HBO has secured another ratings hit with their new video game adaptation “The Last of Us,” and while it’s as exciting and epic as the original video game, it also has the distinction of having a Latino leading man. Chilean actor Pedro Pascal plays the protagonist Joel, who is tasked with trekking across the horrific landscape to help find a cure with young Ellie in tow.
With a Latino actor leading such a massive hit for the horror genre, it got us thinking about other great Latino Horror Heroes from pop culture. Here are five of our favorites.
Pablo Simon Bolivar – Ash vs. Evil Dead
Pablo (Ray Santiago) is an Ash fan boy when we first meet him, referring to him as “El Jefe” with admiration. When he’s pulled into the war against the Deadites, the seemingly non-threatening blue collar worker becomes a vicious foe against evil, even building Ash a new prosthetic hand that comes equipped with various tools. Channeling his background in Brujeria, he becomes one with the Necronomicon and acquires some of his own powers to help Ash in combat. Despite some tumbles (and death), he fights with Ash until the very end, and proves very useful. Thankfully, Pablo (and cohort Kelly) has been somewhat canonized in the “Evil Dead” expanded universe – both characters, for example, are featured as playable survivors in Evil Dead: The Game.
Princess (Juanita Lopez) – The Walking Dead Comics
“What a cruddy term when it gets down to it, right? Ever think about that? There were less of us, so they called us ‘minorities’. It just sounds so negative, like the word was designed to make everyone dismiss us immediately.” Originally introduced in issue 171 of “The Walking Dead,” Princess is an eccentric and seemingly unhinged survivor who builds herself a small environment to soothe her isolation and loneliness, even propping zombies up for her amusement. With a large personality and somewhat childlike temperament, along the way Princess gains the trust of Eugene and proves herself among Rick’s group (and Alexandria). She ultimately survives to see the end, as one of the most formidable foes of the walking dead; as well as one of the more colorful heroes of Robert Kirkman’s series. Princess was played by Paola Lázaro in the AMC series.
El Santo – Santo Movie Series
I spent a lot of my childhood watching my family consistently tune in to the El Santo movies on Spanish television. They’ve managed to become massive cult classics and widely appreciated over the years. El Santo, whose name is Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta, is a classic Latin folk hero whose luchador status has given him the abilities to fight a plethora of horror villains and a variety of monsters. In his massive fifty four movie series, El Santo has fought many monsters in movies like “Santo vs. The Zombies,” “Santo vs. The Vampire Women,” “Santo in the Treasure of Dracula” (infamously satirized in MST3K), and “Santo vs. The She Wolves,” to name just a few.
Sam Carpenter – Scream, Scream VI
In the vein of her predecessor Sidney Prescott, Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) is the new “final girl” heroine of the Scream franchise. While she’s basically fighting to protect her sister Tara, she manages to muster up many clever plans and sneaky attacks on Ghostface. This is especially true when she saves her sister in the hospital alongside Dewey, as well as her attack on Amber and Richie during the climax. Sam has been passed the torch by Sidney to carry on the legacy of Scream heroines, and what makes her even more of a razor edged horror heroine than Sidney is that she’s the daughter of Billy Loomis, a bonafide psycho whose own legacy she’s always at risk of following. Just how long before Ghostface pushes her over the edge, is the question…
El Wray – Grindhouse Presents: Planet Terror
What we know about El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) is shrouded in mystery, but we do learn over the course of Planet Terror that he was a military special agent who served in an unspecified place, where he learned the deadly art of killing. When we meet him, he’s a wandering stranger who arrives in Texas, and gets caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. He’s basically the hero of Robert Rodriguez’s zombie splatter film, driven by the love of Cherry Darling, and he goes through literal hell to save her when she’s stuck in a zombie ridden hospital. He also manages to lead the trek to salvation for his comrades in the climax, sacrificing himself for the rest of the human race.
Along with Machete and Hobo with a Shotgun, El Wray had massive spinoff potential for a big action movie series in the wake of Grindhouse, but alas, he only got the one movie.
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