Crack House

I watch this as a teen and again in my twenties, even then I was shocked the Jim Brown would stoop so low! But his history and abuse of women in real life is almost as bad as it is in this movie. Yes a lot of people saw this movie as humorous and funny... In reality it was none of those things. It was brutal towards women, yes know it's a movie but just stating my opinion, this is not something that any young person should see. But if you do see it, hopefully it'll teach you to say no to drugs for REAL! And stay away from people that deal drugs and especially human traffickers! I read one of the reviewer said she saw it at age 9, and it scared her for life. I certainly can see how she came to that conclusion.

I had never even heard about the 1989 crime drama "Crack House" when I stumbled upon it here in 2025. And with it being a movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to check out what director had to offer.

The storyline in the movie was adequate, but nothing outstanding really. It was a somewhat forgettable and bland narrative, and I have to admit that I struggled to keep focus on the screen. So writers Blake Schaffer and Jack Silverman didn't exactly invent something grand here.

The acting performances in the movie were fair. There were two familiar faces on the cast list, and that was Richard Roundtree and Jim Brown.

While I did manage to sit through the entire movie, then I was only mildly entertained. It is not, however, a movie that I will ever watch a second time. Nor is it a movie that I would recommend you to track down if you haven't already seen it.

My rating of director Michael Fischa's 1989 movie "Crack House" lands on a four out of ten stars.

Rick Morales (Gregg Thomsen) and his girlfriend Melissa (Cher Butler) are two inner city kids who have the potential to escape their grim surroundings. But he blows it when he impulsively goes gunning for revenge, after his cousin is shot dead. While he's in prison, she hooks up with the charismatic B.T. (Clyde Jones), who gets her hooked on drugs. Eventually, Rick gets word of the sorry state she's in - among other things, she is acquired as "collateral" by powerful drug kingpin Steadman (Jim Brown) - and works out a deal with police detective Lt. Johnson (Richard Roundtree) to get out of prison so he can dig up some dirt on Steadman.

The script, by Blake Schaefer, is very routine, and the direction, by Michael Fischa, is largely uninspired. Still, there's something to savour about these trashy "message" potboiler features, this one produced by the almighty Cannon Group. It does create a reasonably seedy and depressing atmosphere, due largely to some good location filming. This is a world that chews up many a young person and spits them back out, and there are characters, predictably, who don't make out too well. The violence is effective, as are the moments of sex and T & A.

Bad ass dudes Roundtree and Brown are worth watching. Roundtree doesn't exactly have to stretch himself a whole lot, but he's still cool. Brown is subtly powerful as the head bad guy. Anthony Geary of 'General Hospital' fame is cast as the well meaning teacher. Future film director F. Gary Gray ("Friday", "The Negotiator", "Law Abiding Citizen") has a tiny part as one of many gang members. Lovely Angel Tompkins does fairly well in a change of pace de-glamorized character role as Melissas' alcoholic mother. Thomsen and especially Butler are good as the kids at the centre of the story.

There's nothing special about this one, but it does entertain.

Six out of 10.

This film may have been funny in parts but overall it was wrong!I had the misfortune of seeing around age 9.It was supposed to be about a girlfriend and boyfriend that tried to escape slum life but were confronted with the harsh realities of street life-particularly gangs and drugs. I had no idea what I was getting into; and was not looking forward to it. It scarred me for life! They would have been better of just making a straight "hood" or"porno" film anyway. This subject matter here was too serious to be trivialized for sexual kicks.Also, it was bad enough that the girls were drug addicts but they were also sex slaves.Yet another topic that is far from a joke.Other films at least show female drug addicts with some agency and choice about the levels they are willing to stoop to.This film did not even do that.I also did not like the fact that the main villains were mostly black. I am not saying you do not have black men that are this cold.But people seethe black villains all the time.Law Abiding, honest, compassionate black men DO exist. You did have a Latino and White villain; but for the most part,the black men are the villains once again. Anyway, I am not one to think that all films with serious themes should never be funny or entertaining;But this was nothing but a freaky porno film masquerading as an anti-drug message film. Like school on Sunday, just nothing classy about it ;but then again this film obviously made no pretense of going for that. Fine, but this film was a trip!I can't think of any films similar to this one off the top of my head. I have stumbled across films where they have used prison films as sex exploitation films but they did not always disgust me the way this film did. In summary, this film was a hot straight to DVD mess!It gets your attention, but then again car wrecks have the sinking ability to do that too.

Pretty sleazy exploitation flick from Cannon that has decent production values and above average action scenes. "Crackhouse" is pretty brutal and the violence is quite gritty.

Ex-Playmate of the month Cheryl Butler (credited as Cheryl Kay here) shows off her assets but also turns in a rather haunting performance. She played a strung out junkie very convincingly. The rest of the acting is typical 80's cheese and Richard Roundtree plays his usual useless cop role. "Crackhouse" is pretty brutal and the violence is quite gritty.

The best part about "Crackhouse" is that is features Jim Brown as a sleazy drug dealer who keeps women locked up in his crack house. After Brown has his way with the girls he tosses them over to his fellow drug dealers so they can perform gang rapes. Brown even tells a lady she "smells like sh*t" and that she needs to wash her a**hole. Pretty entertaining stuff.

The dialog is also amusing. During a fight with a drug dealer who strung his lady out on crack, hero Rick screams "Fu*k you, fu*ker!" before smashing the guy's head through a van window. Then he blows up the guys van and walks away (without looking at the explosion of course).

Luke from General Hospital pops up as a school teacher who happens to also be the biggest drug supplier in town (?) and forces a student to strip for a crack rock.

Check the film out if you like 80's exploitation or Cannon Films. It's entertaining and well made.