Black History Month: Top Five Black Horror Films
My favourite scary movies featuring Black leads or directors.
NOTE: Contains spoilers for Night of the Living Dead.
In celebration of Black History Month, here are five great horror films featuring Black lead actors, and in some cases Black directors. Whilst drawing up this list, I was surprised to find I glided over a lot of decades and settled mostly on recent films. Blaxploitation cult items like Blacula, or underrated gems such as The People Under the Stairs, Def by Temptation, or Candyman all fell by the wayside, despite their undoubted value in horror history. Still, when it comes to Black people in horror films, there really is only one place to start.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
George A Romero’s granddaddy of all zombie movies remains a bone-chilling horror masterpiece that belongs in any list of the greatest horror films of all time. Romero cast Black actor Duane Jones in the lead role of Ben; a radical choice for a time where Black leads were rare.
The independent nature of the production meant many conventions were broken, many envelopes were pushed, and many audiences simply weren’t ready for the grisly terrors Romero had up his sleeve. The result was a groundbreaking classic. Amid…
