[Film Review] Welcome to the Blumhouse – Double Feature Bingo Hell & Black as Night (2021)

Following the success of last year’s Welcome to the Blumhouse, the collective is back with four brand new horror/thriller films featuring diverse stories and a wide range of new and established talent.

Blumhouse and Amazon have returned to this collaboration with genre directors and writers including Maritte Lee Go (Phobias), Gigi Saul Guerrero (Culture Shock), Axelle Carolyn (American Horror Story), and Ryan Zaragoza (Bebé). The level of acting talent included in the films is incredible, with surprisingly juicy roles for older character actors as well as burgeoning young actors who impress and will surely go on to feature in future genre fare.  

The first double feature was released on October 1st and includes Bingo Hell, written and directed by Gigi Saul Guerrero and Black as Night written by Sherman Payne and directed by Maritte Lee Go. 

Bingo Hell

This gooey, viscera-stained thrill ride is by far the most fun of the series. Bingo Hell stars Adriana Barraza (Amores perros) as Lupita, a feisty woman who has long fought against the gentrification of Oak Springs, a small town losing the constant battle with money, drugs, and time. Lupita shares a special bond with those community members who remain in Oak Springs, hosting a bingo night that sees the proceeds go to locals in financial need. 

Lupita’s aversion to the changes she sees in her neighborhood is further fueled by the arrival of Mr. Big (Richard Brake), a caddy-driving creeper who takes over the bingo hall and brings all kinds of hellish chaos to Oak Springs. 

Bingo Hell is tonally all over the place, with a strangely comical score at the beginning that throws the viewer off as to just how dark the story will get. Ultimately, the balance between comedy and the darker elements are well-played, mainly due to the strength of the acting. Barraza as Lupita is pure joy to watch, she seems to revel in her stubbornness, equal parts endearing and infuriating. As her closest friends fall victim to Mr. Big’s promise of great wealth through bingo, she finds herself the weaker warrior against the fear of poverty and the overwhelming allure of winning. 

While Bingo Hell at times feels uneven, its thematic throughline remains intact. The importance of community, the concept that where you live won’t change who you love, and the reality that money can’t buy happiness is a message that is needed more than ever after the past year and a half of pervasive isolation and an epidemic of loneliness. It also helps that Guerrero has embraced some seriously gory practical effects and that Richard Brake continues to build upon his horror icon image by creating the creepiest and entertaining villain to come out of this round of Welcome to the Blumhouse. One scene in particular featuring a motel room, a briefcase of money, and a bit of flesh sparagmos is a reminder that, while overall these films can feel a bit watered down, given the right direction, there are still terrors to behold. 

Black as Night

This has been the year of vampires. The indie horror genre has seen quite a bit of vampire lore twisted up and reconfigured, with every film trying to find its own place in the subgenre without rehashing old, tired tropes. Not all attempts have been successful, but some have been wildly enjoyable (hello Jakob’s Wife). Maritte Lee Go has entered the ring with her own take on vamps with the second in the Welcome to the Blumhouse double feature, Black as Night. 

Starring Asjha Cooper as Shawna, a teenage girl with a drugged addled mom and an insecurity of her dark skin, Black as Night is set in a post-Katrina New Orleans and attempts to create a new big bad vampire daddy in former slave Babanoh (an ever-alluring Keith David, The Thing), a vampire supremacist who sees humans as prey. 

With a voiceover that feels like a throwback to 80s coming of age movies, Black as Night addresses slavery, racism, and wealth disparity with a pluckiness that releases tension before its ever built. As Shawna discovers the existence of a homeless vampire invasion in Ombreaux Heights, the epitome of the wrong side of the tracks, she is almost complacent in a way that only a generation who has already seen too much tragedy could be. The weight that Shawna carries on her shoulders is further loaded by a brother who uses every opportunity to ridicule her dark skin by calling her “Wesley Snipes,” a not so subtly added reference to the Blade franchise. 

Shawna and her best friend Pedro (Fabrizio Zacharee Guido) navigate horrifying discoveries and deal with typical teen woes while searching for the creature who is turning the homeless and drug addicted residents of Ombreaux Heights into an army of vamps. Shawna begins the film as an insecure girl and takes a turn as she accepts parts of herself and realizes her strength, an arc that isn’t groundbreaking in the genre, but feels more natural in the hands of Asjha Cooper, while Sherman Payne’s script creates a community and characters that are rarely seen in film. 

Black as Night joins a few horror movies, specifically Candyman (2021) and The People Under the Stairs (1991) that feature diverse cultural explorations, but it does suffer from a feeling of retread, specifically due to the presence of yet another male vampire leader. It is thankfully edgier than other teen vampire tales, and the young actors are impressive in their range, specifically Cooper as Shawna, who has been through more than any young teenage girl should, including placing herself in a very uncomfortable situation as sexual bait for a vampire. Ombreaux Heights is a dirty and tragically unique setting and, though it doesn’t break any new ground, Black as Night does provide an interesting perspective and some pretty cool characters.   

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