UNSUNG

Tales from the Hood - Unsung

You might be thinking two things right now; One, what took so long for another reviews, and two, what happened to an entry for 1994. Well, to be honest with you, 1994 was a super shitty year for horror, it was downright scary how bad 1994 was for the genre. So, to save you all a review of "Puppet Master 4" I figured I would skip to 1995 where I could review a "real" horror film. And by "real" I mean "real" in that gangster way, because I'm about to keep it "real" with one of the unsung horror gems from the mid-90s; "Tales from the Hood."

"Hood" is an anthology film in the vein of "Creepshow" or "Tales from the Darkside: The Movie." The wrap around story features a trio of drug dealers who show up late one night at a funeral home where they meet creepy mortician, Mr. Simms. Eager to get their "shit" and go, Mr. Simms takes them deep into his funeral home and introduces them to four bodies with stories to tell, including a man wrongfully killed by racist police, a kid who worries about a monster, a racist southerner with a doll problem, and a gang banger who tries to get rehabilitated "Clockwork Orange" style.

Overall, I really like this film. It's super campy, bloody, and when you think about it now, has some pretty strong political messages about race relations and our government. Clarence Williams III hams it up big time as Mr. Simms and you get some pretty decent performances from the likes of Corbin Bernsen and David Alan Grier. The most effective story to me is probably the final segment that not only puts a bow on the film, but is also pretty creepy in its own right.

Out of all horror anthologies, I would say that "Hood" owes most to the original "Tales from the Crypt" from 1972 with it's tone and ending. Is "Hood" better than "Tales?" Well, that's all up to opinion of course.

If you thought this one was scary, check out these other Hood Classics from 1995:

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers
Lord of Illusions
The Mangler
The Prophecy
Species
John Carpenter's Village of the Damned
Vampire in Brooklyn