Spock, you can't kill McCoy,

you can't kill Captain Kirk or Uhura,

so this poor crew member with the red shirt

is the one who's going to die.

And I think that's very much

where blacks were kind of stuck in horror for a while.

It became such a joke about first to die

that there were these sort of tongue-in-cheek

references to it.

IRA KANE: Snag one.

- Snag one? - Yeah, snag one

and put 'em in the bucket.

- I seen this movie. The black dude dies first.

You snag it.

- So, let's talk about black people

always die first in horror movies.

It's not entirely true.

- Well, in "Alien", Yaphet is actually

the last male to die, you know? - That's true. He is.

Yeah, he makes it aways.

- Get out of the room!

- Sometimes they do die first.

- [grunting]

- But I wanna kinda dispel a little bit of that myth.

It often happens.

- [grunting]

- But then, at the same time,

it can't always happen because black people

play a particular role in horror films.

For example, if you have a really horrible, big,

kind of badass monster, how do you evidence

that that creature is as bad as it can get?

You need a black guy.

- I'm Sergeant Buford Brown, but my teammates call me Buba.

- If the monster beats that guy,

then that monster must be a true badass.

- You believe any of this voodoo bullshit, Blair?

- Well, you know, my first,

my very first movie was "The Thing".

- Yes! Yes, yes. - I lived to the very end.

I survived. - Yes.

In my next movie, I did die but not till the end.

- Their roles are tokens,

and so, they show up as sidekicks,

incidental characters.

- Which would be fine

except that often, they don't exist

for any other reason in the movie.

They don't have wants, needs of their own,

their only concern

is the welfare of the white protagonists,

and that's where it becomes problematic.

- I looked at it as I was the chosen black person

for the film. - I know, that's right.

- I didn't look at it in a negative way.

I looked at it like I was chosen.

- I didn't look at it in a negative way, either,

'cause I was getting a check. MIGUEL A. NUÑEZ: Absolutely.

Everybody who had said anything about it,

I'm in "Friday the 13th", you're not,

so I didn't look at it like that.

But it was really a good thing to be black

and, in any film, in the '80s,

not much less a horror movie, but any film.

- I was like, "Hey, we're in this movie!"

[laughs] We're dying first.

- [muffled scream]

- Or we're sacrificing ourselves.

- [screaming]

Or we're just a sidekick or we're just being sassy.

- Dan keeping you up again?

Girl, you gotta put a lock in that window.

- Or we're not gonna appear after the first act or whatever.

But we were in it. We were in it!

It's such a powerful validation of your existence

and I think it's really difficult for a lot of whites

to even imagine what it would feel like

if you were surrounded by entertainment

that was nothing but black people, right?

- I got on set and I read the script,

and there was several little racial things in there.

- I see you!

Chocolate man.

- And so, I, you know, I said,

"Okay, you know, I'm gonna be alone on this."

- Scary, isn't it?

- Back when I was doing "The Craft",

I definitely was really nervous

about how to portray this character.

Like Bonnie has burns, or what's her name?

Sarah! [laughs] scars.

And the other one is poor and very angry

and probably bipolar, right?

So when I first auditioned,

I had a big monologue about being anorexic

and then I think once they decided to cast me,

that is when they made race her issue,

but for me, I was like, "I don't have an issue."

I didn't think it was a big enough problem

for her to have.

Although, in retrospect, I actually think it's fantastic

they had it in because that is the kind of racism,

whether it was subtle or big, that I went through,

I'm sure you went through, and everyone went through,

but isn't it interesting that I was able to

compartmentalize it and be like, "What?

She doesn't have a problem," because it's so ingrained in me

that that's a part of me that I'm gonna go into a store

and someone's gonna be horrible to me

or somebody white's gonna say something terrible.

- Why are you doing this to me, Laura?

- Because I don't like Negroids.

- To this day, people come up to me

and tell me how much it meant.

I was getting off a train, this little girl was getting on

and she would,

"Yo... yo.. you were in the Crafts movie!"

And I realized, "Oh! Oh, oh!"

I wasn't even thinking that like I'm now in a movie,

so these girls don't have to go through what I did

which was, you know, watching "Pretty in Pink"

and going, "There's no one who looks like me,

or acts like me, or sounds like me."

I am going to be that for these girls.

- I drink of my sisters

and I ask for the ability to not hate those who hate me,

especially racist pieces of bleach blonde shit

like Laura Lizzie.

- I think what Rochelle did was she gave us...

she gave us a way to kind of talk about our own experiences

and be comfortable with them

because a lot of us were in like all-white spaces.

- I live in a white world.

I mean, most of the time, all I'm around is white people.

A lot of times, when you're living in the world,

so you don't think of it being, "Oh, I'm a token,"

or anything like that.

You're just thinking, "Oh, I finally got a position in this

and it'll bring me other positions,"

so I think you think positively about what you're doing.

KEN SAGOES: It didn't really matter to me

because we were working.

I was so happy that I had a check but, on the set,

it was absolute... I was the only black there.

And I think minorities all over the world

felt that Kincaid was their hero.

Let's go kick the motherfucker's ass

all over dreamland.

RICHARD LAWSON: Every script that I read

and the leading man,

that was my part!

That's the part I shoulda played!

But I understood where it was.

There was no resentment.

It was like, "In due time."

- Perhaps the quintessential,

although it pains me to say, token character,

is Scatman Crothers in "The Shining".

- No problem, Mr. Urban,

I was just getting to the ice cream.

- It pains me to say it because he's a terrific performer.

[♪]

TANANARIVE DUE: The character played by Scatman Crothers

who is a psychic in the book survives, but in the film,

to set up a danger for the important characters,

meaning the child and the wife,

Scatman Crothers got an axe to his chest

the minute the brother walked through the door.

- [manic shouting]

[screaming]

- Always bothered me 'cause I was always thinking,

"Oh, if he's shinin', how come

he didn't see it coming?" - He should see that.

- He shoulda ducked that axe.

- At the time, I mean,

I thought it was an unusual choice

because I knew it hadn't happened that way in the novel.

I didn't understand that I was seeing a trope called

the sacrificial Negro.

- The sacrificial Negro

is just the character who literally just like

puts themselves in the face of danger

and dies in order for the white character to survive.

- In the first "Annabelle",

poor Alfre Woodard has no investment in the film

other than helping the white characters...

- No, no! - [screams]

TANANARIVE DUE: And I was like, "That's a little retro,"

because you don't see that so much anymore.

- It was literally Alfre Woodard saying,

"Oh, I have lived my entire life just to save you."

And it's just like,

[laughs] "Oh, my God, that drove me nuts!"

- I'm over that.

I've seen that in almost every movie

I grew up with as a child where, you know,

the desexualized black woman mammy figure

gives her life so that the little white girl can live.

That's noble, I guess, but I just feel like,

Why can't everybody live? Or everybody die?

- I think it really honestly goes back

to that era of the "Birth of a Nation"

where you have the faithful servant trope.

That faithful servant trope is a really important image

for a lot of races because it shows them

that slavery and Jim Crow weren't so bad!

Sometimes those secondary characters

are just gonna have to die because if they don't,

the audience won't believe

something scary is about to happen to the real characters

who are not the black characters,

which is what I think gives birth to this other

horrible trope which is the magical Negro.

- Molly, you in danger, girl.

- They have super wisdom

that helps like these white characters kind of thrive.

- It's one of those boxes that black people get put in,

the sort Uncle Remus thing,

where we're somehow afforded some mystical wisdom.

- Alex, your friend's departure shows

that death has a new design for all of you.

- Then you have the other side of a terrible coin

which is invisibility.

- I remember being when I was younger...

- Yeah. - Like around that age,

like seven to eight grade and like discovering scary movies

like, "You know what, I'm not gonna die

'cause I'm not even in this." - [laughs]

MONICA SURIYAGE: It's like all my friends at the sleepover

should be scared 'cause they're all white

and no one's coming for the man who looks like me!

- No one's coming for us. Exactly.

- 'Cause I'm not even in it!

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: It's the Reagan era

and black people become the face

of what is bringing this country down.

The nation is led to believe

that their good, hard tax dollars

are being put into these young women

who are having babies and collecting welfare checks

and it's a propaganda message

that really encourages the nation

to turn its back on social programs.

Black people become monstrous in a real way in the political.

NEWS ANCHOR: Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple,

stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend.

- On the big screen then,

what is encouraged is that white, fleety urban.

"A Nightmare on Elm Street", "Amityville Horror",

"Halloween", all have pushed us out

into the suburban, away from the urban,

and so we have to imagine new monsters.

- [growling]

- Take a movie like "Poltergeist",

"Our homes are built on Indian burial grounds

and somehow it's radiating up and affecting us in awful ways

not because we're inherently evil

but because black and brown people

were still the source of evil."

- One horror film with a lot of black faces in it

that stands out from the 1980s is

"The Serpent and the Rainbow", directed by Wes Craven,

and Wes Craven, I would say, was one of those filmmakers

who really did try to be inclusive in his films.

He also did "Vampire Brooklyn"

and he did "The People Under the Stairs".

KELLY JO MINTER: "The People Under the Stairs"

you had a young black kid

leading a major film for Universal.

It was ahead of its time.

- I remember seeing it on the VHS and I'm being like,

"This movie has a black child actor as the lead?

What's going on here?"

- I don't wanna kill you

but I will 'cause I don't like you much, anyway.

- One of the things that movie really captures is,

you know, black fear of white spaces, you know,

this thing we're talking about.

And this particular white space, you know, this is stereotypical

but like, you know, this idea of like sadomasochism

and leather like psychosexual shit,

like this torturing stuff.

It all seemed very white, you know?

- There's no community here.

All I see you are a couple of n...

[indistinct] ass bitch. You can.

- What are you gonna do?

Shoot us all?

- They had Roach in there,

in the walls, as a victim, and that, I think,

was the most powerful

and terrifying part about that movie.

You look at "Get Out",

it's clear that my deepest, deepest fears

come to this idea of confinement.

- And then we get this beautiful renaissance

called the '90s.

- I actually am not afraid to say Candyman.

- Candyman.

- Candyman!

- [girl shouting] No, no.

- I'm a really hard person to scare

and "Candyman" was like

one of the first things in a while that got me.

- That really got to you?

- Yeah, I mean, that shot with the open mouth

inside the vacated apartment.

- I guess we kinda knew that we had something

but we didn't know what.

We had Tony Richmond, was our DP,

who did "The Man Who Fell to Earth",

we had Philip Glass

whose incredible score kicked off the film,

we had the beautiful city of Chicago as our backdrop,

and we had a interracial conflict.

TANANARIVE DUE: Tony Todd is such a powerful actor

and brings such gravitas to that role.

- Be my victim.

- Candyman is Tony Todd,

and Tony Todd is Candyman, for a lot of us.

- Out of the blue, I get a call from my manager

at the time, saying there's a script on their table,

it's called "Candyman" and I kinda...

in my cockiness, I hung up the phone because I said,

"What are we talking about?

Is this Sami Davis, Jr.'s story we doin'?

I'm way too tall."

- Do I know you?

- No, but you doubted me.

- Tony's got a great screen presence.

- He does. - Candyman" was, you know,

it was obviously unique

because that was the first black supernatural killer.

I loved Clive Barker, and Candyman being

sort of like the patron saint of urban legends.

You know, I thought that was just such a beautiful invention,

such a beautiful monster.

- Candyman is not a bogeyman.

He was an artist who was happily doing his thing.

He happened to fall in love with a woman that wasn't his race

and he was lynched because of it,

and not only that, they cut off his art hand.

TANANARIVE DUE: Bernard Rose directed "Candyman"

based on a short story set in the UK by Clive Barker.

They changed the original story

from sort of a class conversation

to one that is rooted in American racial history.

- It dealt with the social things.

You have this white woman, you got this black guy,

you got this backstory about this black guy

and this white woman and kind of, you know,

how he is attacked because of this relationship.

- It was a very terrifying film,

a film that I loved but a film that, you know,

is kind of problematic.

CANDYMAN: We shall die together in front of their very eyes.

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: Here again, we have a movie

that echoes what happened in "King Kong" in the '30s.

There is this black bogeyman

and he's in pursuit of this blonde white woman.

- He becomes obsessed,

recirculating the same tropes.

- I don't think that character

would go after poor black people.

- Right. - This is where you can tell

that "Candyman" came from the mind of a white person.

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: He chooses to haunt,

to disrupt the lives of blacks in Chicago

in the Cabrini-Green Projects.

When really, right across the tracks,

are essentially the representatives,

the sort of, the folks who would have been responsible,

their ancestors, for his lynching.

- He is a personification of racism in the United States,

like what it looks like and what it can conjure,

like all that negative energy,

like what does it look like, and what does it do?

- Keep away from me!

TONY TODD: For me, it's a character.

I don't live and breathe and die by it.

I'm happy that I was able to do him

and hopefully I did him right.

- It was very empowering to me

to feel like we could... like black people can do anything.

We're not in this box.

We can be the Freddie of a movie.

- [screams] No!

- I remember Vondie Curtis-Hall

who was married to Kasi Lemmons who was in the film.

In the original screening, he shook his head, he says,

"Man, you realize," and I said, "What?"

"You gonna be Candyman forever."

ANNOUNCER: Candyman, Day of the Dead.

- Unfortunately, I think the sequels

kind of get overlooked.

It gives Candyman a sympathetic backstory.

He is the spirit that's conjured from the history of racism

and white supremacy in the United States.

- [screaming]

- I feel like the sequel

helps you understand the original

a little bit better maybe.

TANANARIVE DUE: The '90s were a renaissance

not just in film, I want to point out,

but also in literature.

This is the era that Spike Lee helped give birth to.

Spike Lee was like the Terry McMillan in film

as what Terry McMillan was doing in publishing.

You know, black people are going to see movies.

MARK H. HARRIS: There was a push for black filmmaking

started by like Spike Like and John Singleton

and people like that,

and I think it was kind of a response to the '80s

where black people were kind of marginalized.

- In the early 1990s,

you kind of saw like a lot of black filmmakers

kind of come into the fold and not just make comedies

and dramatic films but also horror films,

and I think what they were doing

with the horror films at the time,

they were making movies that were kind of

socially conscious and more directly in tune

with what was going on in the outside world.

- What you saw today, young brother,

were victims of economics,

environment Reganomics.

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: Joel as the main character,

this up-and-coming and soon to be minister.

He goes and visits his cousin that lives in New York City.

It really centers around Joel and his crisis of faith.

"Do I stick with kind of like my Bible

and Christian fundamentalism,

or do I kind of stray a little and have a little fun?"

- No, I wouldn't. Fornication is a sin.

- It gets even more extreme than that

because his, literally,

his soul is at stake with a demon who is like

looking to immediately kind of eradicate him.

- [laughs]

- It is super biblical, now that I think about it,

'cause she's basically the parallel of the devil.

- [screams] No!

- "Def by Temptation"

is all about that battle between good and evil.

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: So, this is also a morality tale.

These are the lessons that mirror so closely

to what Michaeux and Spencer Williams

were offering up in earlier decades.

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: I love that connection

that "Def by Temptation"

has with those older films from the 1940s.

It was unique for the time because you weren't seeing

a lot of black horror films made in 1990, if any.

That's what makes it a real landmark.

[♪]

I feel like "Tales from the Hood"

did more to kind of cement black horror for the '90s.

- Welcome to hell!

- "Tales from the Hood" was groundbreaking.

- Oh, the shit! [laughs]

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: "Tales from the Hood"

was this anthology horror film.

There's four short stories with one wraparound story.

- My dad used to drag me to march after march

if it had black, colored, or Negro in the title,

he was a member.

So, when I, you know, started to look at horror

as something to do myself, I'm like,

Well, I gotta have something in there to...

we gotta do, we gotta mix it up.

Not just have horror for horror's sake.

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: It deals with spousal abuse

and then child abuse in the home.

It deals with gang violence.

It deals with racist politicians.

- Can't we all just get along?

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: It deals with police brutality.

So, all of these things kind of intertwine

and create this kind of supernatural tale

about revenge and retribution.

- [screaming]

MARK H. HARRIS: It deals with a lot of different things.

The anthology format is actually really good in terms of

you can address a lot of different issues

with short stories.

- You have a racist politician.

ANNOUNCER: An original American.

Isn't it about time?

- That's great. I'd even vote for me!

- Is it really that farfetched

that someone would have that as a campaign slogan today?

- I always tell my kids,

I'm like, you know, people in grave...

the dead people and the spirits are not gonna mess with you.

It's livin'...

- It's living people you gotta worry about, yeah.

- Yes, that's what we gotta worry about.

[scary music]

That's how we kinda twisted when we started to do "Tales",

we gotta turn the tables and make the horror redemptive.

- [screaming] No!

- This movie is kind of like

helping us see justice happening when we're not seeing it happen

outside of a movie screen or a movie theatre.

There's cops being acquitted and there's LA riots

and it just seems like things are so hopeless

but then you kind of like exercise retribution

in a horror film for, you know, for justice,

for racial justice, and I think that's super dope.

- You tackled, you know, subjects that are horrific.

- Right. Right.

- We're running around

looking for ghosts and vampires

when the vampire is, you're married to him.

- You're married to him. Exactly.

- You know, he's sucking you dry,

you know, and beating you,

and also hurting and destroying your child.

That, and I was so young, I learned a lot on that set.

- [groans]

[screams]

- I always liked David Alan Grier as a comedian--

- Yeah.

- --but realizing what he could do as an actor.

That really, that really...

and then I found out that he was Shakespearian...

- Shakespearian trained. - Shakespearian trained.

- Yeah, I, you know, I used to do standup,

so I kinda knew David from the comedic thing

but I also knew that he had this Shakespearian background,

and when I was thinking of who to play that part,

I purposefully wanted someone

that everyone looked at as a nice guy.

There was an interesting thing that happened

when we screened that episode.

- I'm gonna teach you and that boy some respect.

RUSTY CUNDIEFF: When David Allen Grier

was first hitting Paula, these kids were laughing.

- Wow. - And you know what happens,

particularly I think as a black teenager,

as someone that goes through the world,

you're always on the lookout

for how something is gonna mess with you.

You're not trying to show your vulnerability.

- Right.

- And the easiest way to do that is to

- Laugh it off. Yeah. - laugh at something.

And laugh at something.

- [groaning]

- As the beating went on,

it got quieter and quieter and quieter

until it felt like they were about to cry.

- When I rewatch this film,

it really stands head and shoulders above

a lot of black horror up to that point

because in those four segments, what Rusty Cundieff is doing

is using that metaphor to tell stories

that were about real-life problems

facing the black communities.

- It kind of became more kind of

a genre classic or something that, you know,

the black community kind of like talked about

and it was kind of a word of mouth thing

but maybe it is because of "Get Out" that it got

this kind of resurgence and then got a sequel.

- This shit ain't over yet, bitch!

- "Tales from the Hood 2",

you know, Darren and I have been trying

to get this thing made forever.

- I think it's gonna be quite amazing!

RUSTY CUNDIEFF: We're back to telling [laughs]

...back to telling stories

that hopefully deal with some issues that people have.

This one I think is,

there's some stuff that's a little headier.

It's a different kind of "Tales" story,

touches people in a different way,

though it is scary.

- [screaming]

[♪]

- You start to see more women on screen in the 1990s.

TANANARIVE DUE: "Eve's Bayou", Kasi Lemmons,

which is one of my favorite.

Some people don't consider it horror

but I do because it's just,

really, it's one of those great interchanges of human horror

and hints of the supernatural.

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: During the time,

it was still super rare to see black women be directors,

so Kasi Lemmons really pushing to direct

was really groundbreaking and really important.

TANANARIVE DUE: It has that beautiful cinematography.

The whole thing is like a poem, really,

it's just so beautiful.

The script by Kasi Lemmons is just fantastic.

I've taught it in my black horror class at UCLA

and when I teach it,

I like to tweet out lines from the script.

It's just so beautifully written.

- That opening scene and the first thing you hear...

EVE BATISTE: The summer I killed my father,

I was ten years old.

RUSTY CUNDIEFF: ...it's just brilliant,

and it was a different kind of scary movie.

- Bad girl.

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: It's a movie about what memory means

in the eyes of a black young girl

and how she tries to help keep her family together

and also kind of heal any wounds that are kind of lingering

within, her father's, you know, infidelity,

and also maybe that kind of like touchy subject of,

"Is he being inappropriate with one of his daughters?"

- That Debbi Morgan character,

you feel so... so much strength from her.

But you feel so much pain because of what she's lost.

- Sometimes I feel like I've lost so much,

I have to find new things to lose.

TANANARIVE DUE: Magic steps in to sort of take the place

of those harder questions

about what's really happening in that house.

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: I think what Kasi Lemmons does

and what she kind of inspired

for a lot of the black women horror filmmakers that I talk to

is we do have a story to tell and don't be afraid

to kind of like, you know, "Oh, because a studio exec

or higher ups may not like seeing an all-black cast

or a film centered around black women,

then I can't do this."

And I think what Kasi Lemmons' film did,

she says, "No, we can do this,"

and to not be afraid of any pushback,

to keep pushing for your story, your voice,

which she did for a generation is tell them

that their voice really does matter.

- Horrible, isn't it?

- There's Billy and there's Jada.

- Billy and Jada.

- Do we have a deal?

ERNEST DICKERSON: She did surprise me, though.

She called me up, "Ernest, I colored my hair."

"What?"

"I hope it doesn't mess you up too much.

I made it kind of like platinum."

I said, "Oh, Jada, Jada."

- [screams]

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: In 1995,

something really groundbreaking happens

because we kind of see this like first like contemporary

black final girl, and it's Jada Pinkette.

The final girl is this term coined by Carol Clover.

She wrote this book called "Men, Women, and Chainsaws,

Gender in The Modern Horror Film"

and the final girl is basically the last girl standing

and the common theme was that they were all white.

- I know that the producers wanted

another actress, a white actress, for that role

but I had just seen Jada in "Menace to Society"...

And I just said, "Oh, she's my Jeryline,"

so I had to campaign hard to get her in there.

I said, you know, it's the perfect setup

because everybody's gonna think, "Oh, she's gonna die."

- Right.

- She's dead already, you know? We know that.

And she winds up being the sister

that winds up saving the world.

- [screams]

- That was just like, "Oh, crap."

You wouldn't have seen that in '80s.

Fearless women on screen have been on the rise

ever since Kira in "The Invitation",

Aaliyah in "Queen of the Damned",

Sennia Nanua in "The Girl with All the Gifts".

They're black women and they're survivors.

Seeing Saana Lathan side by side with the predator

and just killing aliens was just like,

"Wait a minute, so her and this predator

are gonna start like..." [laughs]

That was so cool

because I think she was like the last person alive

and like he made her kind of a tribeswoman,

like she was a part of their crew now.

Right around the turn of the 21st century,

hip hop-inspired horror films started to come out.

- Then it's just add Z.

So "Wolvez" with a Z,

"Vampz" with a Z, "Bloodz VS Wolvez",

so there's just Zs exploding all over the place

but the Zs are there to indicate

that it's kind of a hip-hop kind of thing.

You have rappers just showing up in horror movies.

LL Cool J is in "Halloween H20".

- Yeah?

SHIRL JONES: What's going on, baby?

- I don't know.

- You had "Anaconda", you know, Ice Cube.

- Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff

and it's a send-up to the film "Nightmare on Elm Street"

and the "Geto Boys" who are from Houston

who have really significant horror themes.

It's kind of a natural pairing.

They're fans, they're rapping about it,

and eventually, they end up on set.

[♪]

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: One highlight from the early 2000s was "Bones"

which was this kind of this blacksploitation throwback.

It comments on what drugs did

to the black community specifically.

We had Snoop Dogg as this title character.

ERNEST DICKERSON: He's involved in gambling

and stuff like that, but he ain't somebody

who always tried to give back to his community.

But for me, one of the most interesting things

about doing "Bones" was the love story.

- [gasps]

- But just the idea, you know, of reviving a love

that had been lost and it's one of the things

that the studio really kind of downplayed.

- Really? - Yeah, when they...yeah.

Yeah, I think they wanted kind of like a cheap horror film,

you know, and I think we gave it more than they anticipated.

But I gotta tell you this,

you haven't lived until you've seen Snoop blush.

[laughs]

'Cause Snoop, Snoop,

first day, Snoop had to kiss Pam Grier.

- For real?

ERNEST DICKERSON: And he kissed her and they were into it,

they were into it, they were into it,

I said, "Cut," and Snoop just...

[laughs] I said, "You blushing, man?"

He said, "Hey, man, I grew up dreaming about this woman.

Now I get to kiss her?"

- [laughs] Yeah, that's a good day.

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: But then, things started to change

and more black characters are starting to be centralized

or even if they were secondary characters,

they were much more prominent,

more seen, not just as window dressing,

but very integral to the story.

ERNEST DICKERSON: "Attack the Block",

I loved this film, man. This was the kind of movie

I would have loved to have seen as a kid.

- Now that you mention,

I wanna make sure I show it to my kids.

- But also growing up in a housing project

and seeing a film that says, "Yeah, we can be heroes, too."

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: It's a story about

working class youth in London

and literally, there's an alien invasion

that comes crashing down on your neighborhood.

Moses, played by John Boyega,

basically saves his neighborhood.

Every time I see this movie at the end, it gives me chills.

Moses is in a cop car with his friend Pest

and all he hears outside is his name being chanted

over again. "Moses, Moses!"

CROWD: Moses! Moses!

- His friend looks at him,

he's like, "Hey, that's for you."

PEST: That's for you, man.

ASHLEE BLACKWELL: This is why John Boyega

is in "Star Wars", right?

That's why he's this big star because he looks up

and he has this smile on his face,

this innocent, pure, child-like smile.

He gets to feel like he matters in his neighborhood.

A lot of young black kids don't feel like they matter.

I think that's really the core of this film.

He gets to be the hero.

- I think something really important

happens in the 2000s.

When you have these more self-reflexive horror films

that are looking back and saying,

"That was the stereotype," or, "That was the cliché,"

or, "That's the trope we are always relying on."

So, in exposing those kinds of well-worn,

kind of well-trodden knowns about horror,

horror also had to catch up and mature

if it was going to continue to thrive.

EDDIE PARKS: It's all over.

MELANIE: It's not over. It's just not yours anymore.

ERNEST DICKERSON: Now you gotta see this film,

"The Girl with All the Gifts".

- I mean, I watched this 'cause you recommend it.

- Really well-done British horror film

with this young black girl as the main character.

It's after a disease that's hit humanity

where it's turned into everybody into like these feral animals.

- [screams]

- It's a zombie movie.

Sort of. It's terrifying.

It's an apocalyptic future where we're no longer us

but again it's probably white people's fear, right?

That they're losing dominion, you know,

that the manifest destiny thing isn't quite working

like it used to.

TANANARIVE DUE: That character was not written as black.

That happened during the casting process.

It's a very similar process as to what happened

in "Night of the Living Dead".

She just killed the audition, so she got the part,

and it creates such a difference in the film

to have this black child.

- I read the book before I saw the movie,

so when I saw the movie

and they had cast a little black girl,

I was like, "Oh, my God, this is amazing!"

- We're alive?

- Yes.

- Then why should it be us who die for you?

TANANARIVE DUE: I talked to Mike Carey,

the writer/screenwriter.

This is a sharper social commentary

even maybe than that he had intended.

You see a story about a character, a black girl

who faces some insurmountable odds

where it seems impossible but you come up with plans

and you execute your plans.

This is the stuff that helps us get through life.

RACHEL TRUE: That's the kind of opportunity

that I would have killed for in the '90s,

reading script after script after script

and wanting to read for the lead girl

but going, "Oh, no, okay, I'm the friend,

so I'm gonna say, 'Are you okay?

Oh, are you okay?

Are you okay?'"

- Are you okay?

- Yeah.

- I mean, six million different ways to Sunday,

I have to figure out a million different line readings

for the same line because whatever thing is going on,

it's not about the black people we're going through,

it's, "Are you, white person in peril, okay?"

So when I saw that movie,

I was like, "Okay, things are shifting."

TANANARIVE DUE: We've shifted from being the focal point

of the fear, other, to being the heroes, right?

To being the icons.

To being the one that you in the audience

are looking up to.

That's been very exciting to watch unfold.

- If you have to ride in the back of the bus

for 90% of history, it takes a little bit to get in front.

- Black is in fashion.

MARK H. HARRIS: "Get Out" I think,

is kind of like a perfect movie of its time.

It came out like the transition between the Obama administration

and the Trump administration.

- Yeah.

- So, I mean,

I remember when Obama was elected.

People were actually having debates about whether

racism is dead now and that sort of thing.

Is this a post-racial world and all that?

As Trump's campaign came along,

I think the public came to be aware like,

"Uh-oh, you know, racism still does exist."

- A horrific scene in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The hate boiling over white supremacists

and countered protestors fighting with fists and clubs,

confederate flags on full display.

DONALD TRUMP: I think there's blame on both sides

and I have no doubt about it.

- You will not replace us.

White lives matter!

LORETTA DEVINE: It sort of like shows you

where the culture is right now

as far as black men are concerned.

- Yes.

- And a lot of the fears that we go through

being a part of the black race.

JORDAN PEELE: When I think about the fears that we deal with,

I think that anything that we suppress as people,

anything that we push down and hold deep is gonna explode.

It's gonna come out in a nasty way

if it's held on to long enough.

So, I think we need these valves for our fears.

- Sink into the floor.

- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

- Sink.

- Floored me right to the...

I had no idea what to expect.

PAULA JAI PARKER: Is this something that we, as a people,

always talk about. - Exactly.

- Like, you know, it's like you told our secret.

- [laughs] - That we do have a fear

that these people [laughs] are trying to steal our souls.

TINA MABRY: It's an auction, you know.

It's an auction block

and she's disguised in a different way.

- [applause]

- What the maid to me represented in "Get Out"

is just what maids has been doing through history.

They've been trying to tell you.

- Oh, no. No. No.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

- They've been sitting at the table

with the white people and saying look,

"We ain't gonna do this. Get the hell out of here."

KELLY JO MINTER: I think one of my favorite parts

is when the girl is smiling and crying at the same time.

- My favorite part is when he was beatin' their ass!

- [grunts]

RACHEL TRUE: I was like, "Oh, you didn't get

that he was like picking cotton out of the chair?"

Or, "You didn't get, like he killed him with a buck.

Did you not know that black men were called bucks

during slavery?"

- I felt like I wanna make the movie

as answering every disappointed black person

that goes to a theater and watches, you know,

white protagonists make dumb decisions.

- No, no, no, no, no.

No, no, no, don't do that!

- And that sense of marginalization

that sense of, "Can we just...?

If there was a brother in here, that would never happen.

That would never happen.

If there was a sister, would never let this...

she would be out of the house."

Spoiler alert,

but there's no good white people in this movie. [laughs]

That white savior trope always pops up.

There's always one good white person.

I saw this as obviously this opportunity

to use that to my favor.

The audience is expecting, though, you have to have

one good white person in the film, right?

- You know I can't give you the keys, right, babe?

- I couldn't believe what I was watching.

- I made "Get Out" for everybody in the audience,

you know, I didn't want anybody to see the film and not get it,

but I really made it for black audiences,

that meaning, if black audience didn't get it,

and didn't get like it, that's a fail, you know.

- Not surprisingly but kind of surprisingly,

the white guy next to me and all the audience members

who were white were cheering for Chris.

That empathy that we have so often

had to extend to characters who didn't look like us,

white audience members were extending their empathy to him.

JORDAN PEELE: The ending of "Get Out"

was very inspired by "Night of the Living Dead",

although I didn't necessarily know it when it happened.

You know, it was common knowledge

that my intention was to have Chris go to jail

and that the cops would come out and take him away.

- Get up here!

[soft piano music]

- Now most realistic ending is he's shot on the road.

- [gunshot]

- No one wants to watch that.

That's headlines, that's hashtags.

Prison would have been a little bit more of a mercy

but even so, I have seen enough black men

in prison orange.

I could go my whole life without seeing another film

or television program about black men in prison.

JORDAN PEELE: By the time I showed the film to an audience,

the culture [inaudible] were at change, okay,

so Black Lives Matter had become a presence

and there was now attention to racial violence

in a way that there hadn't been when I first wrote it.

- The lights of the car said it was the cops coming

and it was a whole another rash of fear.

It was almost like the Klan is coming.

Because it was like,

"Oh, my God, if it's the cops, he doesn't have a chance."

- Black people also were expressing this like,

"Yo, we need a hero. We need a release.

We need a cheer," and so I listened to that.

ROBIN R. MEANS COLEMAN: To have Rod show up and save him,

that lets you know that there will be no Chris

being speared by meathooks, being burned on a pyre.

There will be no lynching today.

That's the power of "Get Out".

- The fact that this movie had never been made,

not only "Get Out" itself, the fact that there's, you know,

a small handful of films led by black people,

to me, was the horror itself.

It's no mistake that the sunken place

feels and looks like a darkened theatre, right?

We're allowed to buy a ticket and yell at the screen

but we're never going to get that representation.

- What's going on, man?

I can't see myself.

- I'm afraid that's one of the misfortunes of the cursed.

- This really ain't hip!

I mean, a man has got to see his face!

RICHARD LAWSON: Probably of any line in that film,

that line reverberates.

"A man has got to be able to see himself,"

is really a prophetic line

'cause it represents black people

and black people's history and legacy and journey

and the ability to see yourself today.

- It's finally dawning on the powers that be

that horror is a valid genre, right?

It's not just some little odd thing over there

that low budget people make, and make a little money on,

and we make fun of.

MIGUEL A. NUÑEZ: Because of "Get Out"

I think black is the new green.

I think any little remaining shades of,

"Uh, if he's black, do you think it'll work?

You know, if it's a black cast, you think it'll work?

If it's a black director, you think it'll work?"

All those little bitty remaining barriers

have been completely removed.

There's some people right now, and I know this to be a fact,

that are changing some of their white scripts

to make them black now.

- There's less and less of this,

"Oh, well, black people don't like,

watch, or make horror films."

I think that's a conversation that's becoming obsolete.

A part of the work that I do that I love doing is

I get to talk to these new and up-and-coming filmmakers

who are making these really fun and funny

but also scary and introspective films.

- Just so many up-and-coming talents out there

that's, you know, that's pretty exciting

and gives me hope for the future that we're...

- We'll help other and...

- Yeah! - ...and change the game.

- We just need to all get in the door, you know.

There's so many stories and so many genres

that we belong to.

- I just have so many people like say,

"I got a horror film. I got a horror film.

I got a horror film,"

and this is way before "Get Out".

And now, maybe they'll get a chance

to actually get that out to the public.

- These are stories

by black creators for black viewers.

If whites want to enjoy it,fine,

but it's not about them, right? It's about us.

KEN FOREE: I think the entire film industry

are ready for us to open up the doors.

MARK H. HARRIS: Just seeing black heroes and leads on screen

like the next generation won't think,

"Oh, that's weird."

They're gonna think,

"That's perfectly normal to have the black lead,

the black person save the day."

- If we can use what we've experienced,

we can tell stories that people have never seen before,

so that's what I'm excited to see coming.

- There's a draw and a connection there

in the minority experience for these horror films.

The industry's realized, "Oh, yeah,

white people will see movies about non-white people."

They will. They'll see. You just have to make 'em.

- Mic. - Thank you.

- Are we rolling?

Why didn't somebody tell us we were rolling?

No one said anything!

We just sitting here talking... I didn't know we were rolling.

No one said Action.

- That always got me up like

I don't know about the fashion of the time,

but I'm like, you know,

these murders going around, people with bites in their neck,

and no one's suspecting the guy with the cape. [laughs]

- Nobody! - They did the mash...

BOTH: They did the monster mash!

- Horra? Horror?

It's like rhymes with torah, right?

Horra? Torah?

I cannot horror. I love talking horra.

Oh, shit. I love talking horror.

BOTH: They play the monster mash!

[laughter]

- Brown's in Town! [grunts]

- "Return of the Living Dead" was one of my favorite films.

I didn't know anything and the entire film,

I was supposed to be walking around with a naked girl.

- Right. - So, if you watch it,

go back to the movie, 'cause when the scenes were on her,

most people lookin' at her but next time, when you watch it,

look at me and I'm gonna be like this.

[Kelly Jo Minter laughs]

- Every scene I was like that!

- So, any of you filmmakers,

if you wanna include a couple of old timers,

hey, you know, my number still works. Okay?

- Our numbers still work. - You know what I mean?

- Are we finished? 'Cause I wanna watch this whole movie.