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.
Cole Burris (Eugene Byrd)
Character Arc:
Clearly being the successor to Danny Rich bringing the hood to the (this time the Borneo) jungle, Cole was nowhere near as laid back and chillaxed as Danny. Instead, he complained. A lot. So much so that maybe all that complaining helped him survive a nest of anacondas coming for his and his colleagues heads.
In the search for the blood orchid, basically the film’s Fountain of Youth, Cole had to endure not only being drug literally by anacondas, but he also had to spar with leeches, a boat crash, spiders that turned their victims into motionless beings if bitten, and a pharmaceutical psychopath – who couldn’t even hold a candle to the game hunter psychopath Danny had to deal with – willing to sacrifice Cole and the others for his own personal gain. But Cole managed to come through in the end by killing not only the nest of anacondas, but the orchids they were there to retrieve as well, mostly because the orchids were responsible for the anacondas doubling in size in the first place. Not bad, Cole. Not bad.
Fun Trivia
Cole mentions the events of the first movie, but says they were all killed and eaten by snakes. If that’s the case then how did anyone know the crews’ cause of deaths? Get your facts straight, Cole.
Final Thoughts
Again, he’s no Danny Rich, but good ole Cole tried his hardest. When the trailer dropped and showed more than one black person and only three white people, I was certain that Cole, Gail, Tran, and Gordon were all the red shirts along with anyone else who may have crossed their paths. Luckily I was wrong. However, as much as I cheered Cole on, he was still only there to ease the tension and make everyone laugh. I wonder if that alone was his saving grace from becoming anaconda chow. “Make us laugh while we run from snakes, Cole!” Not a good look. But take your seat at the Black Horror Survivors Table, Cole. We’ve been expecting you.