Sorry, this movie sucks

Captivating movie !

A Masterpiece!

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

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.

*Possible spoilers*Horror movie tropes are paired with sociological issues in this underrated horror film. In my opinion, some of the best horror and sci-fi films reflect the political climate of the era in which they are made. Tales from the Hood is a great example, and still relevant over 20 years later. It's also one of the best examples of a horror anthology film.On one level, we have a somewhat typical cheesy horror flick with low-budget special effects and some silly moments. But the real core of this film is that the horrors of real life are scarier than the supernatural events portrayed.Zombies, monsters in the closet, haunted dolls, and a mad scientist laboratory are all used as frameworks for truly terrifying, real life social issues - police brutality and corruption, domestic violence, white supremacists running for political office, and gang violence. The final story also seems as a cautionary tale.

Vignette Horror is one of my favourite types, it's not just the accessibility of the format, but the deftness and wit that is required to create a sequence of short stories usually bypasses the problems which certain horror films have in terms of an overstayed welcome. The structure used in Tales From The Hood is the classic one which was perfected by the Amicus and Hammer studios in the 1960′s and 1970′s, only minus Joan Collins.The 'cryptkeeper' in this case is played by Clarence Williams III, who is a drastically underused actor and always a delight to see on screen. He draws the attention of three local gangstas through the promise of a large amount of drugs which have come into his possession. The catch being that they must first listen to him tell several stories relating to the bodies which currently lie displayed within his funeral home.It only has a running time of 98 minutes which is part of the reason why it is so successful and enjoyable. I am very much of the opinion that a great deal of horror movies now unnecessarily approach the 120 minute (and beyond) when they could have been infinitely more successful if shortened. There are four stories on show here, each relating to a particular hardship or struggle faced by the African American communities of the early 1990′s.It's important to remember that this was an America which was still sore after the chaos of the LA Riots and the exposure of a crooked police force through the Rodney King videotape leak. Once you see that Spike Lee was drafted in as an executive producer, the social elements of the movie become contextualised to a greater extent.The topics of the cautionary tales cover areas such as police brutality and racism withing law enforcement (Rogue Cop Revelation), domestic abuse against women and children (Boys Do Get Bruised), racism within politics (KKK Comeuppance) and the futility of gang culture and the violence it creates (Hard Core Convert). All are delivered with a supernatural twist which places the movie strongly into the horror genre and making it not only groundbreaking, unique for it's time, but also helps it to maintain a strength when watched today.I was aware of the soundtrack before I was aware of the film itself as it was given to me shortly after its release in 1995, it would be a couple of years before I was able to track down a VHS copy. The OST features some fantastic tracks by Gravediggaz, Wu Tang Clan and a brilliant Ol Dirty Bastard track and is well worth locating a copy of.When one considers the depths to which 'hood' based horror movies became after this ('Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror' and 'Leprechaun back 2 Da Hood' being just two examples), it is all the more reason to revisit Tales From the Hood. There's something about it which will greatly appeal to a certain horror fan, particularly those fond of the genre output of the early 90′s.I'd tell you to go to your local video store to acquire a copy, but there probably isn't even one left in your town. Get it whatever way you can, you won't regret it.Read more at zombiehamster.com

As a white American, I view this movie a lot differently than its intended audience...lemme tell you why.The movie is basically a Tales From the Crypt like setting with a black cultured twist. It starts off with 3 homeboys checking out "the shyt" from a mortician (played brilliantly by Clarence Williams the 3rd who ironically was in an episode of Tales From the Crypt years earlier). The mortician then tells 4 tales centered around real life issues.Tale 1 is about 3 white cops who murder a black politician while a rookie black cop looks on. A year later the politician rises from the grave to extract revenge. Its your basic police brutality and one of the weaker stories because its not very realistic, which I thought this movie was supposed to be.Tale 2 is the second best in my opinion. A child on the first day of school is examined by his teacher to find bruises all over him, he claims the "monster" at home did it. This one centers around child abuse with the awesome moral that there are monsters in real life, just not in the form everyone thinks.Tale 3 is another weak one but Corbin Bernsen is the man, he absolutely rules so I refuse to hate it no matter how absurd it is. This one's about a former KKK member who's moving into a mansion that was once the sight of a brutal slave massacre back in the civil war days. Once he move in the ghosts of the pasts haunt him and his associate to drive home the fact that someone always pays for the sins of the past. I don't know whether it was a casting goof, but Corbin's associate was a black man so if he was a racist then why would he choose this guy as a partner? The whole dolls come to life idea is another cheesy idea (coming off about 5 Puppet Master and Child's Play movies) and if anyone else was playing the role, I would have hit the fast forward button.Tale 4 is my personal favorite...it involves a young black gangster who will kill everyone and anyone with no remorse or fear. After murdering some homeboy, the cops catch him and throw him in jail. This is where he meets a white supremacist who thanks him for "doing his job for him." which leads to one of the most sickest, eye opening montages in film history. Basically the moral is, what's the difference between white lynch mobs of the 19th and 20th century and gang bangers from today? Gang violence is murder any way you look at it, and it doesn't matter if the parties are black or white, people suffer and die just the same.The film is done incredibly well but it does portray the white race as the bad guys with all the characters being racist (3 cops, politician, prisoner in the cell), but I guess that's payback for all the black characters being petty thugs and thieves in the Dirty Harry series.The tales themselves offer morals that people in every day life deal with, whether it was cheesy or not. Child abuse, crooked cops, corrupt politicians and gang warfare are an unfortunate but very real situations that this movie shines the light on beautifully.I won't give away the ending but Clarence Williams is the man of the hour and the one with the power, too sweet to be sour.I guess the highlight for me was when Corbin Bernsen calls the media "spooky reporters" 7 out of 10