It stars Dewayne Perkins, Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Antoinette Robertson, Sinqua Walls, Jay Pharoah, and Yvonne Orji.

The film, set on Juneteenth, follows a group of black friends targeted by a masked killer while staying at a cabin in the woods.

On her way to the cabin, Shanika runs into a former schoolmate named Clifton at the gas station, who reveals he is also joining the group.

The voice forces the friends to play the game to save Morgan, and begins by asking trivia questions about African-American culture.

The friends go into another room, where they find Ranger White's and Clifton's bodies, only for the latter to spring awake and reveal himself as the mastermind.

After serving four years in prison for the DUI, he organized the entire night as revenge and prepares to kill the others before dropping them down a well where he dumped Shawn's and Morgan's corpses.

[13] In the United States and Canada, The Blackening was released alongside Elemental and The Flash, and was projected to gross $7–8 million from 1,775 theaters in its opening weekend.

The website's consensus reads: "While it could stand to be a little funnier and quite a bit scarier, The Blackening is a thoughtful satire that skewers horror tropes and racial stereotypes.

"[19] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 67 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

Not only do these characters fight and support each other as real friends do, but Perkins and Oliver's script is also filled to the brim with smart, savvy jokes.

"[21] For IndieWire, Rafael Motamayor gave the film a grade of "B", calling it "the first great horror parody of the post-Get Out era" and writing that "every slasher movie needs a good villain and here the killer wears a blackface leather mask.

"[22] In November 2023, Variety reported that MRC and Lionsgate were in talks with writers Dewayne Perkins, Tracy Oliver and producer E. Brian Dobbins to return for a sequel.

[23] Perkins had previously expressed to the magazine that he envisioned a franchise akin to a "Scary Movie-esque series versus the Knives Out style with a new cast for each mystery".