Is modern horror white centric? This is the question that I've come to ask myself. Now that you're thinking about that question I'm sure Get Out has come to mind but there really hasn't been another film that pops up to fill that number two spot. The reason I even raise this question is because while I understood the jokes and references, I felt as though I was on the outside looking in with this watch. This wasn't made for me. Personally I mean. I'm not speaking for a group of anyone as I can't represent that. Even as a horror fan with this blog I can't speak for all horror fans. Yet I just felt a disconnect. I'm probably rambling into oblivion with an absence of a point, but I had that step back moment and this is now clawing at my skull.
If you took The Purge films, mixed in some Beverly Hillbillies, and made them into an "urban" horror-comedy then you'd have Meet the Blacks. Carl Black takes a stash of weed and money from a dealer's house after that dealer goes to jail. He moves his entire family from Chicago to Beverly Hills to live a rich life. Carl assumes that the purge (it's literally called "the purge" in this movie) won't effect them in their rich neighborhood. His presumption is wrong and everyone from the drug dealer he stole from, to racist neighbors, black klansman, the Visa company, etc. come after him. It's literally a revolving door of "Who are you?" "You owe me money for xxxx" or "I don't like black people."
As I mentioned, I was on the outside looking in here. The regular jokes were not as funny to me as the obvious ad lib jokes were. The presence of some major stars like Paul Mooney, Charlie Murphy (RIP), and Mike Tyson kept it interesting but some duds like George Lopez (as President El Bama) and Perez Hilton (as the Visa man) really took away from what humor I did like. They would also set up running gags which got stale quickly. How many times are you going to kill someone and then forget it's purge night and freak out about the cops? Apparently three or four times if my count is correct.
This isn't really a bad film. The acting was decent, even from the kids, and the Rza did the score so you can't go wrong there. It's also not that great. I can say I felt disconnected from it as much as I want but I can tell when something is still good or bad and this was just short of middle of the road.
I give Meet the Blacks 1 copy of Friday out of 5:
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