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