One Spoon of Chocolate is an entertaining fusion of, like, six or seven different genres.
One Spoon of Chocolate is the vigilante action movie about racist organ harvesters getting what’s coming to them that we never knew we needed
Everything I say about One Spoon of Chocolate makes it sound weirder and weirder. It’s a neo-blaxploitation vigilante action revenge throwback — starring the guy who voices Miles in the Spider-Verse movies. And it’s directed (and written) by a member of the Wu-Tang Clan. And Michael Jackson’s daughter shows up in a prominent side role. And it’s about racist organ harvesters in Ohio getting picked off one by one by a guy who dresses like a Temu Batman … replete with barbed wire wrapped around his fists.
Maybe it’s not a traditional horror movie, per se, but it obviously has some horror-adjacent qualities to it. Besides, it’s a movie about racism in the 2020s — it’s unmistakably a socially conscious horror movie, if absolutely nothing else.
If you don’t already know what the title alludes to, Urban Dictionary is your friend. It’s a name that has nothing at all to do with what the movie’s about, but at the same time, it’s sorta what the entire movie is about. Sometimes it’s more fun to let audiences come to their own conclusions about what a film is “secretly” about … although in the case of One Spoon of Chocolate, it’s not really all that secret.
The film has a TERRIFIC opening. I’ll try to downplay the spoilers as best I can, so let’s say there’s an instigating moment that sets up everything else that happens in the movie. Sure, almost every movie does that, but it’s not so much what One Spoon of Chocolate does as much as it is how it goes about doing it. It’s a VERY stylized movie and director RZA definitely knows how to do cinematic “oh crap” moments well.
We all know RZA is an excellent rapper, but he’s a damned good director, too. That’s evident going all the way back to his first movie, The Man With The Iron Fists, from 2012. But this isn’t a hyper-stylistic homage to exploitation kung fu films of the ‘70s — it’s basically a modern day take on all of those Death Wish movies, sort of a Walking Tall for the Nintendo Switch 2 generation. It doesn’t completely work, but when it succeeds it positively excels.
Shameik Moore is the driving force of the film. I can’t lay all of the success at his feet, but I can certainly attribute a lot of it to his more-than-solid performance as protagonist Randy “Unique” Joneson. He plays an Iraq War veteran who is fresh out of prison, looking to start his life anew in rural Ohio … which, yeah, is obviously his or anybody else’s first mistake. It doesn’t take long until he puts two and two together and deduces that a recent homicide is the handiwork of a clandestine group of white supremacists … who also happen to be involved in the international organ harvesting trade, which obviously adds a pronounced body horror element to the proceedings (and amps up the already high gore quotient, as a nice little bonus.)
It’s an interesting ensemble cast in this one. We’ve got Paris Jackson — yes, the daughter of MJ — playing the female lead. Admittedly, she doesn’t do a whole lot in the movie, but at least her dark purple lipstick looks nice throughout the picture. Harry Goodwins plays Jimmy, the primary villain of the movie; imagine Thor if he was strung out on methamphetamine and spent way too much time on 4Chan and you sort of get the picture. And then there’s Michael Harney playing the evil, racist-ass sheriff who kinda secretly runs everything. I mean, if you’re going to make a movie like One Spoon of Chocolate, you HAVE to have a strong character actor like that in that background, serving as the not-so-invisible prime mover of the action.
It’s a very well shot movie. Cinematographer Brandon Cox is sort of the unsung hero of the entire film; his work is so nuanced and kinetic, it even makes relatively bland exterior shots inside backwoods convenience stores look vibrant and aesthetic as hell. And naturally, he gets to go all out in the movie’s marquee set piece — a thirty-minute donnybrook grand finale where Unique sneaks into the racists’ headquarters and starts painting the walls red and squishy with neo-Nazi guts.
It’s a visceral movie but it’s not exactly a brutal or grotesque one. It’s a gorier take on the established John Wick formula, only with a totally different air and attitude considering its thematic material and especially considering the people who made it. Yes, it’s an obvious commentary on frayed and fractured race relations in today’s America, but it’s also an unabashed throwback exploitation homage that’s a little bit of everything — horror, martial arts, revenge thriller and hyper-violent action extravaganza.
Of course the film isn’t without its faults, flaws and shortcomings. When things aren’t exploding cars, skull-crushing fist fights and straight up gunplay pornography, the movie has a tendency to kind of dawdle about. RZA is a competent filmmaker, but the dialogue component here is a bit lacking, especially towards the end when two central characters kind of engage in dueling monologues. I get what the director was going for, but the execution just doesn’t work. It’s a pretty bland and forgettable ending for what is otherwise an inventive and energetic little genre fusion throwback.
It’s worth catching if you haven’t yet. It’s a film that definitely captures the spirit and aura of ‘70s and ‘80s exploitation movies better than most contemporary homages; and like I even have to tell you how great the soundtrack is.
GIVE IT A WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Any of the Taken movies, the Ol Dirty Bastard discography, beautifully filmed gas stations
DIRECTOR: RZA
WRITER: RZA
STARRING: Shameik Moore, Harry Goodwins, Michael Harney, Paris Jackson
STUDIO: RZA Productions, Xen Diagram Media
DISTRIBUTOR: 36 Cinema Distribution, Variance Films
RUNTIME: 112 minutes
LANGUAGE: English
RELEASE DATE: May 01, 2026
