Black Horror Cinema
Horror film has long served as a mirror of cultural anxieties, staging collective fears in forms that are at once exaggerated and symbolic. At any given time, the cinematic construction of monsters—whether ghosts, zombies, mutants, vampires, cannibals, or psychopaths—reveals much about hegemonic norms, including what is considered desirable, what is repressed, and who or what is cast as Other. American horror film, in particular, is notorious for its reliance on racial and gendered stereotypes. More often than not, its gaze has been a White gaze, evident in portrayals of Black masculinity as an animalistic threat, depictions of Voodoo in early zombie films, and the disturbingly frequent trope that “the Black guy dies first.”
At the same time, horror has provided a space for social critique, resistance, and the articulation of nonhegemonic forms of subjectivity and agency. This course takes the contemporary renaissance of Black Horror Cinema, or Black Neo-Horror—exemplified by films such as Jordan Peele’s celebrated allegory of liberal racism Get Out (2017), Nia DaCosta’s Candyman (2021), or Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (2025)—as an occasion to explore the long tradition of Black filmmakers, performers, and audiences mobilizing the horror genre to confront racial oppression, reckon with collective trauma, imagine social change, center positive portrayals of Blackness, or just have fun. We will consider “Black horror” in its multiple registers: the historical reality of Black life in America as itself a form of horror; films made by Black filmmakers who use the genre for critique or reinvention; works featuring Black actors and characters; and the significance of audience and reception—how Black viewers have interpreted, resisted, or reclaimed horror.
Through screenings of Night of the Living Dead (1968), Ganja and Hess (1973), Tales from the Hood (1995), Candyman (1992 and 2021) and Get Out (2017), the course will pair key examples of Black Horror Cinema with foundational texts in Black Studies, African American history, and Film Theory.
All films will be screened at selected cinemas in Dresden outside the regular course slot (friends invited).
Please note: Given this course's theme in relation to horror and racism, we will engage potentially disturbing material, incl. filmic depictions of racial violence, strong language, and scary movie scenes. Our discussions and secondary texts will contextualize this content in the study of popular culture, horror studies, and the history of U.S. racism.
Horror film has long served as a mirror of cultural anxieties, staging collective fears in forms that are at once exaggerated and symbolic. At any given time, the cinematic construction of monsters—whether ghosts, zombies, mutants, vampires, cannibals, or psychopaths—reveals much about hegemonic norms, including what is considered desirable, what is repressed, and who or what is cast as Other. American horror film, in particular, is notorious for its reliance on racial and gendered stereotypes. More often than not, its gaze has been a White gaze, evident in portrayals of Black masculinity as an animalistic threat, depictions of Voodoo in early zombie films, and the disturbingly frequent trope that “the Black guy dies first.”
At the same time, horror has provided a space for social critique, resistance, and the articulation of nonhegemonic forms of subjectivity and agency. This course takes the contemporary renaissance of Black Horror Cinema, or Black Neo-Horror—exemplified by films such as Jordan Peele’s celebrated allegory of liberal racism Get Out (2017), Nia DaCosta’s Candyman (2021), or Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (2025)—as an occasion to explore the long tradition of Black filmmakers, performers, and audiences mobilizing the horror genre to confront racial oppression, reckon with collective trauma, imagine social change, center positive portrayals of Blackness, or just have fun. We will consider “Black horror” in its multiple registers: the historical reality of Black life in America as itself a form of horror; films made by Black filmmakers who use the genre for critique or reinvention; works featuring Black actors and characters; and the significance of audience and reception—how Black viewers have interpreted, resisted, or reclaimed horror.
Through screenings of Night of the Living Dead (1968), Ganja and Hess (1973), Tales from the Hood (1995), Candyman (1992 and 2021) and Get Out (2017), the course will pair key examples of Black Horror Cinema with foundational texts in Black Studies, African American history, and Film Theory.
All films will be screened at selected cinemas in Dresden outside the regular course slot (friends invited).
Please note: Given this course's theme in relation to horror and racism, we will engage potentially disturbing material, incl. filmic depictions of racial violence, strong language, and scary movie scenes. Our discussions and secondary texts will contextualize this content in the study of popular culture, horror studies, and the history of U.S. racism.