Hood of Horror

I wasn't even one stop light away from my DVD rental store when I looked at the passenger seat where my two day rental of Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror lay and I uttered out loud, "What the fudge was I thinking?" To caveat my beef before the meat of the review, I will come clean and say that I am not a hip-hop fan. I might find Snoop Dogg interesting and sometimes even fun (when I have come across him on late night television talk shows), but I ain't linin' up at no ticket counter looking to score wristbands for his next concert if you know what I am meaning. His acting is a give-or-take option. He was in horror before with 2001's Bones where he did an ample job of not putting me to sleep, but let's face it, the best that Snoop has ever been was in stupid comedies like Soul Plane and Starsky & Hutch, and in both of those carnations, he pretty much just played himself.

Strike two against an objective review was the fact that Hood of Horror was the fact that it was an anthology. Squeezing three stories into 84 minutes is like trying to squish a marshmallow through a keyhole. Eventually it will get through, but you will wonder at end if it was worth the effort. Like Twilight Zone : The Movie or Creepshow 2, movies that try and crop multiple television length stories into a compilation masked as a full length feature.

Strike three was the detailing of the three stories on the back of the DVD cover. All three stories were about as original as a Lindsey Lohan drug arrest. I immediately thought, "Why should I invest time in a film that doesn't look like it invested time in any creative new ideas?" But there I was. It was Saturday night and the Misses and I just had an argument over who was the better director between John Carpenter and Rob Zombie. She decided to pout upstairs and watch The Devil's Rejects while I retreated to the basement (better known as 'The Dungeon') where the cover art on Hood of Horror won out over any pay-per-view porn that would have been a quick option 2.

If I had my life to live over again…..

Hood of Horror's first story surrounds a young girl's revenge upon the neighborhood where her mother and father fell by way of the 'ole murder suicide number. As young Posie (Daniella Alonso) grew up, it seems her hatred from her environment nurtured inside her. When confronted with three street thugs who mark their territory by spray painting city walls, Posie tries to assert her own foot hold which lands her in the company of the always watchable Danny Trejo who is nice enough to adorn her with a tattoo that gives her the power to erase these hoodlums from the face of the earth in graphic fashion simply by X'ing out their graffiti with red paint. Booooooooorrrrrring! So in about 14 minutes we are mildly entertained as they go down 1-2-3 while stupid one-liners like "What a waste…..of beer" are rambled off with as much humor as a Michael Vick dog park.

Story two didn't get much better. The middle act surrounds an obnoxious heir to a fortune that must live with his father's army buddies for one year before reaping the benefits of his inheritance. The story was so ridiculous and so annoying that I won't even waste my time going into detail. Even the two one-liners "Anyone for Jiffy Pop" and "That's my kind of redneck" were comments that would even make Schwarzenegger blush.

The third and final act seemed to be the shortest and "thank god for that!" As I swarmed in and out of interested consciousness, it seemed the story was about a rap artist that had to pay for all his bad deeds of the past. When a former friend and now undead visitor from Hell comes back for a visit, the rapper revisits his badness and ultimately finds his demise in rather boring fashion. Jason Alexander from Seinfeld fame is around for a cameo which was about as out of place as Ozzy Osbourne would be as an English Teacher.

Snoop's Hood of Horror was not the worst horror film I have seen in a while, but it was close. Without any stories worth remembering or scenes worth pausing, it felt like an 80 minute excuse to promote some new hip-hop/rap songs. And if the best part of the film is the animated intro, then you can guess just how downhill and how fast this film fell.

Almost all the jokes can be seen as problematic these days. The "gore" was comical at best but annoying at worst... which was most of the time. The soundtrack was almost exclusively Snoop. The special effects look like something out of Birdemic. But hey, it's a Snoop horror movie. No durr it's gonna be this self-awareness circlejerk.

This film contains three interwoven tales from the hood, with Snoop Dogg (sometimes as an animated gangster and sometimes as a man in hell) narrating between segments. I use interwoven in the loosest sense because they really seem to have connection at all. I will discuss each one briefly.

The first segment was about a woman named Posey who is granted satanic powers by a homeless man (Danny Trejo) and can kill rival gang members by simply crossing out their spray tags. It's really stupid. The plot is weak, Posey's acting is awful. Even Trejo and Billy Dee Williams cannot save this one. There is a great death scene involving a beer bottle, but that doesn't make up for the rest of this segment.

The second segment was actually really good. A redneck and his girlfriend move into a home for retired veterans, with one of them, Roscoe, being played by Ernie Hudson. Hudson is great, as is the rich redneck. The deaths here are weaker (other than the explosion scene) but the plot is much better -- this was written as a real story and not just a throw-away idea. In fact, it could have been its own movie or at least an episode of "Masters of Horror". If you only watch this part, you might find the movie watchable.

The third part was just foolish. Because these are tales from the hood, of course they took the stereotype route and one man escapes the hood by rapping. But he becomes haunted by his friends that he left behind to die. Some of the makeup here is pretty disgusting, which I mean in a nice way, but the overall story is just an excuse to show a guy in the studio rapping. If you already have Snoop Dogg in your cast list ,you don't need to add another man rapping.

I suppose the problem of the film as a whole is that it was written and directed by different people in different segments. Compare this to "Creepshow", which is a lot more consistent. The best part -- part two -- was written by Tim Sullivan, the man behind "2001 Maniacs". It shows. I may not have been the biggest fan of that film, but Sullivan knows how to tell a story that horror fans appreciate (and he has some weird obsession with Confederate sympathizers). The other writers? I have no idea who they are.

Other reviewers have called this film the "Hood of Horrible", and I want to jump on that bandwagon. It wasn't well made, it was poorly written for the most part, and although even some of the worst films can still be enjoyable, this one just wasn't. The odds of me seeing this a second time are pretty slim. If you get the chance to see it the first time, pass up on it and watch James Franco's "The Ape" instead.

Hood of Horror is a gangsta horror anthology (gangthology?) comprising of three ghetto-flavoured tales, loosely tied together by an animated wraparound story. Whilst the stylish cartoon section is confusing and ultimately forgettable stuff, the bulk of the film is far more successful, being well written (much of it by 2001 Maniac's Tim Sullivan), very gory (albeit in a strictly tongue in cheek style), and confidently directed by Stacy Title.

Hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg 'MC's the whole shebizzle (as he might say), introducing each story in his inimitable OG style, and what fun they are: first up is 'Crossed Out', which sees graffiti artist Posie (Daniella Alonso) being given the power to kill her enemies simply by crossing out their 'tags'; tale number two is 'The Scumlord', which stars Anson Mount as a racist, sexist Texan loudmouth who is set to inherit a tenement in the ghetto, but on one condition—that he spends a year in the building with the current occupants, his father's army buddies, the all black Fighting 88; the last story is 'Rapsody Askew' which follows ambitious rap artist Sod (Pooch Hall) as he does whatever it takes to achieve fame and fortune.

A lot of people seem to dislike this film, calling it cheap and amateurish, but I had a great time with it even though I'm not a massive fan of the hip-hop scene: there are several familiar faces in the cast (Danny Trejo, Ernie Hudson and Lin Shaye) who lend proceedings a certain air of class. the splatter is very enthusiastic, the women are bootylicious, and I'm almost certain that the tunes are phat.

This incredibly pathetic spin on "Tales from the Crypt" features three vignettes portraying horrific tales involving life in the ghetto. True, there are some neat death scenes - namely the one incorporating caviar - but they hardly make up for the poorly constructed plot. Is this truly how low Snoop Dogg sinks on the silver screen? The first segment features a young woman dealing with gangs by X-ing out their graffiti...and it gets TRULY nasty. The second segment features a redneck and his hubby moving in with some men formerly under his father's command and REALLY getting on their nerves. Finally, a rap star gets more than he bargained for.

What I mean by Jean-Paul Sartre is the third segment. What happens reminds me of Sartre's play "No Exit", about some people trapped in an existential Hell. Of course, I don't think that the people behind this movie intended for it to look like that. To be certain, there's absolutely nothing even remotely intellectual in this movie.

All in all, I advise avoiding "Hood of Horror". It's barely one step above terrible. Posie (Daniella Alonso) and Tiffany (Brande Roderick) were kinda hot, though. Also starring Ernie Hudson (Winston in "Ghostbusters"), Danny Trejo (you've probably seen him in Robert Rodriguez's movies) and Lin Shaye (the sunburned neighbor in "There's Something About Mary", and later the retiring flight attendant in "Snakes on a Plane").