Tales from the Hood

For the last few years, I have used October to give myself a viewing assignment: a different horror film each day. Now that I have escaped the real life horror of New Zealand’s public service, I intend to write a piece inspired by each film.

My twenty-fourth film is Rusty Cundieff’s Tales from the Hood (1995).

Released to lukewarm reviews in 1995, the reputation of Rusty Cundieff’s Tales from the Hood has only improved with age. An anthology with no real weak entries is a bit of a unicorn but all four shorts work extremely well here, as does the framing device.

The film begins with three dealers barging into a funeral home to relieve the eccentric owner Mr. Simms (Clarence Williams III) of some drugs he has found. Mr. Simms proceeds to procrastinate, telling his guests four stories related to his deceased companions. These are:

1. Rogue Cop Revelation - a man murdered by crooked cops gets his revenge;
2. Boys Do Get Bruised - a child confides in his teacher about a ‘monster’ in his house;
3. KKK Comeuppance - a racist Southern politician is haunted by the past; and
4. Hard-Core Convert - a gangster receives unorthodox rehabilitation treatment.

With each story revolving around issues relevant to the Black community, one might think of recent ‘elevated horror’ entries that put capital-T Themes at the forefront. But unlike the most earnest of the last decade’s horror (and for the avoidance of doubt I’m throwing shade on weak stuff like The Hole in the Ground, Relic and the collected works of Mike Flanagan), Tales from the Hood never forgets to be horror. The individual parts are zippy, funny and scary, adding up to an excellent whole.

The main reason I decided to watch this was for the third entry which revolves around Voodoo. Corbin Bernsen plays Duke Metger, a candidate for Governor and former KKK member running on an anti-affirmative action platform. His office is situated in a former slave plantation that is rumoured to house a number of dolls containing the souls of former slaves. While other films I have watched during the month treat Voodoo as a living religion, it here acts as a link to a past that some would rather forget (even if they intend to repeat it through stealth). Watching a white guy be torn apart by Voodoo dolls while he defends himself with an American flag, uttering slurs to his last breath is just the right level of heightened.

That the film refuses to pull any punches is its greatest strength. Executive Produced by Spike Lee and made through his 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, it is a reminder of how potent his brand still was in the `90s, just a few years after Malcom X. In recent years, Lee has spent his time glorifying the cops, selling cryptocurrency and campaigning for genocidal presidents but he used to put his name on films that didn’t feel the need to include sympathetic cops or politicians.

Cundieff has never had the opportunity to make anything as good as Tales from the Hood again and has worked mostly in TV since 1995 but this film deserves all the re-evaluation it has received.