BAM Presents HORROR NOIRE: A HISTORY OF BLACK HORROR

On Monday, February 4 at 7pm, BAM presents the east coast premiere of Xavier Burgin's Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (2019), a new documentary exploring a century of genre films that by turns utilized, caricatured, exploited, sidelined, and finally embraced Black Americans in Hollywood, tracing a secret history through their connection to the horror genre. The documentary will be followed by a panel discussion with author, educator, and Horror Noire executive producer Tananarive Due, filmmaker R. Shanea Williams, comics author Greg Anderson Elysee, and Horror Noire co-writer/producer and Graveyard Shift Sisters founder Ashlee Blackwell, as well as a screening of Rusty Cundieff's classic urban horror anthology, Tales from the Hood (1995).

Adapting executive producer Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman's seminal book of the same title, and informed by executive producer Tananarive Due's UCLA course on Black Horror, Horror Noire presents the living and the dead, using new and archival interviews from scholars and creators, the voices who survived the genre's past trends, and those shaping its future. Tracing the place of Black Americans in the genre from the silent era, through Duane Jones' groundbreaking starring role in Night of the Living Dead, blaxploitation horror, Candyman and the urban horror of the 90s, to the current horror resurgence and the popularity of critical and commercial hits like Get Out, Horror Noire investigates the way these cinematic trends both reflect and affect the African-American experience. In interviews with actors including Keith David, Loretta Devine, Rachel True, and Tony Todd, filmmakers Jordan Peele, Rusty Cundieff, Tina Mabry, William Crain, and many others, the documentary finds meaning in horror's past and imagines the genre's exciting future.

Horror Noire is an original documentary feature by Shudder, AMC Networks' premium streaming service for horror, thriller, and the supernatural.