Happy Halloween! Spend this spooky day by checking out various horror films featuring some noteworthy, yet underrated, Black characters. From classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street to shorts from a semi-known anthology franchise, check out some of EnVi’s favorite — yet most underrated — Black characters in horror movies.
WARNING: Spoilers ahead!
Roland Kincaid (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors)
Since its release in 1984, Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street has spawned into a successful franchise with cult-like following and birthed one of horror’s most iconic villains: Freddy Krueger.
Considered as a fan-favorite, the franchise’s third installment, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, follows a group of teenagers who have been admitted into a mental facility after harming themselves and refusing to sleep. During a group session with their doctors, the newly-hired dream expert Nancy Wheeler (who is the first film’s final girl) and the kids discuss how they’ve all had dreams about the same person. Nancy shares that this person is Freddy Krueger. Krueger is a man who terrorizes the children of the neighborhood adults who killed him years ago due to his alleged pedophilic behavior.
One of the kids is Roland Kincaid, also known as Kincaid. Portrayed by Ken Sagoes, he is a funny and feisty member of the group who takes on Krueger and is one of the few kids to survive. Considering the trope of Black characters being the first to die or not last in horror movies, Kincaid’s survival at the end was significant — especially since he was the first Black character to be introduced in the franchise.
The film is currently available to stream on MAX.
Sheila Kopecky (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master)
Although Kincaid falls prey to Freddy Krueger’s dream trap at the beginning of the franchise’s fourth installment, another Black character named Sheila Kopecky was introduced along with a mostly new group of kids. Sheila, depicted by Toy Newkirk, is an asthmatic brainiac and in the friend group of the popular Kristen, one of the patients from the previous film and Kincaid’s former friend. After surrendering to Krueger, Kristen dies but transfers her special skill of enveloping others into her dreams to her other friend, Alice.
During school one day, Alice accidentally falls asleep and drags Sheila into her dream. This leads to Sheila unfortunately being killed by Krueger in an extremely animated way related to her asthma. Although Sheila is one of the firsts of the new group to die, her actions and smarts shown throughout the film poised her to be the film’s final girl. This made her death even more shocking. Besides her intelligence, what makes Sheila an interesting character is how she was different from other stereotypical Black characters, especially during the 1980s. She was a smart girl who put her studies before an expansive social life, but she was also friends with the popular kids and had a nerdy cool girl aura to her.
The Dream Master is available to watch on MAX.
Richard “Dick” Hallorann (The Shining)
Based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) follows a writer named Jack, his wife, and son as they watch over the Overlook Hotel during its off-season. While touring the place, the hotel’s head chef, Richard “Dick” Hallorann (Scatman Crothers), telepathically communicates with Jack’s son, Danny. Shocking Danny with this revelation, Hallorann explains this gift to him and tries his best to warn the boy about the inexplicable events that have previously happened in the hotel during its off-season. One case being a former caretaker murdering his twin daughters.
During the night when Jack is enveloped by the hotel’s evil entity, Hallorann sees the horrors that will occur. To stop this from happening and to save Danny and his mother, Hallorann hops on the soonest available flight back to the hotel. However, with snow falling heavily, will he be able to reach the destination in time? Due to differences between the film and movie regarding the fate of this character, it is best to watch without knowing. Despite not having much screen time together, it is clear through their initial interactions that Hallorann cares about Danny. He hopes to become somewhat of a mentor to him and to help this young boy better understand this rare and unexplainable gift of shining that they both have.
The Shining is currently available to stream on Hulu and MAX.
Adelaide/Red (Us)
Following the success of Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, Get Out (2017), 2019’s Us did not disappoint. However, the film and its characters are still somewhat underrated, particularly Adelaide. Played by Lupita Nyong’o, Adelaide is a wife and mother of two. After visiting a hall of mirrors at a carnival during a family vacation as a young girl, she returns with a different personality, noticeably no longer speaking. To help understand why this is so, her parents bring her to a psychiatrist who suggests she use art to help better express herself.
Now an adult, Adelaide no longer faces the issues she once did as a child and lives a normal life. However, when her family decides to return where she and her parents went on vacation as a little girl, she becomes anxious due to the trauma she faced all those years ago. Everything seems fine when they first arrive at their destination, but things take a considerable turn at night when they notice that there’s a family outside of their cabin who keep eerily staring at them. This family enters their home, and Adelaide’s family discovers that the new family are creepy doppelgangers of themselves known as the Tethered. However, this is not the first time that Adelaide comes face-to-face with hers. She and her doppelgänger, Red, first met that night in the hall of mirrors at the carnival when Adelaide was a child.
Although Adelaide and Red’s respective families fight a hard fight, including an emotional showdown between Adelaide and Red during the film’s final act, Adelaide and her family safely drive back home. However, while driving, her son stares at Adelaide in confusion. That’s when it is revealed Adelaide is actually the doppelganger. During the carnival, Red choked Adelaide and took her to the underground facility where the other Tethered lived. Tying Adelaide to the bed and switching clothes, Red decides to live her life as Adelaide instead while the real Adelaide is forever trapped with the Tethered. So, all this time, the audience has actually been rooting for the villain. Because of this, Adelaide is not only an underrated Black horror character but an underrated villain overall.
Us is available to watch now on Hulu.
Hailey (V/H/S/94)
Well-known among horror lovers, the found-footage anthology series V/H/S features short stories from a diverse set of small and high-profile filmmakers (including Ti West and Justin Long) connected by an overarching theme. From a siren killing pervy men to a sorority pledge being buried alive, there’s a wide range of segments with various styles that viewers can watch.
The fourth installment of the franchise features stories set in the year 1994 after a SWAT team discovers an expansive VHS collection during an investigation of a cult. Of the five segments, one of the standouts is “The Empty Wake.” Written and directed by Simon Barrett (You’re Next, 2011), “The Empty Wake” finds a young woman named Hailey, played by Kyal Legend, tasked with hosting a wake for a deceased man named Andrew Edwards at a funeral home. Taking place during a storm at night, the wake was requested by the family to be filmed. As Hailey waits for guests to come, she notices small movements from the coffin and fears the person in the casket is still alive. To relieve her worries, she calls her friend to look more into Andrew’s death.
Her suspicions are confirmed when she hears loud banging coming from inside the casket. With the lights currently off and one of the cameras in-hand, she tries to leave the building but the doors are chained locked. Trapped inside, Hailey returns to the room and sees the casket has been toppled over, but it is empty. Hailey uses her instincts and the camera to try and survive being alone in a building with a zombie confused and ready to attack. Watching this short will definitely get your adrenaline pumping while also rooting for Hailey to survive and win against all odds placed against her.
V/H/S/94 is available to stream on Shudder.
Are you brave enough to watch these alone? Or will you watch with a friend? No matter what, be sure to check out these Black characters in their respective movies, available to buy, rent, or stream on your favorite platforms.
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