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.
Peter Washington (Ken Foree)
One of the last sane S.W.A.T. officers at the onset of the zombie apocalypse, Peter and a fellow officer named Roger both met up with news station employees Stephen and Frannie to take the traffic copter out for safety. The foursome eventually found the Monroeville Mall and decided to take shelter there for the time being since they will need to refuel eventually. What became an ideal setting ended up becoming an extreme nightmare as the crew are not only attacked by hordes of the undead and dumbass, chaotic bikers, they also were succumbing to consumerism during the apocalypse. Seeing no good way out, Peter sends a very pregnant Frannie to fly the copter and save herself, while he planned to take himself via suicide. At the last minute, Peter came to his damn senses and boarded the chopper and got the hell out of dodge.
Fun Trivia
In the original ending, Peter was supposed to have killed himself, and Frannie as well. These scenes were shot, but were abandoned in order to have a more upbeat ending. Thank. The. Lord.
Final Thoughts
If Peter had of died, I think I would’ve rioted after seeing the film, because it would’ve made twice that a resourceful, strong black man made it to the end of a Romero zombie movie to only die for no given reason. Luckily we got the better ending, and a damn great hero in Ken Foree’s Peter. Again, Duane Jones (and Ben) probably are beaming with pride.