'The Blackening' Cast Members on How Film Features 'Hues of Blackness' (Exclusive)

By Brian Jones

When it comes to horror movies, fans notice that Black characters tend to be the first to die — and it's pretty uncommon to see a horror film where the majority of the cast is Black. But all that changes with the new movie The Blackening, which provides as much comedy as scary moments. PopCulture.com spoke exclusively to cast members Antoinette Robertson, Melvin Gregg and Dewayne Perkins, and they revealed what made this film such an attractive project. 

"You read something like the script that was handed to me, and I was like, 'Okay, well the notion that I would never do horror was something that was very firm in my mind,'" Robertson exclusively told PopCulture. "And I was like, this changed everything. I was like, I see how well-written this is. I can picture myself in this friend group as this character. I see these multidimensional characters. They have layers. I understand the dynamics between them. I see different hues of blackness. I see different people from different walks of life... not necessarily showing the world, but just being themselves authentically so that the world can see we're not a monolith. I was like 110%. I was like, 'I feel like I would regret it if I didn't take part in this brilliance.'"

The Blackening
(Photo:

Antoinette Robertson as Lisa in The Blackening. Photo Credit: Glen Wilson

- Glen Wilson/Lionsgate)

The Blackening centers around a group of Black friends who get together for a cabin getaway for a reunion to celebrate Juneteenth. But once they get there, they find themselves trapped with a killer. The only way to survive is to play his game and win — or so they think. 

Perkins plays Dewayne in the film and also wrote the script. "As a creative, as an actor, I really struggled to find parts that felt worthy to play," Perkins explained. "The roles that I was asked to audition for always felt like a caricature. It never felt like people with my identity were afforded the privilege to exist fully. So having an opportunity to really write a character that I want as a person of my identity, the idea of representation matters. It really does. And I really wanted to write something that spoke to me that was a film that me and my peers could watch and feel seen. And also no one knows me better than me."

Greg plays King who seems to be a thug-type character, but there's a lot more to him than meets the eye. "Outside of just being an artist who wants to creatively challenge myself... Outside of that, I really lean into playing these thug roles," Gregg stated. "I enjoy in a sense, just because I grew up around these people all the time. And they're a lot more than what meets the eye and a lot more than how they're illustrated on screen. They're people. They do things for a reason. A lot of times they're scared, they're projecting that image. And me being able to play these people, I can shape the characters in that way to make them more human. And in this script, a lot of the work was already done. He had a storyline that explained that he's not who they thought he was. But in dire circumstances, some of those things may come to help him save the day."

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Robertson plays Lisa who is one of the smarter characters in the group but also the one who is likely the most scared. It was easy for Robertson to be scared since she's not a fan of horror films. "The arc was already there, but then Tim [Story] and I kind of spoke about it, I was like, God, I feel like playing this straight and a lot of these moments make more sense," Robertson said. "So we took out a lot of the jokes that were in certain instances where it's the seriousness of the situation. I feel like if you don't have the gravity of the situation and the groundedness of the circumstance, then the comedy can't fly the way that it's intended to fly. But as someone who legitimately is terrified of everything, I have to say, there's a lot of me that's like, okay, this is going to work in my favor. Because if I don't really feel scared, you're not going to feel scared. I don't manufacture emotion. I create the world. The world was already created for me."

The Blackening, which is out in theatres now, also stars Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, X Mayo, Sinqua Wallas, Jay Pharoah and Yvonne Orji. The film is directed by Story who also directed Ride Along, Think Like a Man, Think Like a Man Too, Barbershop, Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Praise This. 

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