TALES FROM THE HOOD 3 (2020)

 

(Directors/screenwriters: Rusty Condieff and Darin Scott)

Storyline

A middle aged man with young girl tries to escape an unseen evil presence, while the girl (Brooklyn) tells him four terror tales, shown onscreen.

 

Review

In the wraparound tale, William (played by Tony Todd) hides in a cemetery while a six-year-old girl (Brooklyn) tells him four horror stories. I like the twist on this, it’s well done.

Brooklyn’s first tale involves a slumlord who seeks to evict a hold-out tenant family so a lucrative business deal can go through. He hires a nutcase arsonist to scare them out. When they’re killed in the resulting fire, he is relentlessly haunted by them.

This by-the-numbers-drawn-out story is well-shot and well-acted, but little else about it is worthwhile.

Brooklyn’s second story focuses on a white power survivalist living in a bunker who rails against those who don’t share his views, while mixed-race civilians outside his property observe. Fans of the original TWILIGHT ZONE series (1959-64) may recognize it as an updated remake of its “PEOPLE ARE ALIKE ALL OVER” episode (air date: 3/25/60). Even if you haven’t seen “PEOPLE” episode, the filmmakers tip their hand early on, making this another well-shot, “meh” vignette.

Brooklyn’s third tale involves an aspiring pop singer (Chela Simpson) who befriends a wealthy, old ex-opera singer (Marie Benoit) who holes up in a study and loop-watches a film of her younger self singing. That the opera singer gets transfusions of blood is not the only odd thing going on.

I like that this was different, in a could’ve-gone-multiple-ways storyline. While its ending was less than thrilling, it had some interesting aspects to it. One review I read said it rips off the plot of THE SKELETON KEY (2005), but I have not seen SKELETON in a long time, so I can’t knowledgeably speak about that.

Brooklyn’s fourth and final story revolves around a punch-and-run bandit whose victims include a relative of a voodooiene. Of course she places a curse on him.

This HOOD 3 entry is laugh-out-loud entertaining, horrifying (especially its use-your-imagination ending) and worthwhile.

HOOD 3, like previous HOOD films, makes for a decent viewing experience even with HOOD 3’s lackluster entries (the first two tales Brooklyn tells). I like how the filmmakers blended their BLM mindset into a non-preachy, well-shot and all-around well-acted horror flick.

TALES FROM THE HOOD 2 (2018)

 

(Directors/screenwriters: Rusty Condieff and Darin Scott)

Storyline

Mr. Simms, the undertaker-now-more storyteller from the first TALES FROM THE HOOD (1995), is back, with new, horrifying and dark-humored stories about evil dolls, avenging vamps, experienced ghosts and spirit-filled psychics.

Review

HOOD 2 is a mostly good follow-up to the 1995 original film. The wraparound story is “Robo Hell,” a ROBOCOP (1987)-meets-MINORITY REPORT (2002) framework where the devilish Mr. Simms (played by the wicked-funny Keith David) reprograms a military robot intended for racist purposes.

In the first Simms-spun story is “Good Golly,” a roadside black history museum becomes a grisly deathtrap for three dumb teens who try to steal a doll that’s been imbued with historical evil. This is splatteriffic and fun.

“The Medium” is a laugh-out-loud funny short tale about what happens when gangstas, seeking to contact a dead man who ripped them off, visit a white fake medium. This was especially entertaining because of its actors and amusing ending.

The third story, “Date Night” is a solid, if predictable entry about two playas who get taken by more-than-they-seem women.

HOOD 2 ’s final Simms story (“The Sacrifice”) is a heavy-handed BLM-sourced work, where a black political consultant’s future is threatened in a horrifying way when he refuses to acknowledge the sacrifices of black civil rights people who came before him. Although imaginative in parts, it’s preachy and runs spell-it-out-to-the-mentally-challenged long. Well-intended, but too much.

Overall, HOOD 2 is a worthwhile film, fun, smart-minded, solidly acted and well-intentioned, despite its second-tale predictability and overly earnest shortcomings in “The Sacrifice.” 

Followed by TALES FROM THE HOOD 3 (2020).

TALES FROM THE HOOD (1995)

 

(Director/co-screenwriter: Rusty Condieff, who also appears in the film as Richard, a teacher concerned about one of his students. Co-screenwriter: Darin Scott.)

Storyline

Three drug dealers, trapped in a funeral parlor they’ve broken into, are compelled to listen to a funeral director’s creepy morality tales.

 

Review

HOOD is an entertaining and black-centric EC-Comics anthology whose moralistic tone is well-balanced by good writing and good acting (especially Clarence Williams III as Mr. Simms, the terrifying, crazy-eyed, tale-telling funeral director in the wraparound story “Welcome to My Mortuary”).

The four gory, violent and often pointedly funny stories he tells are equally good.

First up is “Rogue Cop Revelation,” where three racist, killer cops (played played with effective vigor by Wings Hauser, Michael Massee and Duane Whitaker) are haunted by one of their victims, Martin Moorehouse (Tom Wright, CREEPSHOW 2, 1987).

The second microtale is “Boys Do Get Bruised,” where a boy with a special talent is abused by his stepfather (played by David Alan Grier).

Next up is “KKK Comeuppance,” where Corbin Bernsen plays Duke Metzger, an aggressively racist politician stalked by a voodoo doll.

In Mr. Simms’s final yarn, “Hardcore Convert,” a murderous thug may or may not be undergoing A CLOCKWORK ORANGE-style therapy. “Hardcore” has a cheat-style finish (which disappoints) but it’s still interesting and otherwise solid, and it co-stars Rosalind Cash (THE OMEGA MAN, 1971) as Dr. Cushing.

Followed by TALES FROM THE HOOD 2 (2018).