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Perhaps like Southern Horror, Southern Noir has carved a niche of his own. This region is an amalgamation of urban fears, with its swampy areas, plantations, roads, and even police jails strikingly standing out. BLACKSTOCK BONEYARD (2021) is an interesting film for me because it combines social commentary with standard zombie horror. The focus of the story is not the creatures, but the people who become intertwined in the happenings. The film opts to turn them into southerners zombie-like in nature and that is certainly with very few sides of interesting virtues.
Serves itself up as a true story, BLACKSTOCK BONEYARD (2021) is set in South Carolina during the years of 1913 with the conviction and execution of Thomas and Meeks Griffin for allegedly murdering a Confederate veteran. Black farmers, the brothers were quite wealthy. Unsurprisingly, they were later exonerated in 2009 for this particular crime.
The film begins rather well on a dramatic note by introducing the brothers with the judge’s audio presiding over them. This is done while the brothers are lit up through spotlights. The execution was also depicted in a similar manner, with no extra screaming, and no flesh burning. In Andre Alfa’s directing and Stephen George’s writing, the story picks up in 2013 as Judge CJ Ramage (Terry Milam), the grandson of the judge who Griffins’ death sentence, is about to seal a very profitable business deal over the property where their farm used to be.
One problem remains to be solved. Judge Johnson’s lawyer Roger Newbolt (Jonathan Fuller) has tracked down yet another heir to the estate, Lyndsey (Ashley Whelan), but she will need some persuading to sell. She along with her friends comes to town while an objection to the sale is being contested. The date is significant as it marks the hundredth anniversary since the Griffin brothers were convicted. The picture then switches to residents of Blackstock, who, being racists, have an issue with these celebrations. One scene shows patrons of the local bar standing up and toasting to ‘white power’. Sheriff Brice (Creek Wilson) boasts about his great uncle, who was the Griffin’s executioner. Along with him, there is also the sultry southern Samantha (Laura Flannery) who patrols around in black, seducing everyone for no reason while talking softly. Along with these, you get beer gulping, and ball hat-donning boys who drive pickup trucks and are rather tame towards the local law enforcement. This film contains an attempted lynching that fails when the brothers who have risen from the dead to take their much-deserved revenge on the descendants of those who murdered them take control. The setting shows some gay-friendly and contrary figures.
While the social commentary element is useful for situating the events, it does get clichéd. Some of that is certainly true in the South, but it is like trying to mix red ants with black ones. The film unnecessarily includes a romance between Lyndsey and Jesse that, in the end, offers very little. Predictably, the dead kill well without caring about the heavy-handed CGI effects. It’s the ant battle finished by Lyndsy’s moans as she stumbles, bleeding on one leg, upstairs. In the final thirty minutes, her sounds and movements became a nuisance. I had no sympathy for these cardboard figures, who were so clearly slaughtered.
BLACKSTOCK BONEYARD (2021) has some random moments such as an accidental death sequence that bears resemblance to one seen in THE DESCENT (2005). The moment’s impact is completely ruined by subpar CGI and overreaction. One of Lynsey’s friends also commits suicide and it too is clouded by the very poor execution of effects. People, not effects, tell the story. They are lost here. It is hard to discuss the acting in this film as the dialogue, characters, and situations do not convey much interest in the progression of the film, particularly the stilted ending.
It does have production values, even if they do look like those of a poorer cousin to IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967). It would have been and should have been, better had it been scripted in a way that sophisticated instead of breeding the racial stereotypes from both sides of the aisle. At some point, I began to label this as a Blaxploitation film, as you witness Black people performing traditionally white film action. More care and texturing could have favored this being a sleeper for all the right reasons.
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