The Best Black Horror Movies To Watch For Spooky Season

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! No, not Christmas, you sillies. It’s spooky season! Growing up, my grandfather was a horror movie fanatic who made sure to pass that love on to me every fall. Should I have seen Scream when I was only five years old? Probably not, but it was the moment that kick-started my lifelong love of the genre. As I continue the family tradition of turning fall into a nonstop horror marathon, I figured I’d share the love and recommend some of the best and Blackest horror movies you can watch on streaming.

Sinners

You can accuse me of recency bias all you want, but Sinners is undoubtedly one of the greatest horror films of all time. In his first at-bat in the genre, director Ryan Coogler delivered a masterwork.

Set in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the film follows Sammy (Miles Caton crushing it in his first role) as he helps his cousins, identical twins Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan in an incredible dual performance), open a juke joint in their hometown. Their plans quickly go awry when Irish vampire Remmick (Jack O’Connell) hears Sammy’s soulful singing and decides to crash the party.

The film wears its influences on its sleeve (see: “From Dusk Til Dawn”), but gets away with it because of how much new material it adds to the genre. It’s a meditation on Black art and ownership, an incredible celebration of the blues and Black music, a bracingly original take on vampires, and it’s all anchored by a cast of complex characters that you’re actively rooting for.

Sinners is sensual, funny, thought-provoking, and most importantly, scary as all get out. This is the perfect watch in the run-up to Halloween.

Sinners is currently streaming on HBO Max and available for rental or purchase on most digital storefronts. (I’d highly recommend the 4K Blu-ray, but that’s because I’m a snob about picture quality.)

Get Out

It cannot be overstated how much Jordan Peele’s Get Out reshaped the modern horror landscape. Real talk, I define horror movies as before Get Out and after Get Out.

The film takes an already rich horror premise, meeting your partner’s parents going horribly wrong, and adds a brilliant sociopolitical subtext that only heightens the terror. Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) joins his white girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) on a trip to visit her parents (Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford). What should be a standard couple’s vacation takes a dark turn when he discovers that her family has a deadly obsession with Blackness.

Get Out is the perfect Black horror film. Chris is not dumb and immediately understands something is sus about this family, even if he can’t exactly figure out what off rip. The film perfectly clocks white folks’ obsession with, and fetishization of, Blackness. Not even gonna front, I haven’t considered dating a white girl for nearly a decade, largely because of this movie. (I was already averse to the idea after having to explain “yes, racism does still exist” to a fling in college, but this movie really drove it home.)

While many films have tried and failed to capture the magic of Get Out, the movie is so good you really can’t blame them for trying.

Get Out is currently streaming on HBO Max and available for rental or purchase on most digital storefronts.

The First Purge

The First Purge is basically the closest thing we’ve got to a Black horror-Die Hard.

Directed by Gerard McMurray, The First Purge takes place during, uh, the first Purge. The New Founding Fathers of America have been elected into power and decide that the best way to combat rising unemployment, inflation, and homelessness is by experimenting with legalizing all crime for a 12-hour period. So, of course, they use a Black community in Staten Island as their first testing ground. They offer the low-income residents a $5,000 stimulus check to stay in the neighborhood, with more money promised if they actively participate in the Purge.

Isaiah (Joivan Wade) decides to participate in the Purge despite his sister and anti-Purge activist Nya (Lex Scott Davis) asking him not to. Meanwhile, gang boss Dmtri (Y’lan Noel) tries his best to lay low during the Purge, but of course, things don’t go to plan. All three of their paths inevitably converge as they realize the dark truth behind the first Purge.

While Isiah is the textbook “you’re not using your brain!” horror character, Y’lan Noel crushes it when it comes time for him to go full action hero. I’m still mad this movie didn’t get Noel more roles as an action lead.

The Purge franchise as a whole has a surprisingly pronounced sociopolitical subtext at the heart of it. No one would accuse the Purge films of subtlety, but considering how American society seems to be getting progressively dumber, maybe the blunt force politics of the Purge movies are necessary.

The First Purge is currently streaming on Paramount+ and available for rental or purchase on most digital storefronts.

The People Under The Stairs

Wes Craven is one of my all-time favorite directors, and I feel like The People Under the Stairs is the most slept-on movie in his oeuvre. In Craven’s best works, there’s a real thoughtfulness and intelligence behind the bloodshed. The People Under the Stairs is a prime example of that, as it takes the baseline premise of “kid sneaks into the spooky house at the end of the street” and uses it to talk about gentrification, class warfare, and race.

Despite the seriousness of those themes, The People Under the Stairs is also a very campy dark comedy. There are some real scares, especially when we first meet the titular people under the stairs, but the film also has a surprising amount of jokes.

Despite being written and directed by a white man, The People Under the Stairs is unabashedly a Black horror film. It should feel more discordant than it does, but somehow it works as a socially conscious, campy, yet grotesque thrill ride.

The People Under the Stairs is currently streaming on Peacock and available for rental or purchase on most digital storefronts.

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