"The Blackening" Review: A Clever Twist on Slasher Movie Tropes

"The Blackening" is a comedic horror film that tests viewers' familiarity with horror tropes while messing with the variegated verities of Black identity. The film's masked killer offers the friends a lose-lose, if philosophically fertile and futile, proposition: Sacrifice the Blackest among you and the rest go free. The ensemble embodies the affection as well as the prickliness of friends who may not have seen each other in a while, but know each other well and may still harbor a resentment or two.