‘The Blackening’ teases horror-movie tropes

Above : The horror film “The Blackening” opens Friday. (Photo/Lionsgate)

We learned a lot about horror-movie tropes from the “Scream” series. Especially in “Scream 2” (1997), the rules of the genre were spelled out one by one.

And among them? A Black character will be among the first to die.

It took director Tim Story and screenwriters Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins to develop that simple notion into a film unto itself. Its title: “The Blackening.”

And it opens officially on Friday (though an “early access” showing occurs tonight at 8 at AMC River Park Square, and evening shows are scheduled at various area theaters for Thursday.)

The plot is simple enough: A group of Black friends who get together for a Juneteenth celebration. They end of, of course, trapped in a remote cabin and hunted by a deranged killer. The clever tagline to all this can be found in a single sentence:

“If the entire cast of a horror movie is Black, who dies first?”

Tim Grierson of Screen International (who must work nights as a standup wannabe) wrote, “Even when the jokes occasionally fall flat, the ideas are killer.”

Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote that the film “is a slasher movie that’s also a slapdash enjoyable social satire. That the satire turns out to be sharper than the scares isn’t a problem – it’s all part of the film’s slovenly demonic party atmosphere.”

Oh, and another standard trope? Never split up. They who go off on their own … well, you know.