Terrifying truths: The rise of Black female trauma in horror cinema

It’s a wonder how Black women went overlooked in past horror films. With their presence unseen and openly neglected in past releases where white counterparts were given longer screen time, storylines mostly relied on resolving their innermost problems through challenging external factors. However, Black women face their complex existences continuously, grappling with their worthiness in a world where they’re disregarded.

Take the 2005 movie "The Skeleton Key," where Jill Dupay, vulnerably portrayed by actress Joy Bryant, aids her friend, caretaker Caroline Ellis (Kate Hudson), while she’s under duress at a haunted plantation home in Louisiana. Despite the state rounding out the top three in the country’s highest Black populations, the film doesn’t provide Ellis equal visibility as her white friend, although she’s meaningful to the plot. Black women in horror came of age in 1970s movies, most independently made, like "Ganga & Hess" and "Sugar Hill," but their decline came at the turn of the ‘80s well into the new millennium, feeding into the "Black character dies first" trope.

While Black female bodies were ravaged early on in slasher films like "Scream 2" and "Freddy vs. Jason," it was 1998 gorefest "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer" that saw the survival of Karla Wilson, played by R&B icon and actress Brandy. Wilson was a final girl among Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Julie James, and 26 years later, Brandy returns as a scream queen in the new A24 psychological horror, "The Front Room." Instead of needing a companion to ensure her safety–she fills a maternal void for her white husband, Norman (Andrew Burnap), her lead character of Belinda becomes her own liberator. In 2024, it’s films like "The Front Room," "The Deliverance," and, although considerably suspenseful, "Blink Twice," that show Black women atone with their traumas, which hadn’t quite been confronted in traditional horrors.

"The Front Room" puts viewers in Belinda’s hesitance, and ultimately, agitation, when her home, motherhood and marriage are encroached upon by her disconcerting stepmother, Solange (Kathryn Hunter). After her husband dies, Solange manipulates herself into the home of her estranged stepson, Norman, where the motive is clear: “This house needs a mother.” Where Norman, already unnerved by Solange’s re-appearance, places household duties on his expectant wife, a racial and religious divide between the women is foreboding. Belinda notices a Daughters of the Confederacy certificate among Solange’s belongings. Solange intentionally places ichthys necklaces on Belinda’s African effigies.

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The two differing beliefs between Solange, a bullheaded and Bible-thumping curmudgeon and Belinda, a free-thinking anthropology educator of Haitian descent, lead to a literal house divide. Midway through the film, Belinda welcomes her rainbow baby, a daughter, whom Solange names Laurie. Rather than being comforted, Belinda is thrust into a religious confrontation with Solange and her prayer group, along with the home being completely redecorated with antique oddities and sacred imagery. Belinda and Solange face-off, the latter tormenting her stepdaughter-in-law with her excrement and faking elder abuse–in one scene, Solange violently smashes her mouth against a living room table, placing the blame on Belinda when an oblivious Norman walks in. The atrocities that Belinda eventually faces are foreshadowed during a dinner conversation, where Solange complains about the food being too savory for her taste before she condescends Belinda for not knowing “what real racism is.”

But Belinda lives it, through the microaggressions from her department head–she exits the position after oft-delayed meetings–and through being forced to care for someone she comes to despise. The underbelly of religious and domestic labor traumas are shown in Belinda’s struggle for respect. There can only be one mother of the house, and after repeatedly being aggrieved, Belinda smothers Solange to death.

Similarly, religious wounds, or "church hurt" are exposed in Lee Daniels’ exorcism film "The Deliverance," albeit having a slapdash script. Biracial mother of three, Ebony Jackson (Andra Day), runs into conflict with her white mother, Alberta (Glenn Close), a born-again Christian who hasn’t been reprieved by her only daughter. Jackson accosts Alberta about her past alcoholism, has distressing sex abuse flashbacks and refuses to allow crosses in her house–seeing it as Alberta’s cop-out until faith saves the family. The Jacksons undergo the hardships of poverty, familial dysfunction and generational curses when demons latch onto their circumstances, leaving Ebony to fight for redemption.

Taken advantage of in the horror-adjacent "Blink Twice" is protagonist Frida (Naomi Ackie), a down-on-her-luck waitress who’s wafted into paradise by billionaire businessman Slater King (Channing Tatum). At second glance, the lavish rooms, neverending parties and drug overindulgence aren’t as fun as they seem. Frida and the other women on the trip are being conditioned into believing that they’re enjoying themselves through erased memory; the more brutal the men torture them, the more the women forget. Both awkward and stumbling through self-worth, initially depending on the affections of a wealthy white man, Frida becomes the object of King’s sadism. Towards the film’s climax, Frida realizes the truth about King and his male entourage, deciding to no longer seek superficial gain if it means betraying her morals.

Horror hasn’t yet become the haven for Black female depiction, but with the modern emergence of their explored traumas, it’s a meaningful start for the next age of cinema.