Remember all the rappers who suddenly became actors in the 90s? As somewhat of a movie buff, I had mixed feelings about it, which kind of makes sense when you consider the mixed results viewers got. When I think back on that period, two men immediately come to mind: Mr. O'Shea Jackson and Mr. James Todd Smith, more musically known as Ice Cube and LL Cool J, respectively.

It wasn't their music that made them stick out to me (although I WAS a fan of Ice Cube's early solo work after he left NWA).  They stuck out because their presence in a couple films marked a milestone in my cinema viewing: both men survived horror films at a time when viewers like me could bank on 'the black guy' being the first or second to go. That's how it typically was in horror films.  Black people who were introduced in the first fifteen minutes usually weren't around (alive) for long, especially if they happened to be the white protagonist's buddy or teammate or some such.  (Of course this doesn't apply to black horror films released during the Blaxploitation film era of the 70s; however, I'm referring to horror films intended for mainstream audiences.) 

Ice Cube and LL Cool J may not have actually been the first to become the 'final brothas' in a horror film, but they were the first to catch my attention doing it.  I can still remember watching HALLOWEEN H20: 20 YRS LATER (1998) and DEEP BLUE SEA (1999) and being awestruck that LL Cool J's character survived both of those harrowing journeys. In DBS he even got to kill one of the creatures menacing the cast. Ditto for Ice Cube's roles in ANACONDA (1997) and GHOSTS OF MARS (2001).

It's April of 2025 as I'm writing this, and horror films have certainly come a long way from the 1990s.  The advent of writer/director Jordan Peele's films GET OUT (2017), US (2019) and NOPE (2022) has gifted horror fans with a fresh cinematic landscape where black characters can carry a genre not traditionally driven or even significantly populated by Americans of African descent.  For the purpose of social and critical analysis, horror movies with Black characters can now be held to a pre-Jordan vs. post-Jordan measuring stick. But getting to this point took “a whole lotta tryin'” as lyricized by the opening theme to 'The Jeffersons.'  

Horror Noire is enjoying a huge emergence not only in Hollywood but on the printed page with black authors like Brandon Massey and Tananarive Due stirring tales of supernatural and paranormal horror into the collective Black Experience mix.  I'm doing what I can to throw my hat in the ring also.  And regardless to whatever level of involvement I achieve, I'm looking forward to experiencing and enjoying the continued development of this fictional genre.