Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes. This is the Daily
Speaker 2: Show podcast that goes a little deeper into segments and
Speaker 2: topics that originally aired on the show. Basically, this is
Speaker 2: what this podcast is, right all right. You ever get
Speaker 2: like an entree and then they throw in a free dessert.
Speaker 2: You're not like at Applebee's they'd be like, congratulations on
Speaker 2: finishing your steak, Peter Pocket chicken nugget potato skins. You
Speaker 2: now get a free slice of chocolate cake that's been
Speaker 2: frozen in the freezer for three weeks. That's what this
Speaker 2: podcast is.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 2: The Daily Show is your half rack of ribs, and
Speaker 2: then this podcast is that free ice cream Sunday you get.
Speaker 2: I got to just stop talking about food. Listen. Today's
Speaker 2: topic is one that we discussed on the Daily Show.
Speaker 2: I actually discussed it. It was about you know, black
Speaker 2: culture and scary movies and monumental filmmaking. We wrapped it
Speaker 2: all up into one segment and I did that on
Speaker 2: CP time. So yes, today we are talking about black horror.
Speaker 1: Roll the clip.
Speaker 2: When you think of black horror, you think of hits
Speaker 2: like get Out or this year's remake of candy Man,
Speaker 2: which reminds me speaking speaking of that candy Man, candy Man,
Speaker 2: candy Man, candy Man, candy Man.
Speaker 4: I knew he wouldn't show up cheap bastard o me
Speaker 4: fifty dollars, But we wouldn't have Jordan Peel if it
Speaker 4: weren't for the pioneering black horror films that today are
Speaker 4: mostly forgotten movies like Son of van Gagi, which in
Speaker 4: nineteen forty became the first horror film to feature an
Speaker 4: all black cast, and unlike a Medea Halloween, they were
Speaker 4: all played by different people. Son of Bengagi book stereotypes
Speaker 4: by showing a black middle class family battling a monster
Speaker 4: in their paving the way for the Weinsdold family to
Speaker 4: do the same thing against Steve Rkle, who will suspend us.
Speaker 4: So a little later, we're gonna be joined by some wonderful,
Speaker 4: wonderful panelists who are extremely qualified to talk about the
Speaker 4: subject at large. But first I want to bring in
Speaker 4: my friend and Daily Show writer Ashton Wollmack, who helped
Speaker 4: put the segment together on air. Ashton, how are you doing?
Speaker 4: Do you have omicron?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: I am doing fine. I said that backwards I'm doing great. No,
Speaker 6: I don't have homicron, I am COVID free and yeah,
Speaker 6: no enjoying myself you been.
Speaker 2: I'm still waiting on a PCR result from Martin Luther
Speaker 2: King weekend. Anyway, let's begin our conversation, Ashton. What's your
Speaker 2: relationship with horror movies in general? Let's just start that,
Speaker 2: because I can't say your relationship with black horror, because
Speaker 2: that wasn't what was pushed on us when we when
Speaker 2: we were young, black horror existed, split of black people
Speaker 2: horror movies. But there wasn't no Jordan Peel back in
Speaker 2: ninety two. Well, I'm older, back in eighty two.
Speaker 5: He existed in ninety two though, he was.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, yeah, of course, of course. So what's your
Speaker 2: relationship with horror? You're a fan of the genre in general.
Speaker 6: I'm not a horror movie he's you know, they're not.
Speaker 6: I'm not a huge fan. But you said, like, I
Speaker 6: did get introduced to horror movies through basically black horror movies,
Speaker 6: through Tales from the Hood through Candy Man. What feels like.
Speaker 6: I mean, I didn't know they were black horror movies
Speaker 6: at the time. That's just what my family was watching.
Speaker 6: So we was watching. I know people say tales from
Speaker 6: the Crypt ain't black, but something about something about him
Speaker 6: felt black. Yeah, something about the crypt keeper.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know if this will make sense or not.
Speaker 2: I enjoy I enjoy thrillers, but horror is more difficult
Speaker 2: for me, especially if it's the I call it the
Speaker 2: mind fuck horror, where you can't see the thing that's
Speaker 2: killing everybody for two acts and they don't reveal it
Speaker 2: until the magical third part of the movie. So, as
Speaker 2: a child, I had night terrors, which, if you're not
Speaker 2: familiar with that Daily Show audience, night terrors are when
Speaker 2: your brain is awake but your body's still sleep and
Speaker 2: and it's one of the most hallucinated field experiences you'll
Speaker 2: ever go on without narcotics. So I went to see Grimlins,
Speaker 2: the og Grimlins eighty four, eighty five maybe, and my
Speaker 2: aunt I love my aunt Jpeble For whatever reason, Bro,
Speaker 2: she fucking she bought me the stripe the Green Grimlin.
Speaker 2: Why would you buy me the villain grimblin?
Speaker 5: Can she want you as a kid? That's what she has?
Speaker 2: By the gizmo, by the good guy. But she bought
Speaker 2: me a stuffed animal stripe, and so I would have
Speaker 2: these bouts with sleep paralysis where I would wake up
Speaker 2: and I would just see shadows on the wall. After
Speaker 2: she bought me that stripe stuffed animal, I know what
Speaker 2: I saw. I was there when I saw it. It
Speaker 2: walked down off the bookshelf and pointed at me like
Speaker 2: on some If you ever tell anybody I did this
Speaker 2: shit to your mother, I'll kill you. And then it
Speaker 2: crawled back up on the bookshelf and never moved again.
Speaker 2: Next morning, A trash in the trash. Also, I believe
Speaker 2: in ghosts, so for me, like in real life and
Speaker 2: some real life ship do.
Speaker 5: You sleep all the lights? Now?
Speaker 2: I'm with the hug. But so when I watch movies
Speaker 2: about the supernatural, and like The Exorcist, I've never finished
Speaker 2: because it was too scary, which I guess is a
Speaker 2: compliment to the film. You know, some of the Stephen
Speaker 2: King stuff I could rock with. You know, Tales from
Speaker 2: the Hood I could rock with. Like I appreciated that,
Speaker 2: but I'm not like I know people who only see horror, Yeah,
Speaker 2: who only watch horror, And I appreciate the genre, but
Speaker 2: it's it's a very delicate balance.
Speaker 5: If you only watch horror.
Speaker 6: You need to talk to a specialist because that is
Speaker 6: not a healthy diet of entertainment.
Speaker 5: You can't only watch. That's saying something.
Speaker 6: That's like when you put you ask a little kid
Speaker 6: to draw and they just draw.
Speaker 5: Like this is mommy getting stabbed by day, Like, oh,
Speaker 5: this kid needs to be talked to.
Speaker 2: So when we did this thing for CP time, and
Speaker 2: I'll tell you the impetus for where I wanted to
Speaker 2: go with with this piece, and we can talk more
Speaker 2: about the idea, the ideation of it and everything. But
Speaker 2: I don't know how I got down this rabbit hole.
Speaker 2: But oh, Halloween comes out and Halloween h two O,
Speaker 2: if I'm not mistaken, the one with the one with
Speaker 2: Loojllo cooj gets shot, he lives and I and just
Speaker 2: as a joke, I go, wow, that's funny. Ello coool
Speaker 2: J didn't die, he's a brother. Didn't die. I wonder
Speaker 2: if other people haven't done because Elo ever died. And
Speaker 2: then I went through ll cool J's entire IMDb and
Speaker 2: he's never died on camera. The only one you can
Speaker 2: maybe argue was Rollerball, but they never showed the body.
Speaker 2: So then I remembered in screen two that Omar Epps
Speaker 2: died before the opening credits Omars and Jada Pinkett Smith.
Speaker 2: So I was like, that's got to be the quickest
Speaker 2: depth on camera. That's funny. And then I pitched and
Speaker 2: so you know, at the Daily Show you can just pitch,
Speaker 2: hey ll cool J's never died, Omar Epps died really
Speaker 2: really fast. Do what you will with that, and you
Speaker 2: all came back with all of this, So like, just
Speaker 2: just walk us through the creative like what research did
Speaker 2: you all have to you know, start going through to
Speaker 2: kind of connect all of this.
Speaker 5: Oh, it was the research was the research part was
Speaker 5: really fun.
Speaker 2: It was like what movies did you choose to feature?
Speaker 5: That's the problem.
Speaker 6: We have so many movies, like you don't even realize
Speaker 6: like what qualifies as black horror movies is it's almost
Speaker 6: subjective in the sense of like like in the early
Speaker 6: times when there was like a movie called Son of
Speaker 6: inn Gagi. It was the first quote unquote black horror
Speaker 6: movie because it was also the first black, all black production,
Speaker 6: black director, black staff. So it just had no choice
Speaker 6: but to be the first black like black horror movie.
Speaker 6: And like it we had to choose that one because
Speaker 6: that was like The Pioneer. But like the process was
Speaker 6: very hard because there was so many like just move
Speaker 6: classic movies that I just you forget their horror movies
Speaker 6: because they're black movies. Like one that didn't get in
Speaker 6: was we had a lot of good ones. One that
Speaker 6: didn't get in was what's the Eddie Murphy movie where
Speaker 6: he's Vampire Brooklyn. I was fighting so hard for Vampire
Speaker 6: and Brooklyn because that movie was just to me, it
Speaker 6: was just part of my life.
Speaker 7: My four.
Speaker 2: Comedy is a tough genre to nail, just in general,
Speaker 2: and that's one of the few movies that actually did.
Speaker 2: And I think Zombie Land did a pretty good job
Speaker 2: of it too, but that Seana Dead, but that's more
Speaker 2: British type stuff. But yeah, Vampire and Brooklyn was a
Speaker 2: good one.
Speaker 6: What he said, he got stabbed and he was like,
Speaker 6: this is my heart, this is my stomach, this is
Speaker 6: my heart, this is my stomach. I'm never that it
Speaker 6: was tattooed on my brain.
Speaker 5: Mhm, the heart.
Speaker 8: This is my stomach, This is my heart, this is
Speaker 8: my stomach, this is my heart.
Speaker 5: You should know the.
Speaker 2: John Witherspoon describing to Alan Payne how he saw Eddie
Speaker 2: Murphy turn into a werewolf and then he flip flopped
Speaker 2: somebody flip flop on you, and it was still scary.
Speaker 5: The final fight was still scary. He was up in.
Speaker 6: A like that was That's a perfect I mean, get
Speaker 6: Out is like a modern day, funny, scary black horror movie.
Speaker 5: Whatever.
Speaker 6: That was perfect the movie back then, but it didn't
Speaker 6: make it because it had we had other so good choices.
Speaker 2: I think I'll give you another example of what I'm
Speaker 2: talking about about me and horror. So in the actual script, right,
Speaker 2: it calls for me to say candy Man five times
Speaker 2: into here you actually I don't know, yes, like legit, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was not comfortable with that. I feel like I've
Speaker 2: been asked to do a lot of wild stuff on
Speaker 2: this show. I've eaten a lot of wild foods. I
Speaker 2: just left Idaho talking to some very wild people. Can't wait,
Speaker 2: like candy Man, the og candy Man. I finished it.
Speaker 2: But that one was a battle, like I like, do
Speaker 2: you know how I watch horror now? Like I watch
Speaker 2: horror with two other things going on around me, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: Like I'm not immersing, I'm not surround sounding myself, I'm
Speaker 2: not doing none of that. But yeah, when they when
Speaker 2: they wrote in the script that I had to say
Speaker 2: candy Man five times. Sorry, I'm like, I'll just gonna
Speaker 2: they called dub over my voice. So the so then
Speaker 2: the middle ground that we reached was I would say
Speaker 2: the first candy Man as I turned to the mirror,
Speaker 2: so that candy Man don't count.
Speaker 6: You go check the tape. Candy Man show up. You're like, no, no,
Speaker 6: I have my fingers crossed the whole time.
Speaker 2: I'm not. I'm not doing that, dog, I'm not doing that.
Speaker 2: And that's so funny. Try this again, candy Man. Oh
Speaker 2: there you are? Where's my money?
Speaker 9: Daniel?
Speaker 6: I don't get horror movies. I watch them for entertainment.
Speaker 6: But to me, this is gonna be a bad metal
Speaker 6: for especially for a black ass podcast like this, but
Speaker 6: I liking it for me. I don't like hot food.
Speaker 6: I don't like spicy food. I don't like ad spices
Speaker 6: to my food. For no reason, So scaring myself for
Speaker 6: no reason is I'm like, why, I just why don't
Speaker 6: I go watch rerecord Ralph? Why am I here terrifying
Speaker 6: myself right now?
Speaker 5: This is stupid?
Speaker 2: So I get you, right, So so then you know what,
Speaker 2: let's let's take a break right now, because I want
Speaker 2: to get the panel on to discuss exactly what you're
Speaker 2: talking about. Because my girlfriend watched Lovecraft Country. She watched it.
Speaker 2: This is this is how we support black shows in
Speaker 2: our house. She watches it live, We steal DVR and
Speaker 2: then I play it back in the DVR before three days,
Speaker 2: so you get the DVR rating in addition to the
Speaker 2: live rating.
Speaker 1: But I didn't watch it.
Speaker 2: Like racism is scary enough, y'all didn't added the monsters
Speaker 2: on top of the race, Like I would watch all
Speaker 2: the peaceful parts, but when the stream would get dark
Speaker 2: and a monster, let me go check hit.
Speaker 5: You with there, let me put up, let me you
Speaker 5: don't need to see this.
Speaker 2: She loved it, but I we'll be right back. This
Speaker 2: is this is a great topic that I'm low key
Speaker 2: scared to even go down candiment. It might show up
Speaker 2: in it.
Speaker 6: I know he just white, Papa. I heard y'all say
Speaker 6: my name five times.
Speaker 5: I heard.
Speaker 2: Beyond the scenes. We'll be right back. Beyond the scenes.
Speaker 2: We are back. We are talking black horror. Daily Show
Speaker 2: writer Ashton Womack with me there in the first break man,
Speaker 2: you know what else we forgot that was a was
Speaker 2: a horror comedy. Low key, it wasn't a black movie,
Speaker 2: but horror comedy was Child's Play.
Speaker 7: Ooh.
Speaker 2: I don't know if on purpose, but when I go
Speaker 2: back and watch that first one, that one still makes
Speaker 2: me laugh.
Speaker 5: What about Leprechaun?
Speaker 2: For all the Leprechauns, that's all the comedy, I tell
Speaker 2: you as much, all of these white roles that we
Speaker 2: recast in black and like, you know, adding all this diversity.
Speaker 2: I am happy that when they redid Child's Play with
Speaker 2: Brian Tyree Henry. When I first heard he was in it,
Speaker 2: I was like, Lord, day fanna make Chucky a black doll?
Speaker 2: That would This is not the representation because I thought
Speaker 2: he was cast as the voice of check.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: No, he's an actual character. Let's bring in three guests
Speaker 2: for today's episode. First off, we have an award winning author, educator,
Speaker 2: and executive producer of Shutters, Horror Noir, A History of
Speaker 2: Black Horror, Tonan A reved to not know, how are
Speaker 2: you doing today?
Speaker 7: Amazing? It's hard to hear out this horror slander, but
Speaker 7: I'm doing great.
Speaker 2: We are just two men cowards, okay, That's all we are.
Speaker 2: We're just cowards. Also joining us a New York Times
Speaker 2: best selling author, screenwriter, and educator Stephen Barnes. What say
Speaker 2: you to Leprechaun in Space? Leprechawn in Space?
Speaker 3: You know it may have had its time, But when
Speaker 3: you were talking about Chucky when I remember, I think
Speaker 3: it was in the second movie where he was going
Speaker 3: to transplant his soul into a black kid, and.
Speaker 1: He said, Chucky is gonna be a bro.
Speaker 5: My ultimate plot to finally say the inn word.
Speaker 2: And then Chucky would have been apprehended by the police.
Speaker 2: Movie Chucky finally can stopped? That's I'm sorry? Is that
Speaker 2: too serious? Can we not talk about serious police reform
Speaker 2: in this program? And joining us lastly, Northwestern's Vice president
Speaker 2: and Associate Provosts for Diversity and Inclusion and the author
Speaker 2: of horror noir, Blacks and American Horror Films from the
Speaker 2: eighteen nineties to the President, Doctor Robin R. Means Coleman,
Speaker 2: Doctor Coleman, What say you to lepre Kahn? Part five?
Speaker 2: Do we need a remake of Leprekaun?
Speaker 10: We need as many Leprechauns in our lives as possible.
Speaker 6: You hit that, Kevin Hart Leprekaun a black Leprechaun is
Speaker 6: the pot of gold at the end of the diversity rainbow.
Speaker 2: There it is. So since we're talking about black horror,
Speaker 2: then we have to first define it. Because Ashton and
Speaker 2: I fumbled all over that in the first segment, because
Speaker 2: we don't know what technically makes a black horror film.
Speaker 2: You know what makes that? What are the rules for
Speaker 2: that subgenre? To Nana Reeve, I'll start with you.
Speaker 7: Oh shoot, okay, yes, My opinion about it is black
Speaker 7: horror can be as many kinds of stories as black
Speaker 7: creators come up with. Sometimes it's just that there's a
Speaker 7: black lead. Like you can have a film like The
Speaker 7: Girl with All the Gifts, which is not a black movie.
Speaker 7: It was written by a white author, but they cast
Speaker 7: the lead black like Georgia Romero did and not of
Speaker 7: the Living Dead, And hey, it's not just that the
Speaker 7: lead is black, but it has a sensibility that is
Speaker 7: sort of interrogating society and shifts in society and rules
Speaker 7: of society. So it has kind of a black personality,
Speaker 7: even if it might have a white director. But yeah,
Speaker 7: black director, black lead and a black sensibility or just
Speaker 7: filling up an like like addressing invisibility like, we exist.
Speaker 7: We don't even have to do anything black, We just exist.
Speaker 2: Okay, So then for my other two, for my other
Speaker 2: two here on the panel, define for me when you
Speaker 2: recognize that this was a genre that you felt drawn to,
Speaker 2: that you got something out of, Like you know, I
Speaker 2: know we all have our own favorite film genres. What
Speaker 2: was it about or what is it about horror that
Speaker 2: you go, yes, scare me, you're already black.
Speaker 3: Well, first, I think let's start with the definition of horror.
Speaker 3: Horror would be a film who the primary emotion they
Speaker 3: want you to experience is dread horror. So whatever it
Speaker 3: is that they're doing, you know, it could be supernatural,
Speaker 3: it could be science fiction, you know, supernatural, the Exorcist,
Speaker 3: science fiction, alien. It could be you know, psychological horror, psycho,
Speaker 3: but they want you to feel that emotion. So what
Speaker 3: Tnanoieve said, who is my good lady wife?
Speaker 2: But mark that ye?
Speaker 3: Is that black horror would then be horror films that
Speaker 3: have a black perspective. It's a diasporic performer or writer
Speaker 3: or director or in some way connects to that. So
Speaker 3: being black in America is a matter of constantly knowing
Speaker 3: that you're under a low level of attack.
Speaker 5: I mean, the.
Speaker 3: The mortality statistics, just say that for a fact. So
Speaker 3: if white people in people all over the world like
Speaker 3: dark stories, stories that are that that touch the question
Speaker 3: of death, black people I think have even more reason
Speaker 3: to need to balance their emotions. Screaming and laughing both
Speaker 3: release tension.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well black people do that both when they when
Speaker 6: they laugh, they screen.
Speaker 1: That makes sense, right, that's right.
Speaker 3: So so to be able to keep your keep your
Speaker 3: emotions in a healthy range, we watch comedies to release tension.
Speaker 3: We watch horror or suspense movies, or somebody's crawling across
Speaker 3: even the some huge monument being shot at by spies
Speaker 3: increases our tension level, drops our tension level. We're trying
Speaker 3: to survive. We're trying to stay in the goldilocks zone
Speaker 3: where it's not too much tension and it's not too
Speaker 3: much relaxation because both of them will take you apart.
Speaker 3: We're just trying to survive. But we have some very
Speaker 3: special needs in that sense.
Speaker 10: For me, black horror is fun, it's funny, it's entertaining,
Speaker 10: But most importantly, black horror hails my blackness. It speaks
Speaker 10: to black life and culture. Certainly, as Steve said the
Speaker 10: socio and political, but it is also about my style
Speaker 10: of my music.
Speaker 9: Am I aesthetic?
Speaker 10: Black horror is it is life, It's black Ela, It's
Speaker 10: Tells from the Hood. It's candy Man twenty twenty one,
Speaker 10: not Bernard Rose's candy Man nineteen ninety two. Black Horror
Speaker 10: is deaf by temptation that had James Bond the Third
Speaker 10: Samuel L. Jackson condeem Hardisan. It is all of the
Speaker 10: things that says, there's an insider conversation that we're having
Speaker 10: about black people and blackness and black ideologies, and it
Speaker 10: may speak to an external audience, but we're not gonna
Speaker 10: do all the definition of work to bring you in.
Speaker 9: This is about you. It's for you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh, I love it.
Speaker 6: I can't remember if it was Tony Morrison who was like,
Speaker 6: I don't have to write my stories for anybody outside
Speaker 6: of you, for anybody, I'm writing to the people who understand.
Speaker 6: It was something too kind to that of writing stories
Speaker 6: for us to understand for the person the people who
Speaker 6: need to understand understand, and white people or any other
Speaker 6: audience having to try to shouldn't have to like write
Speaker 6: to help explain to the white audience. To other people audience.
Speaker 5: This is for us. I love that sentimental.
Speaker 9: Black horror is fubu.
Speaker 7: It's right right, And I get how some people don't
Speaker 7: want to lean into tension and lean into scares like
Speaker 7: y'all are saying. It's like life is hard enough. Racism
Speaker 7: it's hard enough. And like I said in the documentary
Speaker 7: Horror Noir, black history is black horror, and we could
Speaker 7: just put a period there. But the person who loved
Speaker 7: horror first in my life was my late mother, Patricia
Speaker 7: Stevens STU. She was a civil rights activist who had
Speaker 7: tear gas thrown in her face at the age of twenty,
Speaker 7: so she wore dark glasses the whole rest of her life,
Speaker 7: even indoors. She loved horror, and I think for her
Speaker 7: it was about leeching out the trauma, not bringing in more.
Speaker 7: She'd already lived the trauma. She knew trauma was real,
Speaker 7: but monsters, zombies, demons, ghosts, which she did not believe in.
Speaker 7: By the way, ghosts, imaginary horror was soothing and helped
Speaker 7: put a face to that monstrosity. And once in a while,
Speaker 7: the characters can win, They can beat the monster.
Speaker 3: Now, even if the characters were all white, I remember
Speaker 3: being on a panel of the Science Fiction Convention once
Speaker 3: this might ask me why do I like watching slasher movies?
Speaker 1: And I would say because I enjoy watching white people die.
Speaker 3: The whole audience cracked up, and I said, you know
Speaker 3: what's really funny. You think I'm kidding if you're going
Speaker 3: to exclude this from the movies. It's like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: you know so. But when we started appearing in there more,
Speaker 3: then it's that it's feeling seen, it's feeling that, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're part of this continuum too.
Speaker 1: We you know, do we not feel? Do we not fear?
Speaker 3: And it's is it not fun to watch us in
Speaker 3: those situations? The difference between the original candy Man and
Speaker 3: the remake is stark. The original candy Man was black
Speaker 3: trauma for white audiences. The reimagined candy Man was from
Speaker 3: our perspective. It wasn't the white gaze. White people could
Speaker 3: come and watch it if they appreciated it, but it
Speaker 3: wasn't for them, And I think that that that shift
Speaker 3: is important.
Speaker 2: So, doctor Coleman, I'm curious, what was your relationship with
Speaker 2: horror growing up? Because what I'm starting to see if
Speaker 2: Nanoreve's background and my backgrounds are any proof. A lot
Speaker 2: of it starts early on in what you tend to
Speaker 2: gravitate towards. Because I had weird real life. What I
Speaker 2: believe as a demon is trying to kill me. I
Speaker 2: don't want to see nothing about no fake demons. What
Speaker 2: was your relationship growing up? What do you think it
Speaker 2: was that drew you to this genre?
Speaker 10: So I get to claim horror because I am from Pittsburgh,
Speaker 10: born and raised, and for true horror fans, that's all
Speaker 10: I have to say. If you need to buy a bow.
Speaker 10: Pittsburgh is the land of George Romero. It is the
Speaker 10: land of Night of the Living Dead. It is where
Speaker 10: Night of the Living Dead was filmed in and around.
Speaker 10: So horror for me is in my DNA.
Speaker 5: That's awesome.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, Romero used real life pittsburgher's in Night of
Speaker 10: the Living Dead. Those were people that we saw, We
Speaker 10: recognized they were our neighbors. They were cast as militia,
Speaker 10: and we knew that that was the black experience in
Speaker 10: Pittsburgh to have to do battle with those police. So
Speaker 10: for me, again, it's in my DNA.
Speaker 2: So since you all are historians on this genre, and
Speaker 2: I'm sure you saw the segment that I did with
Speaker 2: a terrible mustache glue to my face, of the films
Speaker 2: that we were able to fit into it, and you know,
Speaker 2: Ashon already talked about that in the first segment that
Speaker 2: we didn't really we weren't able to get to everything,
Speaker 2: but we did, you know, Mention son of Benghagi. We
Speaker 2: did talk about Rachel True's role in the craft. What
Speaker 2: were some of the bigger ones that you all think
Speaker 2: we missed?
Speaker 6: Blacula, Yeah, we did a segment on it, Like during
Speaker 6: it we mentioned it slightly because Blacula is so interesting,
Speaker 6: it's so funny. The only issue was it was during
Speaker 6: the uh it was like black. We wanted we summed
Speaker 6: it up in a black sploitation era where it was Blacula, Blakenstein,
Speaker 6: Doctor Black and mister Hot were they would just add
Speaker 6: black to any horror movie. And then I was like,
Speaker 6: that's ah, So I wish we would have went in
Speaker 6: deeper because Blacula is so funny and like how it
Speaker 6: was like received at the time. It's a cult classic now,
Speaker 6: but at the time people were like, this is some
Speaker 6: shucking in job and what the hell is it?
Speaker 3: I'd say, Dawn of the Dead because Ken Foray was
Speaker 3: one of the very first black leads in a horror
Speaker 3: film who got to survive, and a black priest delivered
Speaker 3: one of the most chilling lines I've ever heard, which is,
Speaker 3: when the dead walk the earth, we must stop the
Speaker 3: killing or lose the war. And so that made that
Speaker 3: a black horror movie for me, you know, is the
Speaker 3: idea of the thematics of it being expressed by a
Speaker 3: black man and a black man surviving the damn movie.
Speaker 10: Do you think so I'm gonna put another shout out
Speaker 10: in for blackula.
Speaker 9: I don't know.
Speaker 10: I thought it sort of shed the blaxploitation era. I mean,
Speaker 10: this is a movie that's about a delayed move through
Speaker 10: the middle passage and here we are, you know, in
Speaker 10: Watts in la saying there's a connection between slavery and
Speaker 10: what we're experiencing in America today.
Speaker 1: Well, because of the actor involved with it was William.
Speaker 7: Marshall, Yes, William Marshall, William Crane.
Speaker 1: He brought fantastic gravitas to that role.
Speaker 3: Think about that movie with a bad actor in it,
Speaker 3: and it would have been trash, but he elevated everything.
Speaker 3: He treated that as if it was Shakespeare. I mean,
Speaker 3: I just I love that movie. It was important.
Speaker 7: That's why I have to forever give a shout out
Speaker 7: two black creators who get opportunities like how did William
Speaker 7: Crane like in his twenties, How did he even get
Speaker 7: that opportunity to direct a movie? But so often when
Speaker 7: we do get those opportunities, we want to do more.
Speaker 7: I'm sure that the producers would have been happy just
Speaker 7: for him to slap something together, but he brought in
Speaker 7: you know, the very beginning of the movie. People who
Speaker 7: haven't seen it, it's been a minute. William Marshall's character
Speaker 7: is arguing with Count Dracula about the Transatlantic slave trade
Speaker 7: holding court, you know, and it's like, whoa, when it
Speaker 7: was the last time you saw yourself in the seventeen hundreds, Right,
Speaker 7: It's just so and all the Swahili and the history,
Speaker 7: some of it a little misguided, but just really trying
Speaker 7: to do more. And I also mention what was supposed
Speaker 7: to be a knockoff of Blacula, but which became a
Speaker 7: great film in its own right, which was ganjen Hess
Speaker 7: with Bill Gunn. They were like, hey, why don't you
Speaker 7: do a black vampire movie like Blackula? And he's like, Okay,
Speaker 7: I will do a movie, but it is not going
Speaker 7: to be like Blackcula. And he did his own meditation
Speaker 7: on immortality and love and death and history. And I
Speaker 7: just love seeing artists trying to work within a system
Speaker 7: that isn't really interested in our stories, but it's just
Speaker 7: often interested in profiting off of our stories.
Speaker 3: Genre films can have an advantage in breaking through to
Speaker 3: an audience because genre films have fans that love that genre,
Speaker 3: just love it and will go see almost anything within it.
Speaker 1: So a black horror.
Speaker 3: Film is not only going to get black audiences, but
Speaker 3: it's going to get genre audiences. People want good horror,
Speaker 3: and that actually helps to make the world more porous,
Speaker 3: where it's possible, be difficult to get through that barrier,
Speaker 3: but it's not impossible, it's less impossible. So these movies
Speaker 3: actually made a difference. They got people behind the camera,
Speaker 3: not just standing as actors.
Speaker 7: One of the best examples of that is Get Out,
Speaker 7: you know, which is one of the reasons we're all
Speaker 7: here right now. When Jordan Peele may Get Out and
Speaker 7: released it in twenty seventeen, you know, as he said
Speaker 7: in horn Wir, he made that film to work for
Speaker 7: the black audiences. If it doesn't work for the black audiences,
Speaker 7: it's a fail. But it made two hundred and fifty
Speaker 7: million dollars, so clearly it worked for way more than
Speaker 7: the black audiences. It gave so much attention to this
Speaker 7: subgenre of black horror and has created so many opportunities,
Speaker 7: like even our documentary got the green light to day
Speaker 7: he got his oscar Wow.
Speaker 2: Wow. So then, because you all are so verse in
Speaker 2: this genre, I would I'll be honest and saying that
Speaker 2: because I don't watch enough horror, I miss some of
Speaker 2: the nuance that you all are talking about. So in
Speaker 2: the broader sense, where do they get horror wrong? Like
Speaker 2: are there racist tropes and undertones that the casual viewer
Speaker 2: might not pick up on?
Speaker 7: To a reva like to start with you, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 7: there are so many And of course I can't wait
Speaker 7: to hear what Robin has to say. There are so
Speaker 7: many tropes, like they never know what to do with us,
Speaker 7: but then when they do put us in the movie,
Speaker 7: it's never it's not usually a compliment. Right, If they
Speaker 7: write a black character, it's meant to be someone who
Speaker 7: is a sacrifice. The sacrificial Negro is what we call
Speaker 7: that trope. The magical Negro, Oh seriously, the magical.
Speaker 2: Three goad riply and I'll fight the alien.
Speaker 7: Exactly. Oh my god, I can blocked that out. I can't.
Speaker 5: I got one for you, block that out.
Speaker 7: The Spiritual Guide is another one. And yeah, there was
Speaker 7: also this this idea that black characters are the first
Speaker 7: to die, which isn't always true, obviously, but it happens
Speaker 7: so much that that became a trope too.
Speaker 10: I think mine, are you hit? The sacrifice Negro? The
Speaker 10: black authority figure turning your badge?
Speaker 7: You know that kind of Oh my god, where's that
Speaker 7: come from?
Speaker 3: Always always obese, never a sexual threat, that's right.
Speaker 10: Wow, The scared Negro, the bug Eye, Mantan Moreland and
Speaker 10: Spider Baby, the Voodoo Boogie person practitioner, the sassy sidekick.
Speaker 9: Oh my gosh, there's so child's.
Speaker 2: Play hat, the Voodoo Man.
Speaker 7: Yeahow, I love Wes Craven, but that you didn't get right.
Speaker 1: The first time I noticed that trope.
Speaker 3: Man, when I I used to go see these movies
Speaker 3: and the kids when I was a little kid, and
Speaker 3: the kids in my neighborhood would ask me after I
Speaker 3: came back how they killed the brother this time, so
Speaker 3: I knew that this was going on, but the first
Speaker 3: time I understood it deeply and what it might mean was.
Speaker 3: I was watching a movie called Damnation Alley. I ditch high.
Speaker 1: School and went to go see it with my buddy
Speaker 1: Dan Panall.
Speaker 3: And we're Damnation Alley where George Prepard and Jan Michael
Speaker 3: Vincent and Paul Winfield are traveling across a nuclear wasteland
Speaker 3: in an atomic winnebago and they go to like the
Speaker 3: ruins of Las Vegas or something, and out of the
Speaker 3: ruins of Las Vegas comes the last woman in the.
Speaker 1: World, and she's white.
Speaker 3: And I turned to my friend Dan, I said, they're
Speaker 3: gonna kill Paul Winfield.
Speaker 1: And so he said, why would you say that?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 1: Well, he says, say, you're so cynical. I said, wait.
Speaker 1: Five minutes later, he got eaten by giant cockroaches.
Speaker 3: Giant giant cockroaches. After the movie, Dan asked me, how
Speaker 3: did you know? I said, it was simple. She was
Speaker 3: the last woman in the world. They weren't going to
Speaker 3: pretend he wasn't interested, and they weren't going to let
Speaker 3: him compete for her. The only option they had was
Speaker 3: to kill him, and that's what they did. And I
Speaker 3: understood right then that look for disproportionate death connected to
Speaker 3: you know, reproductive reproductive competition. Black men cannot be cock blockers.
Speaker 3: The white man must have access to to a potential
Speaker 3: reproductive partner. And once I saw that, it was easy
Speaker 3: to see everywhere, and I actually compiled a list of
Speaker 3: two hundred movies in which all all the black men died,
Speaker 3: all of them. Anybody with at least one line to
Speaker 3: all the black men. You cannot name a movie of
Speaker 3: an American film in which all the white people die,
Speaker 3: if anybody else survives, there actually is one. I finally
Speaker 3: found one movie in which all the white people died
Speaker 3: and somebody blacks your vines, but two hundred tons. It's like,
Speaker 3: what do you do with that emotional sense they like
Speaker 3: watching us die. It's it's it's a very uncomfortable feeling
Speaker 3: to be sitting in an audience watching people, you know,
Speaker 3: having fun with Paul Winfield dying in Damnation Alley, Paul
Speaker 3: Winfield dying in Wrath of Khan, Pile Willifield died, and
Speaker 3: Serpent in the Rainbow, Paul Winfield dying, and Terminator.
Speaker 1: Generally to pretend.
Speaker 5: Just one actor has died over.
Speaker 3: He's done the spiritual guy, he's done the sacrifice Negro,
Speaker 3: he's done it all.
Speaker 1: He made a whole career.
Speaker 7: You know, that's the roles that were available.
Speaker 9: He should do Cola's contract and try to live.
Speaker 5: Right, That's right, And it don't make sense.
Speaker 6: It doesn't make sense that like black people are always
Speaker 6: the first to die, because I know black people in
Speaker 6: real life, and we the first.
Speaker 5: To run.
Speaker 6: Whatever something about to have it. White people walking towards
Speaker 6: the danger. We are you gotta go. So I don't
Speaker 6: get that's the crazy part, Like it's their fantasy.
Speaker 3: It's a fantasy of the person creating the movie. You know,
Speaker 3: they don't you know, on some deep emotional level. That's
Speaker 3: that's tribal competition, and it's you know, this is why
Speaker 3: we have to get control of the means of production
Speaker 3: in that sense.
Speaker 2: So then to that point right there, Stevens. So then
Speaker 2: to that point as we look at the evolution, and
Speaker 2: you all have been very complementary of Jordan Peel and
Speaker 2: everything that Monkey Paul has been doing. You know, as
Speaker 2: of late Lovecraft Country. There were two things that I
Speaker 2: found interesting about Lovecraft Country. One it dealt with something
Speaker 2: that was extremely complex, which was racism, and they even
Speaker 2: put it a little bit more front and center than
Speaker 2: Get Out did by making the show itself a period piece.
Speaker 2: But could you also talk a little bit about and
Speaker 2: I guess I'll start with the ladies. Talk to me
Speaker 2: a little bit about the evolution of the role of
Speaker 2: women in horror right now, because it seems to be
Speaker 2: that there are more women being you know, kind of
Speaker 2: pushed to the forefront, you know, as leads, especially even
Speaker 2: when you talk about you know, the updated Candy Man
Speaker 2: that they just did.
Speaker 7: As well, Right, So, nia Acosta did such a fantastic
Speaker 7: job with the New Candyman and brought such a great
Speaker 7: sensibility to that story. And Misha Green Monkey Pop brought
Speaker 7: on to be the showrunner for Lovecraft Country. So I
Speaker 7: think Monkey Pae is doing a lot to elevate women directors,
Speaker 7: women showrunners. There are a lot of independent black filmmakers
Speaker 7: who's starting to get a glow up now. Nikkiyatu Jusu
Speaker 7: is an independent filmmaker. She did a vampire piece called
Speaker 7: Suicide by Sunlight where black people were protected by melanin,
Speaker 7: and she's doing a feature film now called The Nanny,
Speaker 7: which I can't wait to see. I'll watch anything she does.
Speaker 7: So this is a you know, and I'm not a director,
Speaker 7: but I'm so excited to have my first horror adaptation
Speaker 7: with Steve. We co wrote a couple of episodes of
Speaker 7: the Horror and Wathology film that's on Shutter and it's
Speaker 7: going to be a series in February. I don't know
Speaker 7: if you heard that, Robin. It's going to drop on
Speaker 7: AMC all series. Love it so with two episodes, two
Speaker 7: segments per episode, and it really is a beautiful time
Speaker 7: for black women. And I think all not just black creators.
Speaker 7: You have to understand Jordan Peele and Monkey Pa have
Speaker 7: opened doors for all marginalized creators and horror especially to
Speaker 7: get that meeting, to catch that executive's ear.
Speaker 10: I think, for me, what's interesting about talking about women
Speaker 10: in this context when we're talking about horror renaissance, it
Speaker 10: is being led by women.
Speaker 9: It's being led by folks like Tanana Reeve. Do.
Speaker 10: Horror isn't always just about you know, these socio political issues.
Speaker 10: Horror is also it's not always about black trauma. Horror
Speaker 10: is entertaining and Tanana Reeve with contributions like The Lake
Speaker 10: Where or JD. Dillard with Sweetheart. Where as creators or
Speaker 10: as women on the screen, they are just leading the
Speaker 10: charge about the complex, innovative, entertaining, funny stories that women
Speaker 10: can tell. And it's not always trauma porn, but it
Speaker 10: is about our life, it's about our culture, and that's
Speaker 10: really amazing. And I would say as a horror film historian,
Speaker 10: then they're standing on the shoulders of folks like Casey
Speaker 10: Lemon's and Eves by You, which is so important to
Speaker 10: the sort of center and remind folks that that's out there.
Speaker 10: And so I think women are the horror renaissance.
Speaker 2: So after the break, I want to talk a little
Speaker 2: bit more about the future of horror and where you
Speaker 2: think it's going and what can people do to make
Speaker 2: sure that the studios are getting it right. And when
Speaker 2: I say people, I'm talking about people like myself, people
Speaker 2: that are on the inside, on the production side of things.
Speaker 2: And then I'm gonna give you all time to think
Speaker 2: about this. So I'm gonna ask it now, and after
Speaker 2: the break we're going to discuss this as a group.
Speaker 2: After we get done with the actual meat and potatoes
Speaker 2: of this, I want everyone to think what to you
Speaker 2: was the funniest black death on camera in any horror movie,
Speaker 2: Like they died and for whatever reason, you laughed instead
Speaker 2: of being scared. I have too. I'm gonna give you time.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you time to think about it. But
Speaker 2: just just just stew on that for a second. We'll
Speaker 2: be right back. This is Bey honesty. We've been talking
Speaker 2: about black horror and the genre and the growth of it,
Speaker 2: and how Ashton and I are both scaredy cats who
Speaker 2: wotn't there? Like I don't even fool with hunted houses
Speaker 2: no more, right, Like just even when they signed the waiver,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, you go to some of them
Speaker 2: hunted houses now and they be like, hey, just so
Speaker 2: you know, they can't touch it, and which ruins the whole.
Speaker 2: Like I'm supposed to be feared that I might get murdered,
Speaker 2: I'm still scared. After they announce the rules of the
Speaker 2: Haunted House. Uh, I'd like to talk with the panel
Speaker 2: now about the future of black horror.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, Stephen, the ladies already discussed in the previous
Speaker 2: segment just about how there are a lot more women
Speaker 2: leading the charge, and Jordan Peel has left the door.
Speaker 2: And only did he leave the door open, he cracked
Speaker 2: open three four more doors, dropped the ladder down from
Speaker 2: that door, posted directions how to get to the doors. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: but even with that Stephen, do you think that there's
Speaker 2: still a struggle in getting more black actors and actresses
Speaker 2: and more representation in front and behind the camera.
Speaker 1: In the representation behind the camera that matters.
Speaker 3: If you don't have representation, you don't have the directors,
Speaker 3: the producers, the executive producers, the people who are in
Speaker 3: the pipeline to the money. Then those are the people
Speaker 3: whose dreams say, oh, this script and not that one,
Speaker 3: this actor and not that one, this scene but not
Speaker 3: that one. It has to be the people behind the screen, set,
Speaker 3: behind the scenes. And that's what made the difference. After
Speaker 3: the black exploitation era in the early seventies, it went
Speaker 3: boom and bust within only about four years, but a
Speaker 3: lot of people got jobs and they burrowed their way.
Speaker 1: Into the industry, and that's what you have to do.
Speaker 1: People like Jordan Peel have set the tone.
Speaker 3: He has shown that because he is a world class
Speaker 3: funny man, he knew the moment at which to release
Speaker 3: the tension he knew what the audience when the audience.
Speaker 1: Needed to be to be relieved.
Speaker 3: He was dealing with social dynamite in that movie, the
Speaker 3: question of do.
Speaker 1: We how do you know who your ally is?
Speaker 3: Even the best people with the best intentions, you know,
Speaker 3: are are saying hideous things, and behind those not everyone
Speaker 3: who smiles at you is your friend. So I think
Speaker 3: it allowed us to tap into very real social tensions
Speaker 3: that have existed for centuries and drop that tension enough
Speaker 3: that you could have water cooler conversations with your white employees,
Speaker 3: your white friends about issues that are critical for us
Speaker 3: moving forward. So what I think is important is to
Speaker 3: study the successes that the beautiful thing is if people
Speaker 3: like Jordan Peel can make money, then three or four
Speaker 3: people can make bombs and it's okay, and the Hollywood
Speaker 3: can't just completely forget about it. You need you know,
Speaker 3: most sperm don't get to the egg. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, That mutation that change is brutal and violent.
Speaker 3: What we're trying to do right now, we need to
Speaker 3: be able to have at least nine filmmakers fail for
Speaker 3: every person who succeeds, because that what it is that
Speaker 3: happens that's what happens. Most people don't make it. So
Speaker 3: what I think people need to do is study the successes.
Speaker 3: If this is your heart, if this is what you
Speaker 3: really want to do, then make you know the way
Speaker 3: to get to make a five million dollar movie, which
Speaker 3: is what Jordan Peele did, is you first.
Speaker 1: Make a five hundred dollars movie.
Speaker 3: Another you on your use your you use your iPhone,
Speaker 3: You write a one act play, you get some actors
Speaker 3: from the local drama department, and you put it on
Speaker 3: yourself and you put it up on YouTube. Then you
Speaker 3: raise the money to make a slightly more expensive one.
Speaker 3: It's it's critical that we have everybody who watches these
Speaker 3: things and loves them starts doing it if that's what
Speaker 3: they want to do. Some of those people will be
Speaker 3: the geniuses that we need to carry this forward. Some
Speaker 3: of there there are people out there who are so talented,
Speaker 3: so smart, and they need to understand that the technology
Speaker 3: has gotten to the point where you can make a
Speaker 3: cheap movie and it looks great. So it's right down
Speaker 3: to did you care? Did you did you write a
Speaker 3: script that told the truth? Did you actually scare yourself?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And out of all those people, who try that a
Speaker 3: few of them will succeed, and those are the ones
Speaker 3: that we need.
Speaker 6: I definitely have a question about the future of black
Speaker 6: horror movie, especially talking about your point. So Jordan Peterson
Speaker 6: made a film about Jordan Peterson, Jordan Peele not the
Speaker 6: same guy men's rights advocate. That's Jordan Peterson's movie would
Speaker 6: have been about black people too, but it would be
Speaker 6: a different special.
Speaker 5: But your point.
Speaker 6: About Jordan Peele's social commentary on the question. The big
Speaker 6: question was asked about allyship, and so my question is
Speaker 6: how when will it? When will it be in our
Speaker 6: future where our black horror movie movies aren't centered around
Speaker 6: racism as if it's already happened.
Speaker 1: Us was not about racism class.
Speaker 7: And then I'm really glad you asked that, Ashton, because
Speaker 7: I was going to talk about how we're kind of
Speaker 7: at a crossroads now with black horror.
Speaker 6: Like just the hard Duke scares me the bobble, I
Speaker 6: don't know what that ain't racist, right, No, that's right,
Speaker 6: that's right.
Speaker 7: I have my version of that. Can't wait to get
Speaker 7: that made. But but that's one of the things I mamad,
Speaker 7: that's the thing I love about I know I'm involved
Speaker 7: with it. But I love about the horror in our
Speaker 7: anthology is that it's six different stories. And like Robin said,
Speaker 7: it's not all about racism as the monster. I mean, yes,
Speaker 7: those are valid stories, and those are important stories, but
Speaker 7: sometimes we're just existing. Sometimes it's funny aspects of our culture.
Speaker 7: We have to have the room to be all different
Speaker 7: shades of human within black horror and the crossroads we're
Speaker 7: at now because Steve was talking about there have to
Speaker 7: be projects that fail well, there isn't a whole lot
Speaker 7: of leeway for Hollywood executives when it comes to failure.
Speaker 7: That's why so many of the movies we look back
Speaker 7: on now from the nineties it's called classics, Tales from
Speaker 7: the Hood used by you, they didn't get second chances
Speaker 7: those directed. We didn't get Tales from Hood too until
Speaker 7: after Get Out. And right now you hear this cry
Speaker 7: like executives will say, oh, well, black audiences aren't interested
Speaker 7: in trauma porn. And this is something I find to
Speaker 7: be like a very troubling sort of development, because yeah,
Speaker 7: there have been a few movies that have leaned into
Speaker 7: racism as the monster, and some do it well and
Speaker 7: some don't.
Speaker 5: Roy.
Speaker 7: I'm a huge fan of your comedy. So I think
Speaker 7: of the Black History Museum routine, like as a black artist,
Speaker 7: when you get that opportunity, right.
Speaker 9: You're like, look what you did to us, right, That
Speaker 9: doesn't work.
Speaker 7: In a horror movie, shouting in your face. The lynching
Speaker 7: isn't the horror. That's intergenerational memory that's triggering us. We
Speaker 7: need like what Nia Dakasa did with Candy Man. Make
Speaker 7: it fantasy horror, like the body transformation. That didn't happen
Speaker 7: to my great uncle. He didn't turn into a creature,
Speaker 7: you know, So you have to have a little bit
Speaker 7: of a distance. So I like to say artists have
Speaker 7: to be aware that lynching is not horror, okay, and
Speaker 7: audiences have to be aware. Give us some space and
Speaker 7: time to form this subgenre and to allow the artist
Speaker 7: to rise, because this is a system that you know,
Speaker 7: there's been some more openness since Get Out after George Floyd, unfortunately,
Speaker 7: but those doors in some way systemically can't wait to shut.
Speaker 7: Can't wait to shut.
Speaker 6: I know, Oh yeah, no, totally understand that. And so
Speaker 6: it's because I love that you said that, give us space.
Speaker 5: And time to grow and figure out the genre.
Speaker 6: Because I'm totally I'm not against us to seeing like
Speaker 6: racism in a metaphorical sense of how it's affected my
Speaker 6: life in a horror movie I Get Out obviously was
Speaker 6: proof of that for me, but I liked other things
Speaker 6: do scary like student loans scare me, make a horror
Speaker 6: movie exactly chasing me.
Speaker 5: Like Jason Art.
Speaker 1: You can say the art is about two things, Who
Speaker 1: am I? And what is true?
Speaker 3: And I think white racist would be very happy if
Speaker 3: they thought that we were constantly thinking about them and
Speaker 3: what they did.
Speaker 5: Dot.
Speaker 3: No, there is life, There is love, there is growing old,
Speaker 3: there is you know, my child is sick, there is this,
Speaker 3: There is that. There is just the humanity that we are,
Speaker 3: and it is not defined by our past, although it
Speaker 3: is influenced. So I look forward to one of the
Speaker 3: reasons why I felt like I could struggle in the
Speaker 3: industry and I'd write stuff and they change the race
Speaker 3: of characters that I wrote and stuff like that, and
Speaker 3: it was like, Okay, it's just my turn in the barrel.
Speaker 3: And if to see a generation coming after me that
Speaker 3: doesn't have my wounds, that doesn't have my reflexive flinch
Speaker 3: at certain things, that's great. That's what I wanted. I
Speaker 3: want them to stand on my shoulder. I want them
Speaker 3: to see further than I could see. And I'm so
Speaker 3: proud of them go out there and talk about love
Speaker 3: and life and death and horror without suggesting that white
Speaker 3: people define our existence. That's simply not It's never been.
Speaker 10: True and getting the Academy Award. What Jordan Peele did
Speaker 10: with Get Out is make us think that all horror
Speaker 10: needs to be art horror or elevated horror, and that
Speaker 10: that's why we're suddenly talking about black horror as renaissance,
Speaker 10: that it's crossed over it, it's become mainstream, and it's
Speaker 10: always it always has to be this really smart horror.
Speaker 10: The nineties we talked about Leprechaun, Leprachaun in the Hood.
Speaker 10: The nineties are my favorite decade for black horror because
Speaker 10: it's none of that. I don't know what the nineties
Speaker 10: is about, except that we added Z to all kinds
Speaker 10: of stuff. Bloods Versus Wolves, Vamps, five Vampires.
Speaker 9: I mean, it was just Z's exploding and it was
Speaker 9: funny and it was fun and it was.
Speaker 10: You know, I mean, Bloods Versus Wolves has got to
Speaker 10: be one of the funniest unknown undercover horror movies like
Speaker 10: it's blood versus crips, but it's like a vampires versus
Speaker 10: were wolves.
Speaker 9: I mean, the black horror genre.
Speaker 10: Has been around for a minute, and I appreciate the
Speaker 10: attention that get Out is bringing to it because it
Speaker 10: moves people to revisit these actually really fun and funny
Speaker 10: the hip hop witch come on, I mean these are
Speaker 10: these are funny.
Speaker 2: That's okay, Larry, So, doctor Coleman, what would you like
Speaker 2: to see? Is there anything new? Let's talk about beyond
Speaker 2: the horizon? Is there anything new you would like to see?
Speaker 2: And we're talking about stepping away from racism or not
Speaker 2: letting racism be the spine of the story. What do
Speaker 2: you think is missing? Not not in a critical way,
Speaker 2: but where do you hope that it goes? Now?
Speaker 10: I think we're there, and actually I think the two
Speaker 10: people on this call, Tanana Reeved and Stephen Barnes, are
Speaker 10: leading that charge. And you see that with what they've
Speaker 10: done with horror nowar they anthology, But you know, I
Speaker 10: hope that they spend two seconds talking about what they
Speaker 10: did with the Lake, which is sort of it isn't
Speaker 10: that nineties kind of kitchy horror, but it reminds us
Speaker 10: that there are so many stories and such so much
Speaker 10: depth within black horror that doesn't always have to be
Speaker 10: about struggle.
Speaker 2: Is this the Lake Lanier project? Tanan Reeve no No.
Speaker 7: I had a short story called The Lake I published
Speaker 7: several years ago, and Steve and I co wrote an
Speaker 7: adaptation of that story for horn Law. And not to
Speaker 7: be too spoilery, it's about the monster within, you know.
Speaker 7: It's about a lake that if you swim in, it
Speaker 7: brings out your inner monstrosity and makes it outward. And
Speaker 7: you know, I'm one of those. I guess I'm scared
Speaker 7: of the woods. So anything with the title Lake Woods
Speaker 7: Cabin Lodge, I will watch that movie. And so I'm
Speaker 7: so excited that I had an adaptation of a story
Speaker 7: called The Lake.
Speaker 2: Tanana Eve and I.
Speaker 1: There are things that we want to do.
Speaker 3: We've done some of those things in our writing, but
Speaker 3: I think that the challenge that we see right now
Speaker 3: is moving into doing.
Speaker 1: More visual images.
Speaker 3: So we're looking for the stories that we can tell
Speaker 3: that we can do as radio plays or as small
Speaker 3: films that we can produce ourselves. If we can produce
Speaker 3: a radio play that's proof of concept, right, and if
Speaker 3: we do it right. We're working on our skills. We're
Speaker 3: gathering teams, we're showing people, and the intention is to
Speaker 3: be able to design a movie that can be done
Speaker 3: for funds that we can raise ourselves, say quarter million dollars,
Speaker 3: one hundred thousand dollars. It's possible, and that's right. It's
Speaker 3: possible to do this, and so we want to learn
Speaker 3: how to do this. And the podcast that we're starting
Speaker 3: is going to be walking people through the process of writing,
Speaker 3: getting your writing published, moving into the visual genre, working
Speaker 3: in that, and how to stay sane in the midst
Speaker 3: of all of that. Every one of us who succeeds
Speaker 3: at this needs to leave a trail of bread crumbs.
Speaker 3: Everybody needs to leave a trail of bread crumbs so
Speaker 3: that the next generation coming up, Black people, their allies.
Speaker 1: Just people in general.
Speaker 3: This is this is the world that we're moving into,
Speaker 3: where we were not taking the poisons of the twentieth
Speaker 3: century with us. You know, it's like we can leave
Speaker 3: that stuff behind as long as we acknowledge that it
Speaker 3: happened right and that it was real and that it
Speaker 3: did real damage. I don't mind going through rehab. If
Speaker 3: you don't pretend you weren't driving the bus that hit me.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like, don't pretend, Yes, I've got to
Speaker 3: do the work. Black people have got to do their
Speaker 3: own work in the community. But don't pretend that nothing
Speaker 3: thing happened.
Speaker 2: Speaking of Brad Crumbs, tell me a little bit more
Speaker 2: about this podcast, because it seemed like this podcast, y'all
Speaker 2: trying to still get everything you want through the door,
Speaker 2: but you're trying to open the door for other people.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's what you have to do.
Speaker 3: Who I am because of my parents, because of people
Speaker 3: black and white and otherwise who helped me. So the
Speaker 3: only way I can pay those people back is by
Speaker 3: doing all I can to give away that knowledge I
Speaker 3: got everything I wanted out of life.
Speaker 1: I want.
Speaker 3: I want to see young creators coming up, and we're
Speaker 3: gonna be telling that truth. We're gonna be spitting fire
Speaker 3: every Sunday to Life Writing podcast dot com. We're talking
Speaker 3: about a six step process to take someone from not
Speaker 3: having any publications to getting published that's never failed.
Speaker 7: I'm learning how to maneuver in Hollywood. I mean, I
Speaker 7: like to say, as soon as I learn it, I'm
Speaker 7: trying to tweet it out. I'm trying to pass it
Speaker 7: on because that's why I've learned so much from other
Speaker 7: people through social media. And we can't all meet in person,
Speaker 7: so a podcast will say, Look, this is our pitching
Speaker 7: nightmare story. I can't believe I said this. This is
Speaker 7: what happened. This is the time the pitching went well.
Speaker 1: This is this is what is real? You know this
Speaker 1: is and all we can do is tell the truth.
Speaker 3: And the truth from my position is I believe that
Speaker 3: people can have artistic careers if you're willing to commit,
Speaker 3: that the door, that the path has been laid, if
Speaker 3: you're willing to actually commit, if you're willing to actually
Speaker 3: say I will give my heart, in my life and
Speaker 3: my energy to this. I want to be a comedian.
Speaker 3: I want to be an actor. I want to be
Speaker 3: a writer. I want to be a director. Those of
Speaker 3: us who have made it, if we can leave a path,
Speaker 3: that trail of breadcrumbs, we can change the world. This
Speaker 3: is the time, and the technology is there. Hollywood is
Speaker 3: scrambling their panic because there are so many venues.
Speaker 1: There's probably one hundred times more channels than there were when.
Speaker 5: I was a kid.
Speaker 3: It's it's a it's a seller's market. If you can
Speaker 3: understand how to organize yourself to get into position, that's
Speaker 3: the thing. Getting into position is difficult. So to not
Speaker 3: is opening doors for people.
Speaker 1: Every day.
Speaker 3: I try to open all the doors for people I
Speaker 3: can't every day, you know, for black people and their
Speaker 3: allies and anyone who's willing to commit to the unity
Speaker 3: of humanity.
Speaker 1: Just I love you there, You're my family.
Speaker 5: Nice.
Speaker 2: So, as we end this podcast, and we've we've been
Speaker 2: very respectful of the people that have contributed and the
Speaker 2: people who have done so many thankless things, I just
Speaker 2: want to end the podcast with us choosen which black
Speaker 2: person got the most hilariously and it's no hard feelings
Speaker 2: because we've exalted you and everything that you've done up
Speaker 2: until this point in the podcast. So now we can
Speaker 2: have a laugh. Funniest black death on camera.
Speaker 3: One of them was in Freddy versus Jason, where this
Speaker 3: black girl basically tells Freddy to kill her so that
Speaker 3: her white friend could get away. It was so blatant, Yes.
Speaker 8: It was, it was, and how sweet dark.
Speaker 5: Chocolate?
Speaker 3: No get the what the what if it was a
Speaker 3: guy who was chocolate with nuts.
Speaker 5: But white writers were just shooting back. Then they just
Speaker 5: saying it, Just say it, write it down.
Speaker 2: They gotta say it.
Speaker 1: What how sweet.
Speaker 2: Dark Doctor Coleman. Funniest Blake.
Speaker 9: Well, you talked about Omar Epps.
Speaker 10: There's one that's just slightly sooner into the movie, and
Speaker 10: that's Black Tribesmen number one in Monster from Green Hell. Oh,
Speaker 10: the biggest two seconds and they're sort of inflatable and
Speaker 10: they squish him.
Speaker 9: That's hilarious.
Speaker 2: It's insane.
Speaker 7: Yeah, are so good, y'all are so good. This mine
Speaker 7: isn't even that funny, but it's just like.
Speaker 2: Really, if it makes you laugh, if it's ridiculously.
Speaker 7: It would have to be. In all due respect, I
Speaker 7: love this actress, but Alfred Woodard and Annabell sacrifices for
Speaker 7: no reason jumping out of the window. I mean, I'm
Speaker 7: like what I mean, all.
Speaker 3: The insulting would be John Coffee in the Green Mile?
Speaker 9: Here, Oh, did holleran in the Shining?
Speaker 3: Well, did Colom in the Shining travel all that distance
Speaker 3: and get act in the chest.
Speaker 7: Which did not happen in the book, by the way,
Speaker 7: Not right.
Speaker 3: That's right, you know, But like in the Green Mile,
Speaker 3: this guy Tom Hanks knew he was innocent, knew it,
Speaker 3: touched his hands, saw the vision, and they had smuggled
Speaker 3: this guy out to heal this white woman and to
Speaker 3: give this guy viagra basically, you know. And they had
Speaker 3: twenty minutes of stupid house tricks. But they did not
Speaker 3: have time for Tom Hanks to pick up the damn
Speaker 3: phone and call the governor and say this man's innocent.
Speaker 7: He could have.
Speaker 9: Healed himself, so.
Speaker 10: Couldn't They couldn't shine and save Dick and say you're
Speaker 10: going to get an axe to the chest. He's healing everybody,
Speaker 10: but he couldn't save himself. He couldn't heal himself. Oh,
Speaker 10: come on, those are the two insulting debts.
Speaker 1: What we called in the industry plot holes.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing is that Stephen King is.
Speaker 3: A good guy and he walks a very interesting line.
Speaker 3: He could do the book The Green Mile and not
Speaker 3: offend me. The movie offended me horribly. And in the
Speaker 3: Shining Dick Collar might have been a spiritual guy, but
Speaker 3: he wasn't sacrificial.
Speaker 7: And he wasn't the only one with powers either.
Speaker 1: So that that's right. Yeah, So it's it's it's okay.
Speaker 1: He has a deep well of real art.
Speaker 3: Artistry King does, which which allows him just even though
Speaker 3: he obviously didn't know many black people growing up, you know,
Speaker 3: in Maine.
Speaker 1: He treats us with a certain amount of dignity and respect.
Speaker 3: But these people making movies based on the stuff miss
Speaker 3: that completely.
Speaker 7: Sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just been horrible.
Speaker 2: Jason takes Manhattan, Oh yeah, I remember that, and the
Speaker 2: boxing gentleman on the roof and Jason just lets this
Speaker 2: dude beat his face in. The man is punching Jason
Speaker 2: in the face and like gases himself fists or bloody
Speaker 2: from just and Jason's taking every blow. And then the
Speaker 2: boxer just puts his hands down black boxer. He just goes,
Speaker 2: all right, give me your best shot, and Jason upper
Speaker 2: cuts him and his head flies off Mortal Kombat style,
Speaker 2: lands a dumpster in the back of the alley, and
Speaker 2: then the lid falls on the dump What I laugh
Speaker 2: for twenty minutes straight? Oh, I was in the theater.
Speaker 5: What kind of loot tune is that?
Speaker 2: Ashton will finish Strong with you? Funniest black horror movie?
Speaker 6: Oh bro, I haven't watched a horror movie since Nightmare
Speaker 6: before Christmas. The last I don't have. I can't think
Speaker 6: of a death. But I will say, you guys have
Speaker 6: inspired me to write my own horror movie where ll
Speaker 6: cool J dies multiple times, So thank you for the inspiration.
Speaker 3: You could have Morgan Freeman get a kiss in that
Speaker 3: same movie, I appreciate because he has not had a
Speaker 3: single kiss in his entire screen o.
Speaker 7: What L L cool J is, Mama Duke, I like it.
Speaker 5: Write the script.
Speaker 2: Morgan Freeman never kissing anybody. That might be the next
Speaker 2: CP time we do. I'd like to end also by
Speaker 2: a quick shout out to Samuel L. Jackson's death scene
Speaker 2: in Deep Blue Sea. Absolutely no, it's not next Tocerel,
Speaker 2: but that's a pivotal that's a pivotal scene.
Speaker 1: It was a wonderful death.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then he John got his ass.
Speaker 6: Chomped up and it was so out of the blue.
Speaker 6: You want to talk about jump scare that was That
Speaker 6: was so random.
Speaker 2: In the middle of the drop, that's right in the
Speaker 2: middle of a bathtop and they just chomped its head.
Speaker 2: And then they cut to Michael Rappaport just horrified and
Speaker 2: hugging up pipe. They built it all up. Sam Jackson
Speaker 2: was all because they've been bickering or whatever, right, the
Speaker 2: water is bad.
Speaker 1: Wait until you've seen snow.
Speaker 5: Nature can do.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't hold a candle to man. Now you've
Speaker 2: seen how bad things can get and how quickly they
Speaker 2: can get that weight where they can get a whole
Speaker 2: lot worse. So we're not gonna fight in it more.
Speaker 2: We're gonna pull together and find a way to get
Speaker 2: out of here. First, we're going to I was so horrified.
Speaker 2: I cannot thank you all enough for coming on the
Speaker 2: show like this has been downright a joy to Nana, Reeveter,
Speaker 2: Stephen Barnes, doctor Robin ar Means, Coleman and Ashton. Thank
Speaker 2: you all so much for going beyond the scenes. I
Speaker 2: gotta pitch all some movies. Listen to The Daily Show
Speaker 2: Beyond the Scenes on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts.
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