Last night at a Halloween party, I made many new friends, two of which were a couple of African American gentlemen. One was dressed as an undead Tupac and the other as the leader of a white power movement. Strangely, that made me a little uncomfortable but in a fun way...I think. I, on the other hand, went as a hillbilly, which wasn't too far of a stretch for me.
Our obvious affinity for Halloween was just the icebreaker we needed, and so we all started to share Halloween stories. Eventually, we ended up discussing black characters in horror movies and how they never survived the movie. A couple of us disagreed, and so they challenged us to name five horror movies where the black actor makes it to the end.
Talk about fun! As a fanatical horror movie buff, this is just the thing I love to talk about.
I rattled off three pretty quickly.
(1) The Thing (original) : Childs (Keith David) survives.
(2) Dawn of the Dead (original) : Peter (Ken Foree) indeed escapes. Note, they wouldn't let us use the remake where Kenneth (Ving Rhames) makes it.
(3) 28 Days Later : Selena (the stunning Naomie Harris) not only makes it but kicks serious ass.
We tried Candyman, played by Tony Todd, but were not allowed that one because he was a villain. We got a good chuckle when Vampire in Brooklyn with Eddie Murphy was brought up, but we couldn't really count that one either.
BAM, (4) Blade with Wesley Snipes. And then, sadly, we got stuck for awhile. Keep in mind, the actor needed to survive the movie. I pulled out my trusty iPhone and discovered the website www.blackhorrormovies.com which gave us some ideas.
We chose (5) Gothika with Halle Berry.
Notable mentions should include Queen of the Damned where actress Aaliyah played Akasha. Although she dies at the end, it was a great role. Danny Glover in Predator II, Scatman Crothers in The Shining (although he didn't survive the movie, he does survive in the book) and Charles S. Dutton in Cat's Eye.
While still not as represented as they should be, it does appear that black actors are getting an increasing number of great roles in horror movies. I hope this is a sign that we can continue to embrace the horror genre as a way to bring people together.
Didn't Morgan Freeman survive in Se7en? Can't remember exactly, but I think he did. Good blog entry!
ReplyDeleteI've had a lot of experience in independent film, and about how to choose. You've got to be very discerning about where you put your five bucks, and where you cut and what you don't cut.
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