Tales from the Hood (1995)

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Pittsburgh born Rusty Cundieff co-wrote and directed this portmanteau film, which takes the structure of an Amicus film and positions it against the problems of African-Americans circa 1995 (sadly, these problems haven't changed all that much in the past 22 years).During the framing sequence, Welcome to My Mortuary, the drug dealing team of Stack (Joe Torry), Bulldog and Ball arrive at the Simms' Funeral Home to buy "the shit" -- drugs that were found in an alley. As the four men make their way through Mr. Simms' (Clarence Williams III, Linc from TV's The Mod Squad) building, he tells the story of some of his past customers.Rogue Cop RevelationOn his first night of patrol. Clarence is taken by his partner Newton (Michael Massee, The Crow) to join two other officers, Billy (Duane Whitaker, Pulp Fiction) and Strom (Wings Hauser, Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time) as they attack Martin Moorehose (Tom Wright, the hitchhiker in Creepshow 2), a civil rights activist.Clarence stands up for the man, but is told not to break the police code. The officers shoot the battered Moorehouse up with heroin and then push it into the water. As the man had fought to keep drugs -- supplied by bad cops -- out of his community, he is seen as a hypocrite.A year later and Clarence has left the force and wanders the streets, drunk. Finding a mural of Moorehouse, he is haunted by a vision of the man crucified and screaming, "Bring them to me!" He then lures the other three officers to the dead man's grave, where they laugh at him and proceed to piss all over it.As Newton and Strom make a move to execute Clarence, Moorehouse emerges from his grave to drag Billy underground with a handful of his genitalia. A coffin bursts from the ground, with Billy's corpse lying inside it and Moorehouse holding his beating heart.A chase ensues, but obviously, the cops never saw Creepshow 2. Moorehouse beheads Strom and chases Newton through an alley, where he crucifies him to a wall with used hypodermic needles and then melts his body into his mural in a psychedelic scene.Moorehouse then asks Clarence where he was when he needed him. The story ends with two mental hospital orderlies watching Clarence in a straightjacket, noting that he was a dangerous cop killer.The second casket tells a story all about how Boys Do Get Bruised. Walter (Brandon Hammond, Menace II Society) is the new kid in school, constantly abused by bullies. A kindly teacher, Richard Garvey (writer/director Cundieff), takes an interest and visits his home one night.Walter has a power that enables him to damage people through his drawings, a power that he's used to stop a bully already. But he can't stop the real monster in his life -- his father, who beats both him and his mother once Garvey leaves. He returns to intervene, but Carl (David Alan Grier, In Living Color) is too powerful, beating all of them down until Walter crumples his drawing and decimates the man.We see Carl's twisted and burnt corpse as Mr. Simms shows the three gangsters a small doll, which is part of the next story, KKK Comeuppance.Duke Metger (Corbin Bernsen, Major League) is pretty much David Duke. He was in the KKK, he's racist and has an office inside a haunted slave plantation. Well, maybe not that last part.While reporters gather outside, character actor Art Evans appears to tell everyone that the plantation is haunted by the souls of the people murdered there. Now, they live inside the body of small dolls.Of course, those dolls are going to kill everyone they can. And they sure do. Much like Trilogy of Terror, the rest of this chapter involve Metger battling one, then several of the dolls until he is consumed by them.The drug dealers are now angry, as they just want to get "the shit" and get out. But when they see the body of someone they know, Crazy K, they have to hear the story of the Hard-Core Convert.After following one of his enemies and killing him, Crazy K is attacked by three men who shoot him repeatedly before they are all killed by the police.Yet somehow K survives and is taken to a rehabilitation building that's something out of a mad scientist movie. Dr. Cushing (Rosalind Cash, The Omega Man) hopes to use her mental techniques to retrain his mind, but he proves to be too uncaring to be saved. There's a great sequence here that predates Get Out where he is placed into sensory deprivation and basically goes into his own mind.Because K decides that he's fine with his crimes, his mind goes back to the moment where he was shot by the three men and he dies. And the three men?We've been following them all along. They are the gangsters and "the shit" is their closed coffins, with their bodies inside. And Mr. Simms? He's Satan. And this is Hell.Yep. The Amicus ending!I was really struck by the gorgeous camerawork in this film, which elevates it beyond being the low budget schlockfest that I had always believed that it was. Turns out I was wrong. Dead wrong. Cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond has quite the pedigree, working on films such as Candyman, The Man Who Fell to Earth and Don't Look Now.

Tales From the Hood (1995) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Three hoods go to a funeral parlor where they plan on picking up some drugs from the funeral director (Clarence Williams III) but instead he wants to tell them about four bodies inside his building. The first deals with a black man who is murdered by three white cops. The second story deals with a young black boy who goes to a new school where his teacher notices bruises on him. The boy tells the teacher that he's being attacked by a monster. The third story has a former KKK member (Corbin Bernsen) running for Governor but an old myth about slaves and dolls comes back to haunt him. The fourth story deals with a gangster who goes to prison for murder but is offered the chance of freedom if he takes part in an experiment.TALES FROM THE HOOD, as the title clearly states, is a take-off on the Tales from the Crypt series but of course this one here deals with stories about black folks. For the most part this is like most anthology films out there and the fact is that each story has good and bad elements. As with most anthologies, this one here is hit and miss because it's just hard to make these types of films work as one since each story is something different and carries its own good and bad. For the most part though, TALES FROM THE HOOD is an interesting horror film and one that's worth watching.The best thing about the movie is its cast, which has some very good performances throughout. Williams is certainly having fun eating up scenery as the mysterious funeral director. Wings Hauser, David Alan Grier, Bernsen and many others turn in fine performances and they certainly help carry the material. The material itself isn't the strongest as each of the stories fail to reach a classic level. The first one is way too predictable but it's slightly entertaining. The second story has an interesting twist and features the best performances but I'm not sure it should be in a horror movie. The third film is mildly interesting but appears to be trying to be like the final story of TRILOGY OF TERROR. The fourth story is certainly the weakest as it just comes across as a wannabe version of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.As a horror film the movie isn't all that strong as there's certainly no scares and I'd argue that there's not enough blood or horror elements. What's interesting about the film is the fact that it has a lot of social messages and it's meant to tell black audiences something. It's rare that you get a horror film about black characters and it's even rarer for it to take a social stance. TALES FROM THE HOOD is certainly far from a classic but there are enough interesting moments to make it worth watching.

Horror anthology movie directed by Rusty Cundieff and produced by Spike Lee. Features four stories plus a framing story that ties it all together. The first story is about a rookie black cop who knows three white cops killed a black politician but doesn't say anything. He's then compelled by the spirit of the politician to bring the murderers to his grave. The second story's about a little boy who shows up to school with bruises he claims he got from a monster in his home. The third story is about a doll terrorizing a former Ku Klux Klansmen running for office. The fourth story is about a killer who agrees to participate in a behavioral modification program in order to get early release from prison. The framing story sees three gangbangers visit a funeral home where they intend to buy some drugs from the eccentric mortician (Clarence Williams III). If you've seen any horror anthology movies before, you'll easily predict how this turns out. Violent, profane, and ugly. The much-ballyhooed social commentary is obvious and insulting. None of the stories are fresh and you'll probably feel the need to bathe after watching this.

A tribute to movies like "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" and "Tales from the Crypt", "Tales from the Hood" presents some horror vignettes centering on life in the black ghetto. Some drug dealers go to a funeral home to pick up their "s**t", only to have the eccentric owner (Clarence Williams III) tell them about the fates of some recent customers...with a twist at the end. At once a fun horror flick and also warning about getting mixed up with the wrong people, this is a cool one. A particular scene in the fourth vignette appears to be a tribute to "A Clockwork Orange". All in all, a real credit for director Rusty Cundieff and executive producer Spike Lee.Featuring Tom Wright (the hitchhiker in "Creepshow 2"), David Alan Grier, Corbin Bernsen and Rosalind Cash (in her final role).