I'm A Survivor: Black Actors Who Didn't Die In Horror Films
These stars beat the odds against murderers and psychos.
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Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out - Who says Black people are always the first to die in scary movies? Our gallery of horror movie survivors kicks off with Daniel Kaluuya from Get Out. As Chris Washington, he beat the horror movie odds and the results was one of the most successful films of 2017. Stay Woke and don't get in that sunken place!(Photo: Universal Studios)
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Brandy in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer - Brandy played Jennifer Love Hewitt's roommate in this campy classic. The BFFs go on vacay to the Bahamas only to deal with a hurricane and a creepy fisherman who wants them dead. But Brandy manages to scream — and curse — her way to safety. (Photo: Matthew Rolston/UPN/Delivered by Online USA)
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Keith David in The Thing - In John Carpenter's 1982 cult classic The Thing, David plays the chief mechanic at a government research station in Antarctica. He discovers and adopts a death-defying canine only to find the animal has been possessed by an extraterrestrial being who body-hops its way around the station, leaving all but David and one other lucky survivor for dead. Keith David is arguably one of the first Black characters to survive a horror flick. (Photo: Paras Griffin/Getty Images for OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network)
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Brandon Adams in The People Under the Stairs - Directed by the late horror master Wes Craven, this 1991 film follows Fool (Adams) as he attempts to rob his menacing landlords, who plan to throw him and his family out of their home. What he discovers in the landlords' house is more than he bargained for, and a routine burglary turns into the discovery of gruesome murders, torture and incest. Fool manages to take down the evildoers, free their victims and spread their wealth to everyone in the ghetto in one fell swoop. (Photo: Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images)
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Duane Martin in Scream 2 - Jada Pinkett-Smith didn't survive the opening credits of this sequel to runaway hit Scream, but Duane Martin had better luck. As journalist Gale Weathers' reluctant cameraman, Joel, Martin had the good sense to bounce when the dead bodies started piling up. Trivia: Martin's character was meant to be murdered in the film's original ending, but when the script leaked onto the Internet, director Wes Craven changed his fate. (Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for BET)
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Jada Pinkett-Smith in Demon Knight - In this beloved 1995 horror comedy, Jada Pinkett-Smith plays one of a group of misfits hiding out in a church who fall prey to the super-evil Collector (played by Billy Zane), who is after a key that holds the "power of darkness." Campy, gory fun ensues, and many of the church's inhabitants are either killed or possessed by the Collector, leaving Pinkett-Smith custodian of the key. But the film's final scene suggests that while Pinkett-Smith survives, perhaps evil follows her. (Photo: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
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Tanedra Howard in Saw VI - Howard hit the horror-movie jackpot when she landed a role as a banker in a tough spot in this popular franchise after winning VH1's Scream Queens reality contest. In the film's opening scenes, Howard and her colleague are asked to give up a pound of flesh each to atone for their loan sharking. She survives, costing her a limb. (Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
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Morris Chestnut in The Cave - As survival expert Top Buchanan in this 2005 flick, Chestnut was well-equipped to deal with the creatures and demons he found waiting for him in a mysterious Romanian cave, holding incredible secrets of years past. Unfortunately, his skills couldn't help save his colleagues, many of whom die on this thrill-seeking adventure.(Photo: Leon Bennett/WireImage)
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Usher in The Faculty - The pop icon kicked off his film career as a student football player terrorized by his teachers in Robert Rodriguez's 1998 sci-fi horror hit. Unfortunately, the film was stabbed by the sharp knives of critics who didn't fully appreciate its campy humor. (Photo: Gary Gershoff/Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame)
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Kasi Lemmons in The Silence of the Lambs - As Jodie Foster's roommate at the FBI Academy, Lemmons managed to stay out of Hannibal Lecter's way (thankfully, he couldn't smell her on Foster like he could her "cheap shoes"), but the film marked a new beginning for Lemmons. Soon after this high-profile role, she made the leap to directing with her critically acclaimed film Eve's Bayou.(Photo: Timothy Hiatt/Getty Images for Ebertfest)
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Nia Long in Stigmata - Sometimes playing the best friend is not a bad thing. Nia Long may not have landed the starring role in 1999's Stigmata, but as lead actress Patricia Arquette's best friend, she got plenty of screen time and managed to survive until the end of the movie. (Photo: John Sciulli/Getty Images for NAACP Image Awards)
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LL Cool J in Halloween: H20 - As a school security guard trying to protect students and faculty from the invasion of a bloodthirsty Michael Myers, Cool J is accidentally shot and nearly killed by one of his protectors but survives. But does he end up foiling a plot in this 1998 movie to finally put Myers into the grave? (Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for NARAS)
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Laurence Fishburne in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warrior - Before he became an Oscar nominee and, as Morpheus in The Matrix, a cult icon, a young Fishburne had a small but meaningful part in the third installment of the Freddy Krueger franchise. He played an orderly at a psychiatric hospital who takes an interest in his patients, including Krueger's would-be victim played by Patricia Arquette. (Photo: Steve Granitz/WireImage)
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Morgan Freeman in Se7en - As a veteran detective in hot pursuit of a serial killer, Freeman's fate was better than his co-stars' Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow: Paltrow suffered one of the most talked-about deaths in movie history. (Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
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Loretta Devine in Urban Legend - Proving that security guards do more than bust the chops of petty vandals, Devine plays a member of Pendleton University's finest in this 1998 horror satire. Channeling Pam Grier with a nightstick, Devine seeks revenge on a killer terrorizing the students at the idyllic university. (Photo: Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for IMDb)
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Taye Diggs in The House on Haunted Hill - Crashing a party could lead to deadly consequences, a lesson learned for Taye Diggs, whose character in this 1999 remake of the 1959 classic is a social climber who shows up uninvited to a ritzy Halloween party only to find himself being pursued by ghosts who claim his ancestors wronged them. All ends well once Diggs explains he's adopted.(Photo: FOX via Getty Images)
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Rachel True in The Craft - As one-fourth of a coven of high school witches who cast spells on bullies, True was in more danger of committing social suicide than actually dying in this campy horror classic. But the real question is, who murdered the one-time ingenue's film career after the success of this film? (Photo: Columbia Pictures/Getty Images)
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Halle Berry in Gothika - Winning an Oscar for Best Actress isn't the only groundbreaking thing Berry did for actors of color. She is not only one of the only Black actors to take a leading role in a horror film, but to survive it until the end. In fact, the ghost that haunts this thriller not only spares Berry, but helps her escape the mental asylum she's trapped in. (Photo: Warner Bros.)
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Garcelle Beauvais in I Know Who Killed Me - While this film couldn't resurrect Lindsay Lohan's acting career, it did spare Beauvais, who plays a heroic cop tasked with capturing a small town serial killer in the thriller. Unfortunately, nobody associated with the film was spared a lashing by the critics. (Photo: 360 Pictures)
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Harold Perrineau in 28 Weeks Later - After surviving a plane crash onto a creepy island in the television series Lost, Perrineau proved he has a cinematic survival instinct by managing to stay alive through a virus outbreak in this acclaimed horror classic. (Photo: Fox Atomic)
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