Bitch Ass and Making a New Horror Icon (Exclusive)

To this day, filmmaker Bill Posley will not say “Candyman” five times while looking in the mirror. But he will write him a letter.

It sounds strange, but that turned out to be the exact way to summon the attention of a cinematic legend like Candyman actor Tony Todd and to request that he consider a pivotal role in Posley’s new slasher movie and directorial debut, Bitch Ass.

“We were looking for somebody to be our Vincent Price, this Crypt-Keeper type, intro-ing the movie,” Posley says. Eventually, the Bitch Ass writer-director and his collaborators came around to the idea of reaching out to the statesman of the type of Black horror they aimed to resurrect; the only thing was that Todd would only accept queries by mail—and return with a call of his own.

That call eventually came when Posley was on another job. Standing in an Arkansan field during the highest heat of the day, the filmmaker’s phone rang, and a familiar voice came on the other end: “Hello, Mr. Posley,” Todd said.

Thinking about it even years later, the director smiles. “Chills, I’ve got them now going down my spine. I just couldn’t believe it.”

For Posley, getting Todd to emcee his throwback to ‘90s Black horror remains poignant since he grew up in that decade, watching with his brother all the horror movies they probably weren’t supposed to see: The People Under the Stairs (1991), Tales from the Hood (1995), Bones (2001), and of course, Candyman (1992). The Posley brothers called these movies “hood horror.” Yet, in each case, the terror that attacked Black neighborhoods was supernatural in nature. And then, eventually, it went away from the multiplex entirely. It was while discussing this drought as an adult with writing partner Jonathan Colomb that Posley realized there was territory not yet explored: the first Black serial killer in a slasher movie.

“There was Candyman, there was Bones,” Posley explains, “but there was never a Jason or a Michael Myers or a Ghostface or a Jigsaw that took place in the Black community or was a person of color.” There was never someone like Bitch Ass.

Posley appears energized from correcting this issue with Bitch Ass, which won the Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival. The film stars Tunde Laleye as the titular killer, a seeming monster behind a mask who eviscerates victims via cruel games. Yet Laleye is quick to note that there’s more to the character than meets the eye.

“Bitch Ass is about a kid who was picked on in high school, he got beat up by a group of kids as an initiation into a gang, and 20 years later, he comes back for vengeance,” says Laleye. “Characters like this, or who have gone through difficulties, are born when bad things are done to them.”

Still, as he later says with perhaps a mischievous sense of pride and gratitude: “I don’t take it for granted to be in this position, to set off the next generation of Candyman. It’s incredible.”

Bitch Ass opens in theaters on Oct. 14.