Horror Noire

I was hopeful after the first minute, it seemed like this had a decent budget and filmed well, then the dialogue started unfortunately. The writing is terrible, the stories lack imagination, and overall silly and boring. Since this is supposed to be a showcase for black horror given the title it amazes me the writer ignored hundreds of years of powerful folklore in black history, many of which would offer excellent stories.

While the subject matter of the stories is intended to explore racial problems using the horror genre, the film mostly falls flat because of sub-standard writing.

By far the worst of the bunch is the second segment - a truly dreadful script - but elsewhere there isn't really much that shines, in spite of the very competent cast.

Thanks to Laura Crichlow's performance, the most successful story is probably the period piece, and elements of humour sometimes rescues the final story from mediocrity.

Overall, a wasted opportunity which doesn't do black cinema much in the way of favours.

Given that this site is now insisting that I type more, and having nothing else of importance to say, I'll point out that it's now raining outside my window.

I've given it an score of 6, based on the average of what I rated each segment.

The first story, The Lake I think was by far the best one. And it set a strong tone, but I think a majority of the stories that followed were a let down. I think all the stories boasted great ideas, but for me, the execution of them fell short in places.

Brand of Evil again was a good idea, but came across a little silly.

Bride Before You I don't fully get. Would have liked a little more clarity on that one.

The story Fugue State felt a bit comical, and I don't think it should have been. That could have been darker. I don't feel like the main actress in that story pulled it off very well.

Daddy was next strong one after The Lake. I thought the main actor was really good in it, but again, like Bride Before You, it could have elaborated on a little bit.

Sundown was ok. It was an obvious comedy, but didn't really hit all the comedic notes for me.

Individual scores:

The Lake - 7/10 Brand of Evil - 6/10 Bride Before You - 5/10 Fugue State - 4 Daddy - 7/10 Sundown - 5/10.

The gist of "Horror Noire" is to have brief horror stories wherein African-Americans are the protagonists as opposed to side characters who immediately get killed off. Too bad the movie doesn't amount to much. Only the second segment is interesting.

There was one thing that I noticed, and I wonder if it's just for the movie. The segment about the dad featured a scene where the dad was teaching a high school class focusing on Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Enemies: A Love Story". A girl says that it features a survivor of the Nazis' atrocities on a ship sailing to the US and battling a demon. I've only seen Paul Mazursky's big-screen adaptation of that novel, so I don't know the original story. However, Wikipedia's description of the novel doesn't mention a demon, although of course it could've been condensed. Maybe the idea behind that scene here was that the girl didn't read the whole novel and it was just a way to set up that segment. Either way, that is not what the novel or the movie adaptation are really about.

Anyway, a pretty weak movie.

The stories were mediocre, even for an anthology styled film. I think many of the actors could do so much more given better scripts. I hope to see more of them. I've been a fan of Lenora Crichlow since she starred in Being Human (British series). Ditch the writers, keep the cast.