Tales from the Hood

Very bizarre - just the way I like things! Ridiculous amount of profanity, cool horror & the editing is spot on. Not bad for a crazy a$$ African American flick, I don't mind these type occasionally.

An eccentric funeral director shares four tales of horror from an African American perspective with three young thugs. The first involves a man who exacts his revenge from beyond the grave after being murdered by crooked cops. The next tells of a boy alleged torment at the hands of a monster may not be tall tales. A white supremacist politician haunted by forces of injustices past highlights the third story, while the fourth focuses on a gangbanger undergoing frightening behavior modification.

TALES FROM THE HOOD benefits enormously from solid writing and an entertaining pace. With a running time of under 100 minutes, director Rusty Cundieff does an admirable job of cramming everything he's got into each vignette. Few of us have the stomach for a horror movie with a message, but this is one that succeeds. It has things to say about racism in our society and says them in ways in which they've never been said before. Though definitely not for all tastes, TALES FROM THE HOOD is a surprisingly solid horror anthology.

* *Cast Note: Clarence Williams III, who plays the funeral director, is best known as Linc from THE MOD SQUAD television series.

Tales From the Hood, another horror anthology film dripping with EC comics-style ghoulishness, strings together four stories told by a wild-haired, macabre funeral director (Clarence Williams III) to a trio of gangbangers seeking their missing drug stash in a mortuary. Virtually all of the tales are familiar -- walking corpses and voodoo dolls are staples of the format -- but director Rusty Cundieff makes every effort to inject the proceedings with social morality. Child abuse, racism, and police brutality each get a pretty heavy-handed treatment, but the last story, involving a voluntary "behavior modification" technique for an unrepentant killer (ala A Clockwork Orange) explodes off the screen. In the film's most powerful sequence, Cundieff serves up a quickly cut montage of unsettling images culled from a number of state historical archives depicting vicious, stomach-churning lynchings meant to deter the rapacious young killer from wanting to harm any more people. It's potent stuff, and makes one wish the rest of the film had this kind of intensity.

I watched "Tales from the Hood" back when it was initially released, and haven't seen it since. I seemed to remember that it wasn't really much of anything noteworthy. But I was given the chance to sit down and watch it again here as 2021 begins, so of course I did so.

And turns out that the 1995 horror anthology "Tales from the Hood" was actually a lot better than I remembered it to be. So revisiting it was definitely not a waste of time.

As anthologies go, the segments and stories are of various degree of entertainment value and worth, and so is also the case for "Tales from the Hood". I must admit that I really enjoyed the first segment the most, the one with the police officers. And the narrative story that tied the segments together was also rather interesting, well except for the ludicrous ending.

"Tales from the Hood" is more than just a collection of horror stories, because it deals with issues such as police brutality, racism, gang related crime, domestic violence, and so forth. And I must say that these issues were nicely tied into the different segments, which added a good amount of enjoyment to the segments, making it more than just average horror.

The special effects, practical effects and make-up in the segments were good, and were helping the stories along nicely.

There is a good amount of familiar actors on the cast list, and I will say that they did a good job in putting together the ensemble of performers for this anthology. And it should also be said that the performances put on were enjoyable.

All in all, "Tales from the Hood" is an enjoyable horror anthology, and my rating of it lands on well-deserved six out of ten stars.

An interesting, at times totally innovative take on the horror film genre. Three young black hoodlums go to a funeral home where a bizarre mortician (an eerie Williams) takes them on a tour and shares four terrifyingly twisted ghost stories. The first involving corrupt cops is routine and obvious; the second is a unique take on child abuse that is creative and fairly creepy; the third involving vengeful voodoo dolls is at times shocking, at times corny, but eerie and crafty in its own right; the fourth about gang violence and rehabilitation is highly imaginative and something to marvel at; the film's unique amalgam of horror and social commentary isn't always on target, but the special effects are convincing, and the performances rock solid, making this a fairly impressive showing for all those involved. **½