Tales from the Hood | | Cast : | Clarence Williams III, Corbin Bernsen | | Director : | Rusty Cundieff | | Studio : | Hbo Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Dolby, Widescreen | | Released Date : | May 24, 1995 | | DVD Released Date : | June 01, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed), English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | May 28, 2005 | | Summary | 'Tales From The Hood' (HBO Studios) Running time:98 min. | Content
 | Anyway you slice it,'Tales From The Hood' appears,to me like an African-American version of 'Tales From The Crypt'.However,the film is still a very decent find.It features four(4)rather gruesome tales of racism.My favorite was the fourth story,'Sweets To The Sweet' where a state governor(or soon-to-be elected)tries to avoid the long slain spirits of slaves that were murdered on the very property in which his residence stands.He notices these 'spirits' keep popping out from the painting that graces the wall of his office.Good doll animated action there.Most memorable scene:where Mr.Simms/The Devil(Clarence Williams III - Linc from 'The Mod Squad')transforms himself into Satan as he spurts out to three homies with guns that refuse to accept the fact that they're already dead,"Welcome to hell,mother-f**kers!".Certainly not for young children to see.A good horror flick. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 16, 2005 | | Summary | "Death...it comes in many strange packages." | Content
| All right, obviously originality isn't the strong point in the film Tales from the Hood (1995), but it does have enough inspiration to get past being labeled a black Tales from the Crypt horror anthology (revenge tales with a racial spin are still revenge tales). Now, I had seen this film in the theater when it originally came out some ten years ago, and haven't seen it again since recently. I did remember most of what happened in the film, but the one thing that I had forgotten about was how much profanity was actually in the movie. I'm not a prude, but I think it's important to throw that out there if you have a problem with characters cursing ad nauseam (I suppose the argument could be made this reflects a certain aspect of society, so I can deal with it)...written and directed by Rusty Cundieff (Fear of a Black Hat, Sprung), with Spike Lee listed as executive producer, the film features Clarence `Linc' Williams III (The Mod Squad, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka), Joe Torry (House Party 3, Sprung), Wings Hauser (Vice Squad, Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time), David Alan Grier (Jumanji, McHale's Navy), Corbin Bernsen (Major League, The Dentist), and Rosalind Cash (The Omega Man, Uptown Saturday Night), among others...
The film is actually four separate stories bookended by a fifth...of Jack Daniels...no, by a fifth story (when I say `bookended', I mean there is a set-up story which starts the film, and then appears after each of the other stories ends, finally finishing out the film). The film begins with a story called Welcome to My Mortuary, as three street toughs arrive at a funeral home, one run by the wild-eyed Mr. Simms (Williams). Somehow (this aspect isn't really made clear) Mr. Simms has come into a load of drugs apparently once belonging to these three chaps, and now they've arrived to retrieve said stuff, to which they're engaged in four tales about various deceased individuals now occupying coffins within the funeral home, the first called Rogue Cop Revelation. This one is about a group of racist cops, one played by Hauser, who take revenge on a local politician for his efforts in trying to clean up the police force by pushing for the prosecution of corrupt cops. The do-gooder ends up getting killed, but what is buried don't always stay buried. The 2nd tale is titled Boys Do Get Bruised and features a young boy whose teacher (looking a lot like Whoopi Goldberg with his dreadlocks) notices the signs of abuse as the boy continually shows up at school with bruises, which he claims were caused by a monster. This one features Grier in an uncharacteristic role as an extremely rancorous individual. The third story, titled KKK Comeuppance, features Bernsen as a racist politician/ex-klansman who buys an old plantation house in the hopes that it will assist him in winning an upcoming election. Apparently the house has a violent history in that of a slave massacre that happened many years prior, and now the ghosts of the past have been re-awakened by the intrusion of this repugnant individual. The fourth story, titled Hardcore Convert, is about a vicious street hood/killer who, after being captured and sentenced to life in prison, is offered a 2nd chance if he consents to a radical new program including behavioral modification techniques administered by a doctor played by Cash. After this the initial tale, the one featuring Mr. Simms and the three gang members, comes to a spectacular and memorable conclusion.
I did enjoy this film overall, but found the slinging of racial epithets to get a bit excessive at times, especially in the first and third stories. I know the intent was to create characters so odious and noxious that when eventually presented with their mortal fate, they would appear completely deserving, but I felt their despicable nature could have been better portrayed through a less obvious tactic. I suppose because there were a number of different stories presented here there may not have been the time to create fully realized, three dimensional characterizations, so the director had to opt for the quick and dirty method. Anyway, the strongest tale was the last one involving the hardcore thug named Jerome aka Crazy K, and the attempt to alter his perception by giving him an opportunity to see the never-ending path of escalating violence he, along with many others, follow often times by choice. The imagery presented in this story is very harsh and will evoke a sense of anger and disgust, as the director uses actual photographs of past atrocities (lynchings, burnings, etc.) as Jerome undergoes a bizarre rehabilitation process. The special effects overall looked pretty good and featured a mixture of CGI work along with some good old fashion stop motion animation. The direction and pacing are strong, and most of the actors are very good (Clarence Williams III really drives the film with his wiggy, over-the-top performance), even if the script falters at times. One aspect I did like was while there was focus on white racism in some of the stories, it wasn't the only motivating factor throughout as black-on-black violence is also reflected in some of the tales. All in all this film could have been a lot worse. There are no real surprises as the various stories don't really offer any shocking or twist endings, but it does feature a real hum dinger of an ending and some strong, moral messages that may relate to some audiences.
The widescreen non-anamorphic (1.85:1) picture looks very sharp and clear (Amazon states the aspect ratio at 1.33:1, but this wasn't the case, at least on my copy). The audio, presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround, Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, is decent, but sometimes seems a little muddled and soft. Special features include a `making of' featurette, theatrical trailer, TV promos, and cast and crew bios. I give this 3 ½ stars.
Cookieman108
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| Rating | | | Date | March 15, 2005 | | Summary | Hyped up and way overrated | Content
| Don't get me wrong, the idea for this movie is awesome. Making a hood style movie and mixing it with horror? Great idea. What it's about is three gangstas unlikely show up at a funeral home to buy some drugs off the mortician (Clarence Williams III) who claims to have found the drugs in an ally. As they try to get "the Sh!%" the mortician goes around the parlor telling them stories about the dead people around them and how they came to be there. This makes up for most of the movie besides the ending where you find out the real reason why the three gangstas ended up in such an unlikely place. The stories the mortician tell are all racially and socially implemented. They include police brutality, domestic violence, white politics & slavery, and gang violence. Now all the ideas behind this movie were really original, just none of them were pulled of that well. What's really at fault in this movie is just bad overall direction and a good idea that was executed very poorly. This film just really failed at everything it was trying to do. This movie tried to be fun and scary, both of which it didn't succeed at, and tried to have a social message behind it which didn't seem to come through very clearly. The only parts that I liked in this film were its last story of the ganster sentenced to life and given an opportunity to be released if he goes through extreme behavioral modification procedures, and the ending of the film that it ties into. That was really the only part of Tales from the Hood that stood out for me, because its message was so clear. The rest of the film was squandered by bad direction. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 10, 2004 | | Summary | ROOT FOR THE GHOSTS!!!! | Content
| This is the first movie where I was rooting for the Ghosts or Spirits to get the bad guy. With the exception of the MONSTER skit, I found myself cheering on the Ghosts. I hope that was the intention of the writer or director LOL. The movie wasn't exactly scary and the ending was funny, but it's a movie to watch with a group. A MUST SEE!!! |
| Rating | | | Date | May 22, 2004 | | Summary | Very Scary! | Content
| This is one of the best horror movies I had ever saw. I actually found myself sleeping with the light on and the radio blasting to keep my mind off it. This movie is about three gangsters who go to a funeral home owned by Mr. Simms(Clarence Williams 3). They are trying to get some drugs that belonged to their dead friend. Mr.Simms sidetracks them by telling them these following 4 stories: 1. A black man was murdered by three crooked white cops. A black cop that witnessed this murder is being haunted by the dead man telling him to bring the cops to his grave. This man comes back to life as a monster to take revenge on these cops. 2.A little boy is being attacked by a monster that comes to his room every night. This monster is actually his stepfather. 3.A white politician is taking over a house that used to belong to a white master who murdered his black slaves. A voodoo woman transformed these dead souls into little dolls. These dolls are alive in the house and the politician is being attacked by them. 4. This story was the most powerful. After a black man slayed so many black people he was taken to a temple on a hill. First he was put on this machine where he saw clips of black people being killed by either white or black people. Then he was put in solitary confinement where he saw all the people he killed. Then he wakes up and he gets shot. This was linked to three gangsters we beginned with. The ending really freaked me out because you will find out who Mr.Simms really was and why these 3 gangsters ended up in this funeral home besides trying to get drugs. Not only was this movie scary but a little humor was in it that made me chuckle. If you SEE the movie besides reading my review you will be scared! |
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