During its NewFronts presentation to buyers on Monday, Hulu revealed that Dear White People creator Justin Simien’s horror satire, Bad Hair, will premiere in October as a part of the network’s Halloween-themed original content, branded as Huluween. The exact date is not yet known, but it is expected to be sometime in October.
The official description of the film: In this horror satire set in 1989, an ambitious young woman gets a weave in order to succeed in the image-obsessed world of music television. However, her flourishing career may come at a great cost when she realizes that her new hair may have a mind of its own. The film stars Elle Lorraine, Vanessa L. Williams, Jay Pharoah, Lena Waithe, Chanté Adams, Blair Underwood, Laverne Cox, James Van Der Beek, Kelly Rowland and more.
Simien spoke about the film, which debuted at Sundance this year, on Shadow And Act’s Facebook Live series, Locked Down With ___.
The film is inspired by Korean horror films, which frequently use hair as a horror device. “Bad Hair is about a woman in 1989’s Los Angeles. Right when New Jack Swing is making Black music pop for the first time…Black people are having a moment and she senses an opportunity [for her] to rise up at this company,” he said.
“She’s working at a company called Culture TV, which is like a Black entertainment/music/television type channel. And in order to move up the ranks when Vanessa Williams takes over as the boss…she gets this weave.1989 is also the year [when] hair weaves become more accessible to everyday consumers. And [this] weave tremendously escalates her momentum at work, but it is a horror-thriller. There’s a cost to having the weave, the weave has a bit of a bloodlust. It requires blood to survive.” It’s a film Simien said is ridiculous, “but I’m a little ridiculous,” he continued, adding that psychological thrillers often exist in the realm of the absurd.
Shadow And Act’s Aramide Tinubu had this to say about the film in our review from Sundance: “Bad Hair had all of the right bones to stack up well, but in the end, despite the great acting and nuances of Black womanhood, especially as it pertains to our relationship with our hair, in a film with so many layers and themes crammed into its 115 minutes run time, Bad Hair doesn’t quite know what it wants to say, leaving its audience stumbling around for answers.”
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