Black History Month Celebration: Shudder’s “Horror Noire Anthology” Movie Review

Horror Noire – Short Film Anthology Review

I watched this anthology with great enjoyment! All of the segments are very solid, well produced, well executed, and excellently acted by the talent involved.

I appreciate all of the entries included allusions to the stories that came before them in Black cinema, Black cultural mythology and heritage folk stories, and general pop culture references. I truly don’t think there was a single “clunker” in the mix, which is something I have grown to expect from anthologies of short films; I was so pleased for it not to be the case with this one!

If you forced me to choose favorites, I would say my personal top 3 were “Brand of Evil,” “The Lake,” and “Sundown.” And if forced to choose just one, I’d be very upset with you and then say “Sundown” thanks to its snarky, witty humor and campy over the top energy. I love when the horror genre gets a little self-referential and goofy to offset difficult, frightening, or unsettling concepts or actions.

This is a fantastic follow up to the original Horror Noire documentary, and if you’ve not seen it I’d recommend viewing that first and then this collection. It will give you a little perspective into the choices made by each writer and creative team.

And for a final note I’d like to shout to the powers that be: please for the love of all that is unholy, will AMC/Shudder make room for more content like this and way less of content from bozos and sex pests like Eli Roth? Let’s give the funding to more creators like the substantially skilled and brilliant folks involved in the Horror Noire entries instead!

Movie review by Ellen Avigliano

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