Tales From the Hood

Tales From the Hood

A man with wild gray hair dressed in dark clothing looks ahead with a serious expression, like a host delving into the chilling depths of a horror movie review podcast. Beside him is a small, detailed puppet in similar attire. The dimly lit background amplifies the mysterious atmosphere.

Rusty Cundieff’s unique and arguably “blah” anthology is less horror film and more of a star-studded political lecture on the issues facing the African American community. Although we are clearly not the target audience for this film, we did find some redeeming qualities in this otherwise missable flick.

tales from the hood poster
Expand to read episode transcript
Automatic Transcript

Tales From the Hood (1995)

Episode 71, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello, and welcome   to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig:  I’m Craig. 

Todd:  Today’s movie was a bit of a departure from what we do, Tales From the Hood from 1995. Tales from the Todd, based, obviously, off of Tales from the Crypt. It’s a playoff with that, but with an urban, black, basically slanted towards black audiences. Craig, had you heard of this movie before? 

Craig:  I was aware it existed. I had never seen it. Today was the first time I’d actually sat down to watch it, but, no, I I hadn’t seen it before. What about you? 

Todd:  I had seen it before actually. This is one that I had seen on the shelves in the video store, and, eventually, I rented it one day. I thought it was gonna be a really, a bad movie, but I don’t know. I was pleasantly surprised by it. And I was also surprised to learn that the director is the director of one of my all time favorite movies called Fear of a Black Hat. Have Have you ever seen that movie or heard of it either? 

Craig:  No. No. I’ve never even heard of it. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. I cannot say enough good things about this movie. It is the it is rap and hip hop’s answer to This Is Spinal Tap. It is clever, and it is funny, and it is a perfect, pastiche of the landscape of rap and hip hop and new jack swing and all of the genres that, you know, kind of came off of that in the nineties, which is about when the movie came out mid to late nineties. Follows a fictitious rap group, and the director also stars in it as, one of the rappers in the group. It is it is hilarious. And if you’re at all a fan or even just familiar with the landscape of this music at that time, you will find a lot to laugh about in that movie. And, this movie was directed and written by him as well.   Rusty Cundiff is his name. And he hasn’t really done a whole lot of of directing, of films. He he Todd he has a bit part in this movie as well. Quite frankly, I think his performance is one of the weaker ones, but, at least, he put this together. And and it’s produced by, Spike Lee, which I think becomes pretty obvious the more you start to watch it.   Right.   But, yeah, I I I really kind of enjoyed this movie. How about you, Craig? Now 

Craig:  You know what? I gotta say, I didn’t love it. But I also have to just fully acknowledge right from the beginning that I really don’t think that I was the target audience for this movie. Sure. And and and so that being said, I I I’m I’m reluctant to be too critical of it because I don’t wanna come across as culturally or racially insensitive. It’s it’s not about that. It’s just, I I thought that it was just okay. Now what I will say for it is that I thought that the acting, generally speaking, was just fine. I mean, I I don’t think there were any, Oscar worthy performances here or anything.   But as far as the acting goes, especially in the horror genre, I thought the acting was perfectly fine. The directing and the cinematography to me just seemed a little bit meh. Like, nothing wrong with it necessarily, but I just wasn’t feeling it that much. And I found okay. So it’s an anthology film, of course. And I found all of the, entries interesting, but I also found them all to be really predictable, and not really all that original. I mean, they they in fact, several of them I felt like I had seen something very similar in other places before. Now what I will say for it is that I think that it’s attempting to address some really serious issues, that are issues specifically for the black community in America, but that, of course, affect all of us as a culture.   And on that front, I think by bringing attention to these issues, I think that that’s admirable, and I appreciate that. I just as as as a movie goes, as far as entertainment goes, I wasn’t feeling it that much. I didn’t hate it. I just I just didn’t love it either. 

Todd:  Now let’s let’s let’s put a point of reference here though because you told me you were you were not looking forward to this movie. You thought it was going to be stupid. How do you feel about it now? Do you still feel like it’s stupid? Do you have the same impression of it that you did before we went to watch it? 

Craig:  Well, I mean, just on the in the areas I’ve already said. I mean, as far as originality goes, and, freshness, I I just don’t think that it’s that great. Mhmm. I don’t, however, think it’s stupid. I don’t think that it comes from a a place of of ignorance or or anything like that. I I I think that, like I said, the the issues that are addressed, and and each each entry addresses a very serious issue, and I think that bringing those issues to light and and presenting them as points of discussion is a valiant effort. And so I have some admiration for it on that front. And so, no, I don’t think it’s stupid.   I just wasn’t particularly entertained. I wasn’t bored per se because, fortunately, each of the entries was short enough that you really don’t have time to get bored with it. But I I just didn’t think, I I don’t know, it just didn’t do a whole lot for me as from an entertainment perspective. 

Todd:  Well, you know, these horror anthologies, they do follow a pattern, and it does I think after you do see enough of them, it’s hard to not find one that’s predictable. We’re we’re talking about tradition that stretches back to radio, when they would have, radio shows such as Lights Out. And, that was probably the most popular one, Lights Out. And there’d be these horror tales kind of in an O. Henry type fashion where they seem to follow 1 of 2 patterns, either there is, some kind of spooky ghost type thing, there, a person, comes across something supernatural and has to deal with it, but then there’s like a weird twist at the end. Or we’re following the point of view of a person who’s terrible, and we basically see them get what’s coming to them. So, we see a criminal do something bad, and it looks like they’re gonna get away with it. But then through some supernatural or ironic means, they get what’s coming to them, and that’s very satisfying at the end.   And then that carried through to the, the horror comics, which were inspired, by the radio shows. William Gaines, who, was the editor at EC at the time, who then went on to create MAD and and become wildly successful with that, was very successful with these horror comics, the Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Haunt of Fear, and then these crime suspense stories and shock suspense stories, which all of them told these tales. And so then these anthology Right. Movies are basically inspired by those in many ways. I mean, there is a literary tradition here, obviously, that I’m ignoring as well, but, that’s that’s just the gist of it. And so if you read enough of these and you watch enough of these, you know that there’s a twist coming and they all follow kind of a similar path. Right. It’s really hard not to be predictable, right, when when it comes to this.   I’m not I’m not trying to super defend the movie because I’m like you. I think the movie is just, but I am I’m gonna say that, oh, I I kinda give it a bit of a pass for slightly predictable stories as long as it puts an interesting twist on it. And I thought that the twist here of it be taking place in sort of this urban setting and having a political agenda behind it, was interesting enough to keep my attention. 

Craig:  Sure. And it is, yeah, and it is unique in that way, and I appreciate that. And and I like these types of movies, you know. I like Tales from the Dark Side. I like the series Tales from the Crypt. Gosh. Creepshow, you know, the first and second one I I really enjoyed. So it’s not that I am not a fan of the genre, and it does adhere to the formula of the genre.   I think maybe I’m just so culturally removed from it that maybe I wasn’t picking up on some of the humor, and while these issues are important to me because, you know, I am socially progressive, and I am all for, racial equality and and and fighting for that, and and that it’s still a problem. I mean, this this movie came out in 1995, and and here today in 2017, it’s it’s maybe been, you know, almost 30 years since we’ve faced the kind of cultural and and racial tension that we’re facing in America right now. I know that this is important. You know, these are important things to talk about. So I I I just can’t say enough that I appreciate that part of it. It’s just I don’t know. I I just didn’t think that the stories were all that interesting. 

Todd:  Sure. I I 

Craig:  mean, it follows the really traditional formula where you’ve got a frame story, and then within that frame story, you’ve got little episodes. And the frame story here is these, 3 drug dealers, Bulldog, Stack, and Ball, are coming to this funeral home, Sims Funeral Home, because apparently the director of the funeral home has found some drug cartel, and they want to buy that from him. 

Clip:  I want y’all back and shit. It’s so funny going out. Hey, man.   You got your gut, man?   Yeah. I got my shit.   Well, if a damn mother come with you, you kill his ass. You understand me?   Yo. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on, buddha. I’m supposed to kill someone that’s already dead, man. What? Yeah. I’m supposed to kill someone that’s already dead. It’s like killing some shit twice, man.   Yeah. Like some refried beans   and some shit. Man, I never understood that, man.   Why the you gonna refry some beans, man?   Why not just fry that shit right the first 

Craig:  time and get up? The, director is played by Clarence Williams the third who has been in, like, everything. I mean, you’ve seen this guy everywhere. He was in, the Todd Squad, the original series. He played, the big bad drug dealer in Half Baked. I remember her remember him specifically from, Purple Rain. He was the dad in Purple Rain. Man, did he give a powerful performance in that movie. And and so they go into this kind of bizarre, I mean, it’s not super bizarre, but kind of an old fashioned funeral parlor.   And, they start talking to this guy, and all they’re interested in is getting their drugs, but he kind of stalls them and, he opens up a casket where we see, a young black man in the coffin, and he starts telling this story of how this guy died. And that’s the setup. Each story is centered around one of the people here in the funeral home who has died, and each one tells the story. Pretty traditional, I mean not exactly we don’t have I mean he’s kinda playing the role of the crypt keeper, the vault keeper, or whatever. And and so actually when when it started, I was kind of excited because I really do like this type of thing. Tales from the Craig was like my favorite show when I was a kid. That was one of the ones that I would stay up late, you know, to catch on Saturday nights, and and was always really excited about it. And and it’s not that the stories were bad.   They weren’t bad. I just thought that they were a little predictable. 

Todd:  Yeah. They weren’t great. Right? Right. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Right. Clarence’s story is about police brutality. What what we basically have here is each story kinda revolves around a different political theme. There’s police brutality. There’s domestic violence. There’s, like, racism in politics, and then it ends with a statement on black on black Craig, and then, of course, the wraparound story. And this one’s about police brutality. So it opens up, and there’s some cops who’ve got a guy up against a car.   They’ve pulled him over. In the meantime, there’s a new guy on the beat. His name is Clarence, and, he’s basically getting initiated by his, white partner. They’re just talking about, oh, you know, what to expect and what’s going on. They drive up Todd, basically, I think, provide backup for these cops that have this guy up against the car, and it turns out very quickly that this man is what they call a political agitator. He is sounds like an attorney, maybe a district attorney or something, and he his name is Martin Morehouse. And the police are saying, you like, giving cops a bad name, does this man has ratted out and prosecuted bad cops, and so they are clearly harassing him for that. Clarence comes across this.   He’s a little disturbed by what they’re doing. He doesn’t immediately recognize the guy, but they tell him, hey. Go back to the car and run his plates. So when he goes back and runs the plates, he sees that not only is this Martin Morehouse, but in the system, in the police system, he is labeled as a political agitator. And, of course, his perspective on this man is totally different. He sees him as a hero for their community, as calling out crooked cops. And so, right there, we get a very literal statement where the system is clearly against him. And so he comes out and he says, wait wait.   What are you guys doing? In the meantime, these guys have been beating this man, basically, within an inch of his life. This guy gets scared and he says, you guys can’t do that. And his partner there says,   shit, man. You got a green dick. Those 2 guys have been risking their asses on the street for years. She the went for strong skin. Bullshit. Oh, no. Maybe those 2 guys went too far tonight, maybe. It was all a mistake.   But next time, it could be you. So you know, you don’t ever roll over and you never rat out a fellow officer, and you never, never break the code.   In the meantime, these guys take, Martin Morehouse out to the dock in his car and basically set up what’s supposed to look like some kind of death, where they inject some drugs into him, they throw some drugs into his back seat, they get him in the front seat of this car. The guy whispers to him and says, you know, you said that police are dealing the drugs, and you’re right. And, then pushes him into the water, and the next thing that we see is Clarence tossing and turning, waking up. He doesn’t seem like a very put together man at this point, and after a short bit of time, we realized that this is a year later, that some time has passed. He’s haunted by this quite literally, and he’s hearing voices, and he stumbles around the neighborhood, he’s drinking a bottle, and he turns and he looks, and he sees a very large piece of graffiti of this Martin Morehouse character that is up on the wall, and he thinks that this is talking to him, and it says bring them to me. So again, you know where this is going. He is sitting on a grave in a graveyard at the end of the night. He’s called the cops to him.   These same cops are, like, hey, we haven’t seen you in a while, how are you doing? And he starts bringing this up, And they say, why did you call us out here? And he says, I called you out here to pay your our respects to this man who you guys, you know, killed a year ago. His former partner says, no. Wait a minute. If we just go out to the grave and pay our respects like you want us to, will this be over? And he says, yes. That’ll be it. He’s like, alright, guys. Let’s just go do it. And as they go off to leave, one of the cops turns and says to the other cop, yeah.   He’s not coming back. So you know that these guys intend to off him too, as they go back. Not sure quite honestly why, at this point. Again, it’s it’s an over it’s a very simplistic story. Yeah. I mean, this man’s obviously been laying low for the last year. He’s not a direct threat to them. Why would they go through the effort of doing this? This is just an effort to really paint the criminals as absolutely terrible, horrible, caricatured people.   And that might be The cops. The cops. Yeah. Yeah. And that might be a big flaw of this of this movie in general, actually, is that this some of these people are overly caricatured. And, you can you can get it to a certain point, but when you start to press that envelope, it it falls into the realm of of silliness and ridiculousness. And I feel like this movie does that in more than one occasion. You feel like maybe you should be able to get away with it in a movie like this, but then when you’re trying to make a political statement on top of it, there’s a certain amount of credibility you need to lend to that in order to make your argument effective.   And I think that the caricature of the police officers in this is just a little too strong, in order to be effective in that manner. But anyway, we can talk about that in a minute. I’ll I’ll get through the rest of the story. They get to the grave. 

Craig:  I I yeah. I’ve got stuff to say about that too, but I yeah. Go ahead and finish up the story. 

Todd:  They get to the grave, and not only are the officers, like, okay. Well, we’re here and blah blah blah. 1 of the officers decides to piss on this guy’s Craig. Pushes another one of the officers to do it too. He’s like, no, man. I don’t think I’m going to, but he ends up doing it Todd. And while he’s doing that, a hand shoots up from the grave, grabs him, and pulls him straight down into it in a very supernatural manner, and this guy totally disappears. They’re all freaking out.   And then basically, what happens is, what you’d expect, this Martin Moore house has come back from the grave as this, not just a zombie, but a very supernatural type zombie, looks real freaky, and he chases them. So there’s a real long chase scene where he takes out all these officers 1 by 1. And the last one, he meets in the Todd, they’re in an alley. I think what’s interesting about this scene is that there are people here on the street out and about, bums, folks who are just hanging out, folks who are drinking, folks who are maybe homeless or whatnot, and they pay none of this any mind what’s going on. This last officer is the former partner of Clarence. The zombie Martin is at the end of the alley, and he makes all of these drug needles kind of levitate and shoot towards this man, and it pins him, to the same graffitied wall Clarence had seen earlier. And it pins him inside kind of a Christ like pose, and then he melts into the graffiti so that he becomes a new part of this graffiti art. Then there’s a there’s a tiny little tag here at the end.   Clarence is face to face with this zombie Martin guy. 

Clip:  Are you satisfied now, brother?   Where were you when I needed you, brother? 

Craig:  At that point, he takes the fall for all the cop the other cops’ murders. 

Todd:  That’s right. I thought that was kinda clever, actually. And, he they show him in a, straight jacket, in a insane asylum where he’s probably gonna be for the rest of his life. And then, of course, he presumably dies because we’ve seen his coffin, and we’re back to the wraparound story. 

Craig:  And and that’s just it. I mean, it’s so easy to recap because as far as plot is concerned, it is really thin, and it’s really, typical of this kind of revenge tale. There’s really nothing new going on there, but I will say that I kinda disagree with you on the, stereotyping of the cops. I would kind of equate this with satire where, you’re exaggerating for effect. You know, you’re really trying to punch your point home. Are all cops like that? Certainly not. Are there bad cops? Certainly. Are there bad cops that are that bad? You you know, you hate to think so, but with some of the things that you see in the news, it’s it’s kinda hard to deny that there are some really nasty folks out there.   Police brutality and the especially against the black community where it really seems to be black people are overrepresented when it comes to, having police brutality committed against them. In 1995, that was such you know, that was a big deal, you know? I don’t remember exactly when the whole Rodney King thing happened. It was before that, certainly, but it was still very fresh in people’s minds. And I think that we all had hoped that by the time we got to here, to 2017, that that wouldn’t be an issue anymore. And and we were, you know, I I think we thought we were on the road to progress, where that wasn’t gonna be an issue. And for whatever horrible reason, it’s still a very real issue. And so even though this movie was made over 20 years ago, it still has a lot of social and political relevance. And so even though I think that the from an inter from a horror movie perspective, from an entertainment movie perspective purely, it wasn’t really all that entertaining, not all that exciting.   I still think that, it’s relevant. And, it’s sad that that’s the case, but but it is. I I gotta give it credit for that. 

Todd:  Well and I’m not saying it’s irrelevant, and I’m not saying I agree with you on all those points, But then how do you paint the characters? Are you gonna go in a subtle way and paint them a little more realistically? Not not that people don’t do police brutality. I absolutely that aspect of it is a 100% on the target. But then, openly bragging about it, running around and laughing, and I sort of feel like and maybe I’m naive, but I sort of feel like in the real world, these cops would be a little more subtle about their actions. They would be a little more careful, and they wouldn’t act happy go lucky, out in the open, no taking no care or concern really to cover their tracks kind of people. But you’re right. They’re exaggerating for effect. Right? Of course, they’re doing that. I just felt like the exaggeration went so far that you kinda look at it and you go, okay, I know the cops do this, and I know that they do these exact things, but the manner in which they’re they’re making them so gleeful and happy about it, and everybody’s along for the ride, and they’re unconcerned, that they’re going to ever be caught by it, that they’re taking no caution whatsoever in what they’re doing, was a little far fetched.   And I just I just feel that that hurts the message, you know. 

Craig:  I don’t Yeah. 

Todd:  If you’re trying to say something about, you know, somebody, if you paint them too much like like a like a gleeful demon, and not try to contextualize their evil within the world, then, you you run the risk of delegitimatizing what you’re saying because, that guy’s crazy. No cops are actually quite like that, and then people wanna dismiss it entirely. You know what I mean? 

Craig:  Right. And I don’t I I don’t disagree with that. I mean, it’s certainly over the Todd, and I I I guess all I’m saying is, you know, when Jonathan Swift wrote A Modest Proposal, people were not really eating Irish immigrant babies. But he was trying to make a point, you know, through exaggeration. And I think that maybe it has something to do with audience too. Yes. The portrayal of these white male cops behaving in such an obscene fashion is going to turn off certain audiences. But I think that for the target audience for this movie, that they’re gonna get it.   They’re gonna get that it’s an exaggeration, and they’re gonna get the message. Now maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know. But, I don’t wanna debate about it with you anymore because I wanna get to the next story, which is, I think my I think my favorite story from the anthology. The second one is called, Boys Do Get Bruises. And the, funeral director introduces it by saying it’s a classic case of what is and what isn’t real. It’s the difference between reality and, perception. And this story focuses on this little boy, little black boy named Walter, and we see him first sitting in his bed at night, and he hears a monster in his closet, and we hear it too.   And and there’s kind of some animal noises, and the doorknob is rattling. And and then it cuts to the next day, which is Walter’s first day of school at this it looks like, you know, some sort of private school. They’re all in uniforms. He gets beat up on his 1st day, and when the nurse is examining him, she notices that he has a black eye, but that it’s a black eye that is not fresh. She didn’t just get it. It’s at least a couple days old. And so both she and this kid’s teacher, are concerned. And so the teacher talks to the kid. 

Clip:  Was it someone at home? Maybe your mother? Your father did he do this? 

Todd:  Uh-uh. He’s dead. 

Clip:  I’m sorry. Walter, if you tell me and nurse Parchman, it’ll just be our little secret. Okay? 

Todd:  The monster. 

Clip:  The monster. 

Todd:  It came after my dad died. 

Craig:  Now for me, right here from the from the get go, I knew exactly what was coming here. 

Todd:  I mean, it 

Craig:  was it was really predictable that this was gonna be about domestic abuse. You know, when you say, he’s a monster. He came right after my dad died. I’m thinking, obviously, this mom’s new boyfriend has beaten this kid up. And that is, it ends up being. And and the kid even says, you know, when the guy when the teacher is like, Well, you know, monsters aren’t real, or something along those lines. The kid says, He said no one would believe me. And and that is just so standard, when it comes to abuse, you know, intimidation and telling peep telling the victim that nobody would believe them and and all that stuff.   So the next we we or either that night, I think, we see the monster at the door again, and and and we see a claw come around the the door. So the suggestion is that it’s an actual monster. And the next day, he goes to school, and he’s got a new bruise, on his arm where it looks like he’s been grabbed and and and roughed up. At school that day, Walter draws some pictures of the monster, and he says that he was talking to the girl that sits behind him. And she told him that if, he drew pictures of the monsters and then tore them up or burned them, that would make the monsters go away. And the teacher says, well, that’s probably not the best way to deal with things. If we need to deal with things, there are other ways we can do it. But Walter has also drawn a picture of the bully who had beaten him up, Tyrone.   And after the teacher leaves, he the teacher knocks the picture of Tyrone onto the floor, and Walter picks it up and crumples it up. And when the teacher goes downstairs and outside to the playground, Tyrone is getting, loaded into an ambulance, and somebody tells the teacher that he fell down the stairs, but it’s a big mystery because he, like, broke like, every bone in his body. The teacher that night visits Walter’s mom, and I didn’t really particularly like the way that she was portrayed. She was portrayed as being kind of slutty and aggressive, and I that’s not really a great stereotype, I don’t think. But, she gets angry at the mention of the monster when the teacher says it, and she she brings the kid in and says, you gotta stop telling these crazy stories. And sometime in there, they hear a car honk and the mom says, I gotta take care of this. Just be quiet. Don’t say anything.   She’s saying this to the teacher. And her, what we can presume is her new boyfriend comes in, and it’s there’s obviously tension there. You know, he’s clearly domineering. His name is Carl, and he’s played by David Allen Grier in a really uncharacteristic role for him. David Allen Grier is a great comedian, made a real name for himself on In Living Color, but has done tons and tons of stuff. And as it turns out, the teacher speaks to him briefly, but then Carl dismisses him, And Carl immediately, goes after Walter and starts, you know, Walter’s kind of huddled in his bedroom. We see the regular monster noises that we’ve seen. When when the monster opens the door, we see the shadow of the monster, but when he walks into frame, it’s Carl.   And Carl starts beating up Walter, and then it escalates, and he starts beating up the mom. Luckily, the teacher hasn’t left yet. He’s still sitting out in his car. He hears all this commotion, so he goes up to the door. He comes in. He tries to intervene. Carl beats the crap out of him, kicks his teeth out, and it looks like they all may be getting killed here. But Walter takes the picture that he drew of the monster and he starts folding it.   And everywhere he folds it, Carl’s limbs start breaking. And eventually, he crumbles up the paper and Carl totally gets crumbled up, though he’s still conscious and talking. He says something like, this shit ain’t over yet, bitch, while he’s in this crumbled up state. But the teacher says, Walter, you know what to do, and he hands him the crumbled up piece of paper, and Walter burns it up on the stove. And, Carl gets all burnt up. And then we see the reveal when it cuts back to the funeral home that, that’s the mangled burnt body in that coffin. And I liked this one because even though it was predictable, I really liked the message of this one that there are real life monsters, and that maybe sometimes for kids, that’s the only way that they can conceptualize it. Especially if it’s somebody that’s in their home who, in more ideal circumstances, they should trust and be able to lead on, but who revealed this nasty side of themselves.   And as far as far, again, as far as entertainment goes, it’s it’s a little obvious. It’s totally predictable. But from a social commentary perspective, I really enjoyed this one. 

Todd:  Yeah. I think it’s about at this point in the film that you’re realizing that maybe they’re not as concerned with making a horror movie as much as they are social commentary. This is the one that when I remembered the movie, but before I watched it again, this is the one that came to my mind because the imagery was pretty powerful. This guy literally gets twisted up. It’s it’s it’s comical actually in in many ways because there’s no blood involved or anything, but it’s it’s still Right. It’s still kind of weird. So everything that he does to the paper quite literally happens to this man, and you get to see the result. And and and I like that aspect of it.   And that’s really, you know, what these anthology stories have to do. That’s what separates them, really, because they all generally follow the same 5 or 6 plots. It’s how do you make it a little more interesting? How do you put some kind of interesting twist on it? But this is just another, you know, kind of revenge story. You mentioned, the portrayal of the mom, and I feel that this story I’m gonna have the same criticism about it that I did about the the previous one in the portrayal of the mom, and that I think that he falls just a little short of of trying to really of really being able to hit the message home by portraying the mom as a total slut who clearly doesn’t care about her child one bit. What the nice thing about this this thing is that they don’t set this in what would stereotypically be, say, a projects type scenario. You know, this isn’t in Right. The hood. This is a very upper class black family.   The kid’s going to a private school. He clearly has a very nice house. And even the monster, he he’s not some gang banger running out, you know, dealing drugs. He is a very prof he’s clearly a professional who just comes home from work, you know, and he’s in his suit. So in that respect, I think it it helps to make a really good statement. But then by the mom just totally coming on to whoever answers the door, I mean, the minute she answers the door before she even sees who it is, she’s she’s got her leg out, you know, in a in a seductive way, and she’s making eyes at this teacher, like, that minute. Again, I’m not saying there aren’t people like this, and and I’m not saying that this isn’t mom’s inherent problem, which is why she can cope and put up with having a guy come in who will beat her and beat this guy. But, again, it’s just not that simple in real life.   It detaches you, I think, from being able to totally get the message behind it. And again, we we’re I’m I’m talking about it as a political movie, not horror movie because that’s kinda how I feel it is, as a horror movie.   Right. Right. You know? Right?   It’s it’s hard to talk about this movie because it’s I don’t I don’t think it’s really a horror movie at its core. It’s just a convenient framing device for what they really Yeah. Want to try to say. And maybe that’s a fault of the movie is that it’s trying so hard to say these messages that the horror part of it, the entertaining the entertainment value of it suffers. 

Craig:  Right. Yeah. I I totally get what you’re saying. And and having heard you say that, I’ll be really interested to hear what you think about this next one, the KKK comeuppance, because if we’re talking about exaggerated stereotypes, though they may be based in some reality, we definitely got exaggerated stereotypes all over the place in this next one. So what do you think of the third one? 

Todd:  You know, the third one actually was my favorite as a horror film. We basically open up on a guy. He’s clearly a politician, but he’s a politician very much in the old style southern politician. And his name is Duke Metzger, which, you know, from the minute you hear the name Duke, the the first thing I ever think of is David Duke, and and so immediately, you know, that this is gonna be that guy. He’s a former Klansman turned politician who’s running for office, and he’s in a plantation house in the south. And he’s talking with his adviser, who is black, about basically how he’s perceived in the media and how he’s gonna overcome that. And meanwhile, outside of this plantation home, there are protests going on about him in general. They’re saying how could this guy even run for office, he’s so on his face racist, and we’re not gonna stand for it.   In the midst of this, one of the protesters, who is dressed interestingly, I have to say, he’s got overalls on, he has kind of, almost like a straw hat on. He’s another, by the way, very recognizable actor.   They’re gonna take care of it. They’re gonna make him pay for being here. Who will make him pay, sir? The souls. The souls are gonna make him pay. They’re gonna make him pay for being a miscount who’s the keeper of the souls. And now there’s no peace. They want peace, but there’s no peace in the dollhouse now. The dollhouse? The dollhouse.   They’re gonna make him pay the dollhouse. Just an old myth around these parts. Ain’t no myth. It ain’t no myth. It ain’t no myth.   And between the recounting of, the history of the plantation house from Duke to his assistant, we basically get this story that when this house was a plantation house, the owner of the house didn’t want to free his slaves, at the emancipation, and so instead, he slaughtered them all. And as a response to this, an old woman crafted all these dolls, a different doll to represent every slave, and somehow magically imbued the souls of the each of these slaves in these dolls. And so it’s so well known that there’s a mural of these women and these dolls on the wall. They’re inside the plantation house, but nobody’s ever found the dolls. And Duke says to his, his, advisor there, he says, yeah, when I got here, I searched the place high and low because I thought I could make some money off of these things, off of the stupid legend, but I never could find a doll. And then, we get a pretty neat camera shot, I think, where it it comes down almost through the floor. And you can see under the floorboards, there’s a there’s a doll sitting there. Basically, the rest of it is 

Craig:  It’s racially charged puppet master. 

Todd:  Yeah. It’s it’s exactly what it is. Right?   You don’t have a lot of respect for this, adviser to him who is black, but he’s also clearly the villain here in that he’s telling him, how to overcome all of these clearly and obviously legitimate criticisms. And so they have this kind of weird scene where the adviser is filming Duke with a camera, and they’re up on the loft, and he’s backing away, and he’s playing the part of a reporter, and he’s asking him, how would you respond? And he’s backing up, and they’re walking as they’re talking. They’re walking I mean, you can see this coming from a mile away too. They’re walking along this loft, and he says, no, this isn’t the way you should respond. Here, you take the camera and, and interview me. So not only does he hand him the camera, but then they switch positions so that he’s they’re continuing to walk backwards along the same path. Duke is interviewing him and he’s giving really slick answers to these these difficult questions, but they get a little too close to the stairway and he trips backwards and falls down the stairs. And if you’re perceptive enough, you can notice a quick shot of the doll as well as being one of the things that tripped him up right by the the edge of the stairs. 

Craig:  They all go to the funeral, and then the doll ends up in the car, and he throws it out. And then he’s back in his house, and he hears a knock on the door. And he opens the door, and we hear the pitter paddle of little feet. And then again, like I said, it basically just becomes racially charged puppet master where this guy is fighting, these dolls. And there’s there’s there’s interesting imagery because, like, the dolls apparently are coming out of this painting. There’s this painting of the old voodoo woman with all of these small dolls around her, and and, we see that the one that we’ve been seeing running around is is out. You know? It’s it’s just white, you know, where he was. And that one chases him around, and there’s some interesting I I feel like they were trying to be symbolic.   Like, the politician, Duke, at one point picks up an American flag and hits the painting, hits the old voodoo woman in the face with it, and, and and she starts bleeding and stuff. And and eventually, what happens is all of the dolls end up coming out. And this plays out over probably 5 minutes. I mean, it’s it’s it’s not a a really short sequence, but basically, eventually, all the dolls come out and, then they kill him while the old old voodoo woman kind of apparates into the room and and watches. And that’s the end. And and and I thought that it was pretty heavy handed with the imagery. Not only does he beat her with the flag post of the American flag, but then when all of the dolls, start approaching, him in the final moments, he picks up the American flag and almost kinds of tries to cover himself and shield himself with it. Some pretty heavy handed imagery going on there, but I think that that’s par for the course for this movie.   I I don’t think that their subtlety is not what they’re going for here. 

Todd:  This one, I think, is more, apropos for today than ever, because 

Craig:  Oh my gosh. Be careful. Big Brother is watching. I don’t know this guy, folks. Whatever he says has no affiliation with me, whatever. 

Todd:  You know, it’s just so weird. I’m watching this, and I’m going, you know, back in 95, I probably thought this was a caricature, and now, Todd doesn’t even seem like a caricature anymore, this guy. I’m just being when people can can nowadays be very openly and brazenly racist and you know you know, for a long time. You know, you go back to the speeches of Hitler, go back to the speeches of Muslim. You know, go back to any of these speeches, and we have a written record of people saying some pretty terrible things, pretty ignorant things about people on the record. And while we think in the modern times that we’ve overcome this, we really haven’t. But, you know, what’s interesting about this is there is a subtlety here that’s kind of lost in the other ones, and that is that his adviser is black. And that raises all kinds of really interesting questions.   And and I think that adding that element into it and making him a villain that gets his as well, really reflects on the statements that this movie is trying to make. You know, going back to the Clarence Smith story, what you said about us not really being the target audience for this, I thought I was thinking about that a little bit more as we’ve been talking. And you’re right. The story in the Clarence Smith one is definitely about police brutality, but the statement they’re not really saying at the end of the day isn’t that police police brutality is horrible and that’s it. It’s that police brutality happens, but how do we respond to it? And the story is really about the black partner on his first day on the job who doesn’t respond appropriately to it, And he’s ultimately the one who gets the worst comeuppance at the end. Right? 

Craig:  Right. Right. Because he’s complicit in it, I think, is the is the message there. 

Todd:  So he’s complicit in it. And and then, of course, again, the Walter story. It’s it’s it’s all within the black community here. It’s saying that the problem is here inside. And so I’m not saying that this story goes quite that far, but it adds that element in there with this this adviser who it could be argued we don’t know the full backstory, but it could be argued maybe he’s the one who helped this guy rise to power. Now he’s not the one who gets he’s the first one to die. He’s obviously not the one that the story, you know, focuses as heavily on as he does as it does in the other two movies, but in the other two stories. But again, it’s there, and so there is also that element here as well.   Otherwise, this movie is just fun to see this nasty guy, totally get what’s coming to him. But the things that he says, there will be no reparations. You will get no reparations. Right. It’s so thick, you know, that I feel like it gets a little ridiculous at times. But, again, you know, to to integrate that element in there is interesting. I think you could also argue that the the guy who must be a gardener, is that who he was? The the caretaker of the plantation who’s the protester. 

Craig:  Right? I wasn’t really sure. 

Todd:  Who says we will get reparations? He he was dressed a lot to look like a hint of slave. You know what I mean? 

Craig:  Uh-huh. Uh-huh. 

Todd:  Very differently from everybody else. So there was kind of that that was, again, pretty bold in your face exaggeration type stuff as well. I actually as a horror movie, I thought this one was the best of of the of the 4 stories, you know, if you include the wraparound. Because, and again, it’s just it’s just like these anthology movies tend to go, they’re not always necessarily scary. It’s just fun to see how the person gets their comeuppance. In this case, it was certainly not scary about the dolls, but if you had insert it and that’s the only reason it’s not scary, I think, is because we don’t care about this guy. We wanna see him get it. If it had been some a character that we cared about, the way that this is structured, how the dolls, 1 by 1, seem to be coming off of this mural, and the next time he looks at the mural, there are more dolls missing.   I think it really does a good job of of building a kind of tension in there. And I think that the dolls are, you know, it’s another creepy doll story, the dolls are good, there’s some stop motion animation in here that I think is very effective, and the dolls look scary, and that scene, of course, at the end of them all approaching him at once, there’s even a bit of gore as they’re attacking him and tearing him apart. I think as a horror story, maybe this is the most effective of the 4, even though, again, because he’s the villain, it’s not super scary. 

Craig:  I think Puppet Master did it better. I think Dolls did it better, but it was alright, and it was very reminiscent of those movies, and those movies were a lot of fun in the eighties. I really always liked those. So, you know, it was it was alright. I thought my favorite, I well, I already said what my favorite was. But from a technical and visual perspective, my favorite was the 4th story, which is called Hardcore Convert. This one the wraparound story comes back in in every one, and what makes this one different than the others is these got when, the undertaker or the funeral director opens up the coffin, the the 3 guys, the drug dealers from the beginning, they react. They clearly know this guy.   And this story follows, a guy, I don’t remember what his name his name’s Jerome, and he’s got these these killer sideburns. And he’s he’s a bad, bad guy. Bad guy. He sees somebody driving along who he knows and apparently he’s got beef with, and he stops and he guns that guy down. And then some some other black guys come out of the house that the cars are parked in front of, and they gun him down. And then the cops show up, and it turns on to this this full out shootout. Jerome, when he had initially been gunned down, the 3 guys that had gunned him down kinda stand over him, and he’s kind of he’s lost a lot of blood, so he’s fuzzy, and their voices are kind of muffled, and they’re looking down at him, and they’re just kind of in silhouette. And, eventually, then the cops show up, and and those guys run away and get shot Todd.   And, he is irritated that he’s been saved by the effing cops. You know? And so then we cut to I don’t know how much longer it is later, but he has survived and he’s in prison, and this woman, I I guess a doctor maybe, she’s played by Rosalind Cash, who again, you know, a a lot of these black actors and actresses are are really familiar. This woman is really familiar. She’s an older lady. She’s got long dreadlocks. I I remember seeing her on TV in the eighties a lot. She was in on The Cosby Show. She was on A Different World.   She was in tons of stuff. So you’re definitely gonna recognize this lady. She comes to him and says, How would you like to get out of prison? He’s like, Yeah, right. That’s never gonna happen. And she says, No. If you will consent to behavioral modification, then they’ll let you out. And from there, it kinda turns into the last act of A Clockwork Orange. They, take him to this big scary mansion on a hill.   There’s all kinds of weird imagery. Like when he walks in, he sees what appears to be bodies and body bags hanging up, like on a rack that’s being rolled around. And he at first gets thrown into this cage, and in the cage next to him is a white supremacist. And the white supremacist delivers this really interesting monologue about how it’s his mission in life to cleanse the world of the black Craig. But that there will be a few select black people who will join him in that fight and help eradicate all the rest of the black people, and then those people will be permitted to remain alive and live out their lives as slaves. 

Todd:  Do you wanna be spared? Come join my army. Hey, nigga. Those guys you killed, what color were they? 

Craig:  And that’s the big political statement here. This is about black on black violence. When they go to do the behavior modification, again, from a visual standpoint, this is really interesting, really interesting set pieces where they’re taking him kind of down into this dungeon type place with these big machines. And they set him up on kind of this rack, and they strap him in, and they, like, put tubes in his nose, and there’s contraptions all over him. And this, rack that he’s laying on starts spinning, and they start bombarding him with all of this graphic imagery of both white on black violence and black on black violence. And a lot of this is actual, footage and, actual photographs from, you know, pre civil war, civil war area. Really, really disturbing stuff. A lot of it I had seen before, because I teach a lot of literature from that that period.   But it’s really, really disturbing imagery. And after that, they take him and they put him in what they call a sensory deprivation chamber. Didn’t look like a sensory deprivation chamber to me, but they strap him to this Craig. And, he can’t move, and they, you know, black everything out. And he starts having visions of all of these black people that he had killed. And all of these people are saying, why did you do that to me? And like the first couple, he’s like, well, you know, you never you were always coming up short. I couldn’t just let you cheat me. And then the next group, they’re like, but we weren’t even really the guys you were going after.   And he says, well, yeah, but you had gone after other of my friends. Then there’s a really poignant moment where there’s a little girl, a small child. 

Todd:  I didn’t do anything. I was playing in my room, and the bullet from the gun came through the wall. A bullet ain’t got no name on it. You you you was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Craig:  Eventually, the doctor appears there too, and she’s trying to say, look at the nightmare that you are responsible for in all these people’s lives. And he says, well, who’s responsible for the nightmare that was my life? And she’s like, you’re right. Who is? Is it your mom? Is it your dad? Is it the community at large? Is it your teachers? Is it the people who didn’t support you? And he’s like, yeah. It’s all their fault. And she says, no. You have to take responsibility for the things you’ve done. The Craig from the Bible was the first murderer, and he murdered his brother. How many brothers have you killed? And so then she starts, he he says, get me out of here.   Get me out of here. And she says, there’s nothing holding you here. And he realizes that he’s not restrained, and he stands up, and he grabs one of these apparitions and is threatening to kill her if they don’t let him out. And this woman, the doctor, is saying, you have a choice. You have a chance. I’m giving you a chance. And he just keeps saying, I don’t give a f. I I I don’t and he keeps screaming it and screaming it.   And finally, he wakes up back on the street, and as it turns out, this has all either been a dream in his final moments before dying, or it was some sort of supernatural giving him an opportunity to change 

Todd:  his life around, but he made the wrong 

Craig:  choice, and so he ends up getting killed by those 3 guys who were standing over him, which then leads us into the last, part of the wraparound story and reveals kind of the twist of that. 

Todd:  Right. Those 3 guys, they turn to the funeral director and say, why did you tell us this story? You know full well that that was us, basically. And, the this whole time actually, I love this part of the movie where there’s they keep saying, we need the shit. Where’s the shit? Where’s the shit? He’s the director like,   Don’t worry. You’ll get the shit. You’ll be knee deep in the shit.   So he takes finally takes him downstairs. You want the shit. I keep the shit downstairs. So he takes him to the basement, and, he says I keep it in these coffins here. And he leads them to, this this room, and there are these coffins. And they’re like, the the shit’s in here. He’s like, oh, yeah. The shit’s in there.   And so he leads them to these coffins and each of them were standing next to 1, and they’ve got guns trained on him in the meantime. And they, open up coffins and what they see are themselves in those coffins. And it turns out that those guys got shot Todd. And where are they? They’re in hell, and he is the devil. And immediately, flames come up and he transforms into a devil like figure, and they’re burning up and that’s it. It’s really ripped off of, the original Tales from the Craig movie from the seventies, which we’re gonna have to do one of these days, where people find themselves, in a situation. It turns out that they that they’re dead, and they’ve been in hell the whole time, but not before they get to hear all these stories that they have some connection with. I liked the last the last one Todd, but, again, this is where it becomes a 100% political.   I mean, it’s horrible just in the imagery, but it definitely pulls modern day horror. It’s like you said, they’re real life monsters. Yeah. They’re real life horrors, and it’s just assaulting you in the face with it. It’s really disturbing to see what you know and recognize as actual photos. And in some cases, video and film footage of lynchings and people doing terrible things with them. But again, they’re juxtaposing it with, shots of gangbangers shooting each other to make that correlation that it’s it’s happening, but now you’re doing it, instead of the white people doing it. 

Clip:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  I guess it kinda predates Saw in a way too in a lot of this very mechanical, industrial machinery that he’s strapped to and and within and without. That was something that, you know, was an aesthetic that, sort of a 9 inch nails type aesthetic that, was Yep. Yep. Coming popular in the nineties, but we really weren’t starting to see in horror films, up until then. So it’s it’s a little bit like Jacob’s Ladder. Again, it’s very typical type of story, in these Insolgy movies or in many horror movies in general, where it turns out that, there’s the person has a chance to redeem themselves, and they’re going through these these these trials and ordeals as kind of a test. And at the end, we see whether or not that they fail. And in the horror movies, they usually fail. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  Right.   Or they just die because they were going to always die. 

Craig:  Yeah. And I just think that from a technical perspective, from a cinematography perspective, this one was the most interesting. It was the most visually interesting. There was a lot going on, and I found myself really fascinated, with this one. I feel like I have very little business in talking about that specific issue, But it is, you know, a significant issue. It is still a problem today, and I thought that it addressed that in a really clever way. And and like I’ve said from the beginning, I appreciate that and respect that. I think that it was a valiant attempt to bring attention to some of these issues that were relevant in 1995, that are still relevant today.   And in that arena, I applaud the filmmakers for that. As for a movie to sit down and watch for fun, I I don’t think I’ll ever watch this movie again. I’m glad to have seen it from a completeness perspective, but, it’s not anything I would ever need to see again. 

Todd:  Yeah. I think you’re right. We’re definitely not the target audience for it. And it could be argued that even the target audience, might find it a little heavy handed, and definitely not scary. You know, that’s the thing. 

Craig:  It’s No. It’s not scary. 

Todd:  It’s not scary. If it were scary, it might be a little different. Now you know there’s another movie we we should see sometime, because I don’t remember how scary it is. It would be interesting to compare to this, which is Snoop Dogg’s tales from the tales from the dog pound or something like that, which 

Craig:  Yeah. I know what you’re talking about. 

Todd:  And I have seen it, and I remembered enjoying it a little bit more than I thought it would. It is a very different film. It’s very different from this, and it’s very the filmmaking style is very different from this. It’s a lot more stylish and trippy as you could imagine a movie by Snoop Dogg. 

Craig:  Yes. Sure. 

Todd:  But, but I don’t remember if that movie tries so hard Todd be political or not. I I’d be interested, to see it again and compare. But, this one yeah. I I’m with you on all points. I I really agree with you, but again, I don’t I feel it’s a competently made movie. It’s not stupid, it’s not low budget, it’s not really dumb. It just misses the mark in the entertainment value, and in my opinion, even from the political aspect. It’s it’s just and, you know, maybe this is my personal preference, but if you’re gonna if you’re gonna try to and, again, I realize I’m not the the intended audience for this film.   But, again, if you’re gonna try to reach me with a message, it better be wrapped in a lot of entertainment. And, also, it better be very poignant. You know, I wanna I wanna really feel. And the way that I’m really gonna feel is I wanna see people I recognize. And about the only people I could really recognize in this was that that Duke politician, you know. Everybody else Yeah. 

Craig:  Corbin Benson. 

Todd:  Seemed just a little too over the top for me to recognize and really empathize or go, yeah. Give that guy what’s coming to him because I know a guy like that, and he deserves that kinda stuff, you 

Craig:  know. I do agree with you that, I do think it’s competently made. We have certainly seen worse movies. And and in a way, I I had kinda hoped that this would be more like that because those movies are fun in in being able to, make fun of them and and and, you know, laugh, about them. And I I I just I don’t think that that’s what they were going for here. So I can’t say that they failed in that regard, but, you know, it is what it is. I I I right. I I don’t I don’t think it’s bad.   I wouldn’t, you know, tell people, oh, don’t watch it. It’s not worth your time. I would just say, you know, it wasn’t really my cup of tea, but, you know, there’s there’s certainly stuff for discussion if nothing else. 

Todd:  Yeah. Show it to your class and talk about it there. You know what I mean? I mean, that you’re right. It’s it’s way too educational to be entertaining. Sorry, Craig. Alright. Thank you so much for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend.   You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and on our Facebook page, where you can like us there, spread the love around, and also tell us what other movies you’d like us to see. Until that time, I’m Todd 

Craig:  And I’m Craig. 

Todd:  With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *