Tales From the Hood (1995)

Review by Adam C. Thomas



In the spirit of halloween, I decided to watch what appeared to be a fun, campy movie. What I got was about 15% fun, and 85% racial commentary.

Spike Lee directed this yawn fest, and it shows. Each of the four stories within this anthology style tale focus around some type of racial stereotypical problem. Corrupt officers killing an honest black man, gang bangers killing each other, “the man” keeping them down. I felt kind of gypped, because this movie had the potential to be really funny, but Lee’s overpowering socio-political heavy handedness kept it from being as truly entertaining as it could have been.

The movie itself starts with three hoods heading in to a funeral home to retrieve some drugs from the mortician. Once inside, he begins telling them stories about the people in the parlor. Clarence Williams as the mortician was the perfect choice, because he has the ability that most people strive for and fail miserably. He has the ability to be super creepy, and he shines in this role. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the cast, but overall, this was kind of dull. The stories were bland, the acting was just so-so, and the ending... well, don't get me started on that.

As I said, if Lee had kept the stories simple and entertaining, instead of trying to force unnecessary social statements into otherwise entertaining spook stories, this one would have been much better and got a much higher rating. As it is, I give this one a four out of ten.

<