The HORROR NOIRE Syllabus

In February, we premiered our first original documentary, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, presenting a look at 100 years of cinema through the lens of African American depiction and participation in horror movies. It’s a fun, fascinating journey from The Birth of a Nation (which, for some, was undoubtedly a horror movie) through Night of the Living Dead and the Civil Rights era, on to Blacula, Candyman, and Tales from the Hood, and culminating in Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us.

Horror Noire is great—and don’t just take our word for it—but there’s only so much history you can squeeze into one documentary. If you want to learn more, we can’t over-praise the book that inspired the film, Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman’s influential Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to the Present. If you want to go even deeper, Dr. Coleman, author/educator Tananarive Due and Graveyard Shift Sisters‘ Ashlee Blackwell (all producers on the film) have put together a comprehensive Horror Noire syllabus (downloadable here), seven pages of things to watch, read and listen to, to deepen your appreciation of Black Horror.