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Orange Is the New Black star plays a racist Karen in new horror movie

Photo credit: Flixville USA
Photo credit: Flixville USA

Orange is the New Black star Taryn Manning's new movie Karen has caused quite the stir online since its first trailer dropped yesterday (June 22), with many describing it as a rip-off of Jordan Peele's Get Out and a feature-length Saturday Night Live sketch.

Riffing off the stereotype, which references a middle-aged white woman who often feels put out by things that actually don't affect her and uses her privilege to demand her own way, the horror-thriller follows Malik and Imani, a young black couple who find themselves terrorised by an existing resident after moving to the suburbs.

Photo credit: Flixville USA
Photo credit: Flixville USA

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Manning plays the titular antagonist Karen Drexler, who berates Malik for being too loud in a restaurant as well as not fetching his empty bins at the end of his driveway fast enough and installs security cameras outside her home upon the neighbourhood newbies' arrival.

And if that doesn't sound unpleasant enough, she seemingly orchestrates a grand plan with her bigoted brother, who just so happens to be a police officer, to force the loved-up pair out of the area, too. Oh, she also owns a confederate flag-adorned hand wash dispensers. You know, in case you were on the fence about her being a white supremacist.

"I want to sell the house," Jasmine Burke's Imani urges Cory Hardrict's Malik in the trailer. "We are living next door to a racist."

Photo credit: Flixville USA
Photo credit: Flixville USA

Related: First trailer for Killing Eve star's new horror movie Kindred

"Bad things happen to people that don't comply," Karen adds via voiceover.

Writer-director Coke Daniels (His, Hers & the Truth) spoke to Deadline about the inspiration for the film saying: "Last year during the global pandemic and civil unrest, I — like many of us — felt anger, despair and hopelessness. The overwhelming amount of support from people around the globe, who want to see change, has been such an inspiration,"

"Honestly the only way that this movie, which is called simply just Karen, could even work is if they made it a horror comedy because I laughed so hard just from the trailer alone," one viewer voiced on Twitter.

"Oh no I just saw the KAREN trailer and now I'm not sure movies are a good idea anymore," another joked.

Check out some more reactions below...



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