Tales From The Hood Review

Here we go, movie #2 in this weekend's double feature on Scary Film Review, and it's a great one. After many weeks of terrible movies, I finally sat down and watched something good. This movie is a 1995 anthology horror for the Urban sect, and they did it right, and it's quite good and scary. The film of course, is none other than the mainstream release, Tales From The Hood.

This movie is an "urban" horror film with a great deal of great pieces. Anthology horror is always something I like, and this one is better than most, although it is not without its problems. The film was produced by Spike Lee and directed by Rusty Cundieff and is high quality both visually and in theme.

The film starts with a group of thugs looking to score some drugs,but instead they enter a funeral home and talk to a man that likes to tell stories of sheer terror, all involving the black community. The stories start with a police beating, and a return from the dead, then waves into one of the scariest things I've seen on film. The second story really was scary to me, as a young boy says that a monster is attacking him. After his teacher visits his home to talk about what's going on, he realizes that the monster is the boy's father and we are treated to one of the most taboo scenes in horror. The father, played by David Alan Grier, literally beats the crap out of his wife and kids, and the camera's do not flinch or edit it out. It eventually solves itself with the boy having special powers of voodoo, of sorts. But the sequences hit home with me, as I was beaten by my stepfather. I know, far too personal, I'm sorry. The third story is awesome with Corben Bernsen fighting off little black dolls, and boy does he act his way through it. I loved it. It reminded me of Night Gallery, as a painting had the dolls coming to life to attack a racist politician. The film continues and the overall plot gets solved and we get a nice ending.

The pacing of this film is fast, but not so fast that you don't get to have some emotional connection with the characters. You feel for the victims, and at times you're not quite sure who to cheer for, until Justice is served. The film has "justice" as a great theme throughout, and you really start cheering for the retribution, as the film gets better and better.

The editing, film quality, and story is all good. I was surprised to see how well this film holds up. I am also surprised at how gorey some of the stories were, and some of the points of interest were. Far better than many other anthology horrors, this film really packs a punch, and does a lot with a little. I loved how well produced and visually significant this film was. The soundtrack also went GOLD, so it obviously influenced a lot of people to become fans. Tales From The Hood is a film you don't want to miss, you're going to want to add it to your collection, it's that good. I loved it. You might love it, I don't know. It has something for everyone, except maybe "sex" and boobs.