#that centered generational trauma and systemic harm against a marginalized community as the backdrop for a horror story

[spacecasehobbit]

The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster is such a good adaptation of Frankenstein and a really well done horror movie, too.

The movie did a really good job leaning on audience knowledge of Frankenstein's monster (that he's not really a monster, just scared and confused and reacting to other peoples' fear and violence) to build tragedy and empathy into Vicaria's 'monster' from the start, without needing to spend a bunch of time on retelling the part of the story that most of the audience would already be familiar with. And I appreciated how that allowed the movie to focus more time on telling Vicaria's story, as her story is the one that diverges in an interesting and new way from the original Frankenstein.

And props to the movie for the subtle hint that Vicaria's last name is Frankenstein during the parent-teacher meeting at her school. Almost missed that detail when I first watched it, which seemed fairly intentional on the writer's part and makes me wonder what other little easter eggs I might be able to catch on a rewatch.

I really enjoyed the way the movie played with the trope of the frightening little girl in a horror movie. The little kid wasn't scary because she was a supernatural entity or possessed or anything. She was just a little girl who wasn't old enough to understand why other people might find certain things scary, which gave her a far more terrifying nonchalance in certain scenes than the movie would have achieved if she'd been actively trying to be frightening.

Before I watched it, I read a few reviews online suggesting that the movie falls flatter in the last act. I didn't find that to be the case at all, though. I thought the twists towards the end were well done, fit with the tone and themes of the rest of the movie, and made for a pretty perfect frightening, tragic, and then very creepy final act.