Tales from the Hood (1995, USA) C-97m. **½ D: Rusty Cundieff. Starring Corbin Bernsen, Rosalind Cash, Rusty Cundieff, David Allen Grier, Anthony Griffith, Wings Hauser, Paula Jai Parker, Clarence Williams III. Four-part horror film in which three hoodlums go to a mortician who promised them drugs. Instead he tells them four eerie stories: The first, about the vengeful ghost of a black politician killed by corrupt cops, is way overdone (it does have an intense performance by Hauser). In the second one a troubled schoolboy is complaining to his teacher about a monster in his room. This one is undermined by a finale that is - again - overdone. The third story features Bernsen as a right-wing politician whose house harbors the souls of murdered slaves in the form of puppets. And the last segment (the best) is about a hoodlum who must undergo a therapy in a secret government lab. Interesting to watch, suspenseful and contains more verve than other anthologies, but all in all just quite good. Cowritten by the director, executive produced by Spike Lee. |