Black as Night

Well, the 2021 horror movie "Black as Night" came without me ever hearing about it, and I stumbled upon it by random chance. And with it being a new vampire movie, of course I needed no persuasion to sit down and watch it.

While writer Sherman Payne managed to put together a good enough storyline and plot, the movie did suffer from being just-another-run-of-the-mill vampire movie. Yeah, while entertaining enough, the storyline just didn't differentiate itself from the numerous similar vampire movies out there. At least you know what you will be getting in for here, when you sit down to watch "Black as Night".

I must admit that I found the movie's cover rather intersting, and it was what initially made me single out this particular movie. Director Maritte Lee Go managed to take the somewhat generic script and make it watchable enough for a single viewing.

The acting in "Black as Night" was good, and lead actress Asjha Cooper (playing Shawna) definitely carried the movie rather well. I was not familiar with her prior to this movie, but she really managed to stand up and did well. I have to admit that I was rather thrilled when I saw that Keith David was on the cast list, and he does bring his usual dark charms and usual demanding attention while on the screen thing with him, for better or worse. One thing that was disappointing, though, was the fact that Keith David wasn't really given as much on-screen time as he deserved, or as the character he portrayed deserved.

Visually then "Black as Night" was good. The movie deviated from the usual vampire lore with long upper fangs only for the vampire creatures. Instead, the vampires portrayed in "Black as Night" had rows - both up and down - of sharp fangs, making them look more feral. A nice touch, for sure. And I like the effects when a vampire was slain, that was definitely good entertainment.

"Black as Night" is watchable, for sure. But the contents of the storyline and the fact that it is essentially a rather generic vampire movie makes it unsuitable for more than a single viewing.

My rating of "Black as Night" lands on a bland five out of ten stars. There was just too much squandered potential here.

2 out of 5 stars.

Poor script and direction. The plot is decent. The film does lack scares and thrills. The acting is horrible. Especially with the main characters best friend who is annoying and cheesy with dialogue. It is one film that is forgettable. Definitely a film worth skipping.

Favourably with a wooden stick/stake that is ... deep digging ... wait what? My maybe questionable sense of humor aside, the movie has some Black Lives Matter vibes going for it. You may find this disturbing (for the wrong reasons, pun intended) or you can go with the flow.

Overall a decent effort, that I think has been taken down rating wise because some couldn't handle what the message was overall. Or maybe they were dissapointed by the really terrible ending (last scene) ... that I would understand ... wasn't enough to drag my rating down but hey - we all receive and digest differently don't we? Social commentary is more than fine, it drags in other places. Still Kudos to Blumhouse for allowing movies with a message to be made ...

I think that what this movies strides for is important. It uses this as a way to talk about issues that effect people of colour but it wants to be more than it is.

This is a Halloween-teen movie. The message gets lost because this type of film isn't strong enough to carry it.

The writing is bad but it is mostly the dialogue. People who write movies like on earth, they talk to other humans. Why then write characters who don't talk like real humans? It drives me crazy. "Girl, even tho I'm hot I can't fight vampires" that is like paraphrased but it's lines like that! They drive me insane!

It's not as bad as the reviews would have you believe. It's quick and clips along nicely. So even if you don't like it, the credits roll before you know it!

Another poor effort from The Welcome To Blumhouse series.

The lead is supposed to be, say 16, yet is played by a 28 year old actress. The fact is not helped by at least twice people mentioning she 'got breasts' this summer.

The 'good' vampires was totally ridiculous and went absolutely nowhere, the plotting was all over the place, really poor.

Pedro is a contender for most irritating character of 2021, no one in real life hopefully speaks like that.

Also referring to the main character as Wesley after Wesley Snipes because of the darkness of her skin....not cool.