Black as Night, a feature horror film written by alumnus Sherman Payne '10, premiered on Amazon Prime Video on October 1, 2021. The film is part of Amazon’s Welcome To The Blumhouse film anthology, a collection of unsettling genre films that tap into our deepest fears. It’s one of four movies in the series to arrive on the streaming platform during the 2021 Halloween season.
Black as Night follows a teenage girl with self-esteem issues who finds confidence in the most unlikely way by spending her summer battling vampires that prey on New Orleans' disenfranchised, with the help of her best friend, the boy she's always pined for, and a peculiar rich girl.
Watch the trailer below.
In addition to his work on Black as Night, Payne is also adapting the bestselling novel Razorblade Tears for Paramount. It follows two fathers, one Black, one white, on a quest for vengeance in the name of their two murdered sons.
Sherman Payne is a screenwriter and producer, originally from Ohio, now living and working in LA. He attended Wright State University, where he received a BFA in Film Production, and later Columbia University, earning an MFA in Screenwriting. He has written projects for MTV, BET, The CW, Warner Bros. TV, Netflix, and Sony Pictures Classics, among others. In 2020, his debut feature film Charm City Kings premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was awarded a special jury prize, and later aired on HBO Max. Currently, Payne is a writer and producer on Showtime's hit series Shameless.
