Black as Night

Black as Night
Official release poster
Directed by	Maritte Lee Go
Written by	Sherman Payne
Produced by	John Brister Terra Mair Abroms Adan Orozco Paul B. Uddo
Starring	Asjha Cooper Frabizio Guido Mason Beauchamp Abbie Gayle Craig Tate Keith David
Cinematography	Cybel Martin
Edited by	Tim Mirkovich
Music by	Jacques Bridal Bar
Production company	Blumhouse Television
Distributed by	Amazon Studios
Release date	October 1, 2021 (2021-10-01)
Running time	87 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Black as Night is a 2021 American horror film written by Sherman Payne and directed by Maritte Lee Go. It stars Asjha Cooper, Frabizio Guido, Mason Beauchamp, Abbie Gayle, Craig Tate and Keith David. The film is the sixth installment in the anthological Welcome to the Blumhouse film series.^[1][2]

Plot[]

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A homeless man named Marvin is attacked by vampires while searching for cans.

Shawna is a teenaged girl who lives with her big brother Jamal and her father Steven. Her mother, Denise, is a drug addict who lives at the Ombreaux, a housing project which is now slated to be torn down so the site can be used for mixed-use development. Shawna goes to visit Denise at the Ombreaux, passing the street preacher Babineaux who is leading a protest against the Ombreaux's destruction; Shawna thinks the protest is a waste of time and does not get involved. When Shawna reaches Denise's apartment, Denise begs Shawna for drug money and reveals that she still has a silver locket with photographs of their family. Afterwards, Shawna sees her crush Chris at the Ombreaux, and she also hears beastly noises coming from within a boarded-up apartment.

Shawna's best friend, Pedro, is a smart student who has qualified for a prestigious academy in Texas but does not want to attend; he claims that he's needed in New Orleans, but Shawna thinks he just doesn't want to be around a bunch of white people. Pedro encourages her to attend a party and to talk to Chris. Shawna does so, despite her belief that Chris is only attracted to girls with lighter skin than hers, but she fails to impress Chris and he denies having ever been to the Ombreaux when Shawna says she saw him there. Embarrassed, Shawna quickly leaves the party. On her way home she is stopped by a homeless man and then both are attacked by vampires; however, a red car turns on its headlights and scares away the vampire who was drinking her blood. Shawna manages to make it home, but the homeless man is gone.

Shawna panics at the thought of turning into a vampire, but in the morning she discovers she is not affected by sunlight and has not turned. She then tells Pedro what happened. The two decide that the beastly noises were probably another vampire and they go to warn Denise; however, when they arrive at Denise's apartment, she reveals that her silver locket is missing and that she has already turned. She attacks Shawna but the students open a window to let in sunlight; Denise is set on fire, falls out the window, and burns to death.

The police don't know what to make of Denise's death, though they do recover and return the silver locket. After Denise's funeral, Steven tells Shawna that Denise was pregnant with her during Hurricane Katrina and considered Shawna to be a miracle. Shawna goes to a book club for fans of vampire literature in order to learn how to fight vampires. She meets the club's leader, Granya, who gives Shawna some advice based on her encyclopedic knowledge of books about vampires. Chris then offers his help in bringing Denise's killer to justice, so Shawna takes him and Pedro to the Ombreaux and break into the boarded-up apartment, where they are attacked by the now-vampiric Marvin. They manage to restrain him and compel him to talk; Marvin says that the lead vampire is named LeFrak and that he is turning homeless people and derelicts into a vampire army. The group learns that the red car is LeFrak's and Shawna was presumably spared because LeFrak realized she wasn't actually homeless and therefore might be missed if she vanished. Marvin also says that, in theory, killing LeFrak will turn all of his victims back into humans. The trio considers whether to kill Marvin outright or spare him and risk him warning LeFrak, but then Marvin breaks free of his bonds and attacks them, forcing them to kill him in self-defense.

Shawna and Pedro investigate LeFrak's mansion. Pedro discusses how the mansion was once owned by a slave-owner who built underground tunnels to hide his slaves so that the Union army couldn't free them. While there, Shawna sees a man in a taxi watching her, but he drives off before she can do anything about it. After more investigation they discover that LeFrak is having prostitutes sent to the mansion on a regular basis, so the group decides that Shawna and Granya will dress as prostitutes to infiltrate the mansion and kill LeFrak, while Pedro and Chris prepare a getaway plan. Granya also notes that the prostitutes have probably been brainwashed not to remember the vampires, and she advises Shawna to fight any attempts at brainwashing by focusing on a memory and blocking out everything else.

The quartet gathers outside the mansion at night, and Chris helps Shawna tape a stake to her leg under her stocking. The man in the taxi is back, but Shawna decides to ignore him. She and Granya then approach the mansion, and though Granya freezes at the last moment and says she wants to back out, a vampire opens the door and brings them inside before Granya can flee. Shawna and Granya are brought to a waiting room where Shawna hears Babineaux preaching an aggressive sermon in an adjacent room. Shawna is then brought up to LeFrak's room. LeFrak says that he prefers lighter-skinned girls but will make an exception for Shawna, then makes her remove her locket. She excuses herself to go to the bathroom so she can tuck the stake into the back of her outfit, then returns to LeFrak. He attempts to hypnotize her, but she focuses on a memory of playing with her mother and is able to overcome his spell. Then Pedro and Chris begin spraying garlic into the mansion's vents. Many vampires begin to cough and choke, and though Babineaux tries to deliver a warning, Shawna is able to stake and kill LeFrak first. None of the vampires become human again, however, and the quartet are forced to make a fighting retreat from the mansion. Shawna grabs her locket before leaving.

The group returns to Shawna's home; Steven is at work but Jamal is present and wants to know what's going on. The group disregards him and discusses how the vampires did not revert back to being human as they had expected; Shawna determines that LeFrak wasn't actually the master vampire and then theorizes that Babineaux is in fact the leader. She checks a photograph that Pedro found and notes that Babineaux looks identical to one of the slaves who was made to work at the mansion. Before they can investigate further, a trio of hostile vampires sent by Babineaux breaks into Shawna's house and tries to kill them all, as well as Jamal. Though the group is overwhelmed, the man from the taxi arrives and kills all the hostile vampires, then identifies himself as an 800-year old vampire named Tunde.

Tunde explains that Babineaux is indeed a former slave who was bitten by a vampire, killed his owner, and then became a vampire supremacist who sees humans as inferior. He has been monitoring Babineaux for a long time, which is why he was always waiting in a taxi outside Babineaux's mansion. He also says that modern technology has rendered it unnecessary for vampires to drink human blood, and that he is able to go outside because older vampires who have sufficiently dark skin are immune to the effects of sunlight. When Shawna's skin color comes up, Tunde says that in his native land of Nigeria, the princess of his tribe had extremely dark skin and was considered by everyone to be the most beautiful girl around. He then goes to marshal his forces to kill Babineaux, leaving behind his subordinate Yakubu to both guard the quartet and also make sure they do not leave to fight Babineaux again.

Chris says that he wants to help Shawna because of how his brother is a drug addict; he also admits that he was at the Ombreaux because of his brother. Pedro tells Shawna he has changed his mind and will take advantage of the spot he earned at the Texas academy. Yakubu gets a call from Tunde that Babineaux's army was destroyed but Babineaux himself vanished. The quartet figures that Babineaux must be hiding in the old slave tunnels, but Yakubu will not let them leave to help search until either daylight comes or Babineaux is defeated. Jamal blows garlic into Yakubu's face, allowing the others to escape the house. Granya then says she is too scared to continue, so Shawna thanks her for everything and the remaining trio go into the tunnels without her.

The trio comes across Babineaux and his few remaining minions. Pedro stabs Babineaux with a stake but misses his heart, and Babineaux's minions bring Pedro down and begin to drink his blood. Chris is thrown into a wall by Babineaux and knocked out. Shawna flees into another room and Babineaux chases her, explaining that he's lived long enough to see both peaceful protests and violent riots fail to resolve America's structural inequalities, so he's concluded that only his plan of building a vampire army has a chance of ending oppression. Shawna accuses him of killing her mother and Babineaux says that every cause must have martyrs. He then offers to turn Shawna, saying that her dark skin would make her invulnerable to daylight almost immediately, and that her fighting spirit would make her a very strong vampire. Shawna refuses and the two fight. Babineaux almost defeats Shawna but she manages to stuff the silver locket into his mouth; while he chokes in agony, she stakes him and kills him. Chris then comes out of the other room to see her while carrying Pedro's body, and Shawna breaks down upon seeing Pedro's lifeless form.

Later, Pedro is buried and Shawna notes that she remains great friends with Granya and is dating Chris. She has also started participating in public protests to defend the Ombreaux from being torn down. One night she invites Chris over, but when she answers a knock on the door, Chris isn't there. Instead she sees Pedro, who is now a vampire.

Cast[]

• Asjha Cooper as Shawna
• Frabizio Guido as Pedro
• Mason Beauchamp as Chris
• Abbie Gayle as Granya
• Craig Tate as LeFrak
• Keith David as Babineaux

Release[]

The film was released in the United States on October 1, 2021, by Amazon Studios.^[3]

Reception[]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 70% based on 30 reviews, with an average rating of 6.20/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "It may not be particularly scary, but Black as Night has just enough bite to satisfy audiences in the mood for dark, teen-focused supernatural drama.^[4] On Metacritic, the film has an weighted average score of 53 out of 100 based on 7 critics indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[5]

Denis Harvey of Variety give the film a positive review and wrote:

It works well enough as a teen supernatural melodrama, reasonably slick if a tad silly - less well as straight-up horror, let alone as a commentary on race-centric historical and political issues that never feel more than pasted-on here.^[6]

Andrew Murray from The Upcoming give the film 3 out of 5 rating and he wrote:

Black as Night is an enjoyably pulpy, but flawed genre outing. Its deployment of social commentary puts an engaging twist on a familiar premise, but a scatter-brained execution sours the taste.^[7]

References[]

External links[]

• Black as Night at IMDb
• Black as Night at Rotten Tomatoes