This February, Midnight Social Distortion will be celebrating Black History Month by honoring Black horror characters, in particular Black horror survivors, throughout the twenty-eight day period. Each day will feature one black male and one black female survivor in horror and sci-fi to bring light to the positive, albeit still problematic, black champions of representation in horror. Some disclaimers first: obvious spoilers ahead, and not all horror survivors will be featured this go round, but will appear in later posts down the line.
Lisa Fortier (Pan Grier)
Character Arc:
Lisa Fortier didn’t know that when she inherited the title of Voodoo Queen from her adopted mother/mentor over the blood heir Willis that it would set off a chain of events that would unleash the bloodthirsty rage, and return, of Blacula. Sensing the undead African Prince’s return, Lisa is intrigued by the smooth charm of Mamuwalde, but doesn’t connect her visions to the man standing in front of her. Once the bloodless bodies start popping up, police initially suspect Lisa due to her reputation as a voodoo priestess, to the annoyance of her boyfriend Justin (who is a former detective).
Once Blacula sees how powerful Lisa’s abilities are, he enlists her in freeing him of his vampiric nature. He also commands his growing horde of vampires to not attack Lisa ever. During the ceremony (that looks to be working), Lisa and Blacula are interrupted by Justin’s rescue attempts, which infuriates the African vampire. In an attempt to spare Justin’s life, Lisa agrees to do the ceremony again. She reneges when she witnesses Blacula’s violent nature, and decides to end the vampire’s rage by stabbing his voodoo doll in the chest when an arrow.
Final Thoughts
In a perfect world, Lisa would pair up with Dr. Gordon Thomas to ward off supernatural threats in the black community. With her voodoo queen stature, Lisa was just as aware and ready to accept the oddities of the supernatural realm as Dr. Thomas was. Together, they would be unstoppable. Or better yet, I’d love to have seen her and Sugar Hill meet and just have a field day dragging mofos left and right. With that said, I truly wished we could’ve seen more of Lisa’s powers to showcase just how much of bad ass Pam Grier is, not to say that she didn’t showcase that fact already, but more Pam Grier is never a bad thing.
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