Black horror (also known as racial horror and horror noir) is a horror subgenre that focuses on African-American characters and narratives. It is largely a film genre. Black horror typically, but not always, has Black creators. It often has social and political commentary and compares racism and other lived experiences of Black Americans to common horror themes and tropes. Early entries in the genre include the 1940 Spencer Williams Jr. film Son of Ingagi and the 1968 George Romero horror film Night of the Living Dead, which is considered one of the first Black horror films for having the Black actor Duane Jones in its lead role. Blaxploitation horror films of the 1970s, namely Blacula (1972), and the vampire film Ganja & Hess (1973) became prominent examples of Black horror films in the 1970s. Other Black horror films appeared during the 1990s, notably the 1992 Bernard Rose film Candyman and the 1995 anthology film Tales from the Hood, which was directed by Rusty Cundieff and has been described as the "godfather of Black horror".
The genre of Black horror became especially popular after Get Out, a horror film about racism and the 2017 directorial debut of comedian Jordan Peele, became an international box office success and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Peele went on to direct the Black horror films Us (2019) and Nope (2022) and produce the Black horror film Candyman (2021), a sequel to the 1992 film of the same name directed by Nia DaCosta, and the HBO Black horror television series Lovecraft Country (2021). Some critics argued that, by 2020, Black horror had entered its Golden Age, while others criticized many of the Black horror projects to follow Get Out, including Lovecraft Country, the Amazon series Them (2021), and the film Antebellum (2020), as unsubtle and exploitative of Black trauma. Black horror novelists include Nalo Hopkinson, Octavia E. Butler, Linda Addison, Jewelle Gomez and Victor LaValle.