Tales from the Hood

Tales from the Hood (1995)

Runtime: 98 minutes

Directed by: Rusty Cundieff

Starring: Wings Hauser, David Alan Grier, Corbin Bernsen, Clarence Williams III

From: Savoy Pictures

Here’s another movie I saw in my childhood but I hadn’t watched since then, meaning many years. It’s not only a horror anthology-something you don’t see nearly enough-but it’s African-American centered, which is also something you don’t see often enough… at least done well. Last October I reviewed basically a student horror flick involving African-Americans, and that is one of the worst movies you’ll ever see. Thankfully, this movie (produced by Spike Lee; I’m someone who usually isn’t a fan of him or how he acts, but…) is not bad and in fact is an entertaining motion picture.

The story is that some gangbangers end up in the funeral home of a real spooky guy (Williams III) for a drug shipment and he tells them a quartet of stories: some racist cops end up getting their comeuppance in a memorable way, a teacher helps his boy student deal with a “monster” who in real life attacks him, a little doll comes to life, and some “behavior modifications” take place. I don’t want to give away more than that as there are some surprises in the stories. There’s even a shocker at the very end.

This isn’t what you’d call hardcore horror a la Texas Chain Saw Massacre or The Exorcist and you don’t have blood and guts all over the place (although what carnage you get to see is fine-enough); rather, it’s 4 entertaining tales that never become boring and happen to feature real-life themes important to African-Americans, such as racism, various sorts of abuse-including drugs-and black on black crime. It's interesting, and you can be any creed/color and enjoy it. There's some black humor, too (pun not intended), which livens up things. The script is entertaining and the performances are fine all around. It's especially interesting seeing Grier in a rare non-comedic role.

So, even though this at times does scream "90's", if you enjoy horror films and especially if you saw this around the time it came out, it's worth watching it again.

I'll be back to make a rare Tuesday night posting.