This series turns South Florida’s black culture into horror fables. Here’s how to see it

Florida’s history is full horror.

There’s the Rosewood Massacre. The lynchings. The forced removals.

But that history — complete with its fair share of acts of resistance – is part of a culture full of beauty in the form of candy-painted Chevys, gold grills and a language that owes just as much to the South as it does the Caribbean.

A combination of both influences “Criblore,” an eight-part series that flips elements of South Florida’s Black culture into horror fables. An episode of the project will premiere 6:25 p.m. Friday at O Cinema South Beach as part of the American Black Film Festival.

“We get to look into so many hoods but no one comes to look down here,” said “Criblore” creator Moon Lee Ferguson, who’s from Fort Lauderdale. “No one’s really tapped into South Florida culture.”

Ferguson’s right: despite the wealth of Caribbeans, African Americans, Afro-Latinos and Africans in South Florida, the region’s diverse, Black culture has seldom made it to the big screen. Without the work of Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose Academy Award-winning film “Moonlight” and Peabody Award-winning television series “David Makes Man” contained authentic portrayals of Miami’s Black community, the mainstream might think South Florida was just “Bad Boys,” “Scarface” and “Miami Vice.” Newer projects like “Rap Sh!t” and “Startup” have added more flavor to the zeitgeist of South Florida, but this one gets specifically into the genre of horror.

“I wanted to do it through Florida’s Black eyes,” Ferguson said, before quickly correcting herself and using the Sunshine State’s term for child. “Through a jit’s eyes.”

The episodes range in subject matter from a people-eating donk – Miami slang for those candy-painted Chevys – to a possessed gold slug to a candy lady who craves the taste of children. There’s even an episode about a ghost that haunts a family who lives in Coral Gables, a city founded by a man who wanted remove Black residents from Miami and considered by some to be a “Sundown Town.”

“That was to pay homage to the history of Black Florida with the Bahamians touching down here and cultivating Miami,” Ferguson said, explaining how Bahamians were some of the first to settle in Miami. She later deemed what happened next a “telltale of Black people across the south: how land was ours until it was taken away from us.”

Although Ferguson created “Criblore” specifically to honor what she and other South Florida natives call “the crib,” the “Florida Water” episode, which will be screened at the ABFF, provides a commentary on a specific type visitor. Written and directed by fellow South Florida natives Lucien Christian Adderly and Richard “Byrd” Wilson, the episode explores how one visitor’s perspective of Miami leads to his downfall.

“People come in and be what they want to be that weekend and go right back to where they were,” said Adderly, one-half of the writing duo Lucien and Byrd who also worked on “David Makes Man.” “And what happens when they come here? They party hard, trash our beaches a lot of times and do things that don’t necessarily have consequences.”

“This is an industry that you can’t do it alone,” Adderly said, calling the project “a team effort.” “To have your best friend right there next to you and you’re getting into something where you know that person has your back, it’s always a beautiful process.”

Therein lies the true power of “Criblore”: representation. For a group of South Florida kids who grew up watching projects like “Friday the 13th,” “The X-Files” and “Tales from the Hood,” they hope to give the same level of inspiration to the next generation of filmmakers.

“I hope that the people who are from here see something that is closer to themselves than they’ve been seeing,” Wilson said. “But also, for the people who are not, they are introduced to a type of people and a type of place that has it’s own energy, so many different cultures and things that make up our language.”

ABFF being in their backyard is just an added bonus.

“For it to be my Florida story that is about shedding light on the Black culture of South Florida and also tapping into a genre which a lot of Black folks love but are not represented in, it’s very heartwarming,” Ferguson said.

If you go:

What: “Criblore” at the American Black Film Festival.

When: 6:25 p.m. Friday

Where: O Cinema South Beach, 1130 Washington Ave, Miami Beach