The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar by Robin R. Means ColemanMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Black horror points a finger at evil because those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, just like those who forget the rules of horror are just plain doomed.
The Black Guy Dies First affectionately celebrated the horror genre by discussing, poking fun, and delving into Black acted and made horror movies, from a fan, social, and academic standpoint. The book takes readers through the historical atmosphere of horror movies, starting with Spider Baby's “Black Guy Dies First” template, to the 1960s/70s “Blaxploitation”, '80s slasher carnage, '90s/2000s hood and urban horror, and into the 2010s/current more nuanced and multifaceted Black characters and stories. Along with movie atmosphere, characterizations like “Sidekicks Who Survive” are discussed with titles and movie characters.
As Dr. Coleman has previously wrote, Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present and Mr. Harris is the creator behind BlackHorrorMovies.com and the Shudder series Behind the Monsters, their love of the genre and knowledge was evident. I enjoyed the layout of informing, intersecting, and numerous movie titles given to support and give examples of what was being discussed and then the “breaks” in-between to entertain. The list of actors whose characters gave their lives for white people, rightly had Tony Todd at number one (Keith Diamond gets a very justified shout-out after Dr. Giggles did him wrong).
Horror has a lengthy history of addressing newsworthy topics, from the nuclear fallout of Godzilla ( 1954 ) and Them! ( 1955 ) to the McCarthyism in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), the gender roles in Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Stepford Wives (1975), the anti-war stance of Deathdream (1974), the eco-horror of Prophecy (1978), and the consumerism critique of Dawn of the Dead (1978) and The Stuff (1985).
I've always felt that horror is one of the best genres to hold some of these discussions because of it's ability to explore and breakdown our individual, collective, and manufactured fears and how we work to overcome them. With data numbers given like, in an informal and soul-crushing survey of almost one thousand horror movies containing more than fifteen hundred appearances by Black characters, we found their mortality rate to be about 45%. and Hollywood Diversity Report from UCLA’s Division of Social Sciences, in 2019, only 5.5% of the directors and 5.6% of the writers of theatrical releases were Black, and it was only in the COVID-strapped, theatrically challenged anomaly that was 2020 that the percentage of Black directors (15.1%) and writers (13.5%) approached the actual national demographic (Blacks accounting for 13.4% of the U.S. population). Further, as of 2019, 91% of studio heads, 93% of senior executives, and 86 % of unit heads were White. it makes Ben from Night of the Living Dead and Get Out even more important.
He is thus the literal ghost of racism coming back to haunt future generations. Although he sets his sights on Helen, anyone can feel his wrath, regardless of race, class, age, gender, or sexuality. We all suffer. Hate breeds hate, and violence breeds violence. The legend of conjuring him by saying his name eerily parallels current calls to say the names of the victims of racial violence. Like Candyman, they need to be remembered in order to retain their power.
If you're a horror fan, this book feels like a must to add to your collection. The sheer amount of movies and some tv shows, Watchman and Lovecraft Country (unless I missed it, Ruth Negga's Tulip from Preacher was left out) listed makes it worth it. I enjoyed mentions of some of my favorites, Fallen, Demon Knight, His House, and The Purge collection and have written down quite a few that I now need to watch, The Devil Lives Here, The Vault, and The Inheritance. This book doesn't disparage the movies and characters but acknowledges, discusses, and pokes fun at the problematic elements of some of them, which is necessary when you love something but see that it can be improved. I had a fun and thoughtful time and yes, the authors give their Top Ten Horror movies list at the end for you to compare with your own. The last line of the acknowledgments at the end had me screeching (look, I watched the original Candyman by myself at age 11ish, I don't say things five times, like how I don't mess around looking into street grates) and then laughing, what a perfect way to end a book about horror.
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