I can’t recall the exact night, but I can remember the exact moment my eyes first gazed upon the black gothic beauty known as Belle in Fright Night Part 2.
At the time, I had no inkling of the word “queer.” It was furthest from my mind, yet sonic wisps of it circled my naive and innocent face daily. But I knew something was “off” about this black vampire. Were they a man or a woman? If a man, why did he look so much like a woman? Why was his hair so wild and “exotic?” Why use skates to attack his prey (albeit it was freaking genius)? All of these questions permeated throughout my mind every time I saw Fright Night Part 2 in my younger years, but out of all those naive questions, I knew three things:
I liked him. I loved him. I felt him.
Played by the tragically late, yet oh so great Russell Clark, Belle skated across my screen to his unsuspecting meal consisting of an art school coed, forever cementing himself into my overall, budding queer psyche. The skates, which in any other situation would come off as silly (and some, aka me, consider it perfection), provided an accidental foundation for Belle’s character. While most vampires would probably float, or even fly, to their prey, a ‘dated’ mechanism in itself, Belle chose another means to throw off not only his victims, but the viewer as well, by making skates a terrifying asset for a vampire. However the amazing skates were just one interesting trait of what Belle brought to the new coven of vampires/monsters that stalked Charley Brewster and Peter Vincent. His cool silence, but gloriously deadly aesthetic brought a sense of sensual terror that frankly the other two henchmen were lacking, rendering them boring as fuck in the overall narrative (Regine was in a lasagne of her own). In the grand scheme of things, I can’t help but express my undying opinion that Belle was the best aspect about Fright Night Part 2. Even if he didn’t have one line of dialogue.
But it was also Belle’s eerie silence that initially troubled me in more ways than one. Mainly because while Belle was a beacon for other black queer kids who didn’t subscribe to what was expected of black men and women, he could also ironically be seen as a symbol of how muted the black gay community was to the overall gay narrative, especially in the 1980s. I don’t think that was intentional by the writers and director of Fright Night Part 2, mind you. However, by viewing life through the three permanent lens of Black, Gay, and Horror Fan, I couldn’t help but see the double-edged sword Belle represented: on one end, the iconic black queer representative we so desperately needed, and on the other end, a beautiful, uncanny, magical force grandly seen, but woefully not heard.
Reading various materials that fed into the three facets of my identity made the metaphorical lightning strike when I first encountered Belle more prominent. The works of Essex Hemphill, Joseph Beam, Melvin Dixon, and other black gay writers of that era served the history previously not available to my eager hands, filling the gaps left within the painfully white gay narratives, presented as the ‘official’ gay narrative. Finding black horror scholars like Tananarive Due, Ashlee Blackwell, Robin Means-Coleman, Mark Harris, and others who echoed my undying love, as well as my growing resentment of the portrayals of black people in horror.
As I immersed myself in this sea of black, gay/horror lit and history, Belle’s personal significance grew exponentially. He was everything that I wanted to be, and, in some aspects, am. He stood out among his crew, using his eccentricities as his shield. He wasn’t boastful as the other two henchmen; instead he just waited until the opportunity to strike presented itself. Although, I still don’t have the balls to put on a wig and skates and cosplay the fuck outta him, busting my ass in the process because I can’t skate for shit. I did (do), however, have the urge to represent him metaphorically just as much as he represented me in a time when I didn’t know I needed him. Or rather would need him. So in some aspect, the words and activism of people like Hemphill and Due became Belle’s voice, for me at least. And with those three combined, Belle became the mascot of Midnight Social Distortion, a voice for the black queer horror fan, otherwise invisible not only on the horror community, but the black community as well. To some extent, at least.
Looking up material for this tribute, and even beforehand just to have some type of trivia to chew on, I came up empty on anything pertaining to Belle’s character in the grand scheme of Fright Night Part 2. The only morsels I came across were Russell Clark’s obituary; his career achievements, which include choreographing tons of iconic music videos for Michael Jackson, David Bowie, George Clinton, and Gloria Estefan & the Miami Sound Machine to name a few; pics of his roles in those music videos and other movies he choreographed, including Grace Jones’s Vamp and Olivia Newton-John’s Xanadu; and one YouTube video of Mr. Clark co-teaching a dance class. I’m initially was looking for why Belle didn’t have any lines, or even a small blurb about the character. But then I realized, as I said before, Belle’s visage was all I needed and I filled in the rest. Belle is a symbol, if not the symbol, of black gay horror. Silent, but ever so deadly to the point that the actions of black gay horror and black horror in general will speak for itself.
As a black horror fan, seeing a strong character resembling yourself among a sea of white bodies that had to be protected at all costs, including the sacrifice of said strong black character, was already an aggravating issue in itself. As many an article, blog post, and even the seminal black horror book/doc Horror Noire will explain, black people have a troubling, rollercoaster history in the horror genre. So when we see a black character break the tropes expected of their time in a horror movie, we tend to chalk that up as a win. Even if that character might not make it to the end credits. Belle is one of those characters we chose to root for, even if he’s a villain.
However, Belle is not the first black gay horror character, and he’s far from the last. But he’s one of the ‘loudest’. And I will forever find ways to talk about him, so trust and believe that I ha e a whole lot more to say about this character. So with what could be argued as the best World Pride Month ever comes to a close, I want to say thank you, Belle, and thank you, Russell Clark, for becoming the beacon for black queer people for 31 years and counting.
