Report by Louise Giadom, FAN Young Consultant
Every year in November, Abertoir Horror Festival welcomes filmmakers and audiences in Aberystwyth, Wales. This year, in partnership with Bristol Black Horror Club and as part of BFI’s In Dreams are Monsters season, a UK-wide celebration of horror on film, Abertoir dedicated an entire day of their program to deep dive into Blaxploitation film.
Within a packed schedule of cult classic horror films both old and modern, Saturday 19th November 2022 was officially the blaxploitation day. The day consisted of four screenings - I Walked with a Zombie (dir. Jacques Tourneur), The Beast Must Die (dir. Paul Annett), Sugar Hill (dir. Paul Maslansky), and Bones (dir. Ernest R. Dickerson), as well as an event introducing Blaxploitation Horror presented by professor of Gothic Studies and visiting lecturer at the University of Sheffield Maisha Wester. The main event however was a 50th anniversary screening of Blacula directed by William Crain followed by a Q&A - for which he travelled all the way from the US - which was broadcast to cinemas across the UK.
While the Blacula screening was the main event the day was shaped around, Maisha Wester’s introduction to blaxploitation horror was incredibly important and well placed in the middle of the day, just before the film. Her session was funny and educational, a whistlestop tour through how the era came to be, its legacy as well as some of the things wrong with it. Without this moment of insight, the day would have been incomplete – a celebration of blaxploitation horror without the contextual understanding behind the movement.
The anniversary screening was the first time I watched Blacula and it was great to see it surrounded by people who obviously loved and appreciated the film. It was clear this was a big event for everyone, with the cinema being full almost to capacity. There was clear excitement for the Q&A with director William Crain and everyone in attendance was fully engaged with the conversation and his anecdotes about the film and his life (including his desire to get back into writing and filmmaking!).
In her session Maisha touched on the importance of context both on and off screen which is important when discussing blaxploitation as the movement and its films only truly make sense when there is an understanding of the time they were made.
Firstly, exploitation films were typically low-budget films that played at grindhouse theatres, made to create a fast profit by referring to or exploiting current trends or genres. Within the exploitation label you have sexploitation films, Ozploitation films, slasher films, hixploitation and of course, blaxploitation films.
Secondly, and perhaps in more direct context to how the movement came to be, Black creatives always struggled finding their place within the film industry; in the early days of film, rather than hiring Black actors, white actors performed in blackface and as distribution houses emerged, Black filmmakers struggled getting distribution for their films. This led to independent movements like race films (1915-1950s), blaxploitation (1970s), and the LA Rebellion (1960s-1980s) taking place, all of which involved Black creatives paving their own way and creating their own stories.
The difficulties Black filmmakers in particular faced in production and distribution, the result of which usually left them working with low budgets and little faith from execs, set the scene for a lot of discussion in the Q&A with William Crain, as he explained some of the abusive acts he experienced while creating Blacula. For instance, the slow-motion scene where Juanita attacks Sam in the morgue - arguably the standout scene of the movie - almost didn’t exist. As Crain explained, while he knew exactly how he wanted to shoot the scene and the kind of camera he would need, it was an uphill battle trying to get the equipment as he kept being denied it. It got to the point he attempted to work around not having the right camera but thankfully, just as they were about to shoot the scene, the camera arrived right on time.
Blaxploitation films were all about empowering Black people, placing them at the forefront of their own stories as they overcame oppressive, antagonistic forces- typically white authority figures. The films were commentaries on their times, entertaining yet complex in what they were trying to say about Black life, culture, and people.
Of the films screened at Abertoir Horror Festival, The Beast Must Die, Sugar Hill and Bones are the clearest in showing this opposition to white forces. Though they use different monsters – werewolf, zombie, and ghosts respectively – each of the characters in these films are seeking revenge or justice against either an obvious white foe or hidden white foe. In the case of Bones and Sugar Hill our heroes are fighting against police corruption and the white mafia, while The Beast Must Die is about hunting the hidden white monster. This is made clear from the beginning, with our Black protagonist surrounding himself with his white suspects, and stating his intention to reveal and kill whichever is the beast.
It should be acknowledged that while blaxploitation films had good intentions of placing Black people in positions of power and telling Black stories, it wasn’t perfect and there was a lot of dissension around the movement, particularly due to its representation of Black people and Black life. Moving away from stereotypes such as the mammy and aunt Jemimah, blaxploitation instead created new ones presenting Black men as pimps and pushers, and women as hypersexualised characters.
On reflection, the schedule for the day was a well thought out, clear journey through blaxploitation film. While I Walked with a Zombie isn’t a Blaxploitation film, it gave an idea of Blackness in Horror before the genre came to be. Filmmaker Elias Williams’ recorded introduction to the film shed light on Hollywood’s complete reinterpretation of ‘voodoo’, and tied in with Sugar Hill’s prominent use of voodoo, this time in a blaxploitation setting.
It was great to be able to experience such a variety of blaxploitation horror films, to explore each of the monster archetypes (werewolf, vampire, zombies, ghost) and how they speak to societal anxieties and racial issues.
Maisha’s session provided some great food for thought and a welcoming environment to discuss different opinions on blaxploitation. There’s a lot to be said for the era and it was great to get an actual, iconic blaxploitation director’s insight into the legacy of the movement too.
This event screened as part of In Dreams Are Monsters, A Season of Horror Films, a UK-wide film season supported by the National Lottery and BFI Film Audience Network. https://www.indreamsaremonsters.co.uk/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Louise Giadom is a social media marketer with a background in Events Management and an MA from the National Film and Television School. She currently works at All3Media International. Louise has experience writing reviews and articles for The New Black Film Collective and Birds Eye View. Louise is a FAN Young Consultant.
FAN YOUNG CONSULTANTS
The FAN Young Consultants are a 9 strong group of under 30 year olds working in Film Exhibition across the UK who’ve been brought together to represent and provide an authentic youth voice for the Network. Working with Film Hub London’s Young Audience lead Moira McVean, currently the group recommends new release films that they believe will resonate particularly well with their peers and young people aged 16-30. https://filmlondon.org.uk/resource/fan-young-consultants
ABOUT ABERTOIR
Abertoir is an annual horror and horror film festival held in the Aberystwyth Arts Centre in Ceredigion, Wales in November. Abertoir is Wales' only horror festival and is a member of the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation. As well as screening new big-budget horror films, classic and independent films form a large and important part of the festival line-up. Each year a short film competition is held, which showcases horror and fantasy short films from around the world. In addition to film screenings, the festival regularly features concerts, theatre shows and masterclasses in its line up.
