Sam Panico Pittsburgh born Rusty Cundieff co-wrote and directed this portmanteau film, which takes the structure of an Amicus film and positions it against the problems of African-Americans circa 1995 (sadly, these problems haven't changed all that much in the past 22 years).During the framing sequence, Welcome to My Mortuary, the drug dealing team of Stack (Joe Torry), Bulldog and Ball arrive at the Simms' Funeral Home to buy "the shit" -- drugs that were found in an alley. As the four men make their way through Mr. Simms' (Clarence Williams III, Linc from TV's The Mod Squad) building, he tells the story of some of his past customers.Rogue Cop RevelationOn his first night of patrol. Clarence is taken by his partner Newton (Michael Massee, The Crow) to join two other officers, Billy (Duane Whitaker, Pulp Fiction) and Strom (Wings Hauser, Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time) as they attack Martin Moorehose (Tom Wright, the hitchhiker in Creepshow 2), a civil rights activist.Clarence stands up for the man, but is told not to break the police code. The officers shoot the battered Moorehouse up with heroin and then push it into the water. As the man had fought to keep drugs -- supplied by bad cops -- out of his community, he is seen as a hypocrite.A year later and Clarence has left the force and wanders the streets, drunk. Finding a mural of Moorehouse, he is haunted by a vision of the man crucified and screaming, "Bring them to me!" He then lures the other three officers to the dead man's grave, where they laugh at him and proceed to piss all over it.As Newton and Strom make a move to execute Clarence, Moorehouse emerges from his grave to drag Billy underground with a handful of his genitalia. A coffin bursts from the ground, with Billy's corpse lying inside it and Moorehouse holding his beating heart.A chase ensues, but obviously, the cops never saw Creepshow 2. Moorehouse beheads Strom and chases Newton through an alley, where he crucifies him to a wall with used hypodermic needles and then melts his body into his mural in a psychedelic scene.Moorehouse then asks Clarence where he was when he needed him. The story ends with two mental hospital orderlies watching Clarence in a straightjacket, noting that he was a dangerous cop killer.The second casket tells a story all about how Boys Do Get Bruised. Walter (Brandon Hammond, Menace II Society) is the new kid in school, constantly abused by bullies. A kindly teacher, Richard Garvey (writer/director Cundieff), takes an interest and visits his home one night.Walter has a power that enables him to damage people through his drawings, a power that he's used to stop a bully already. But he can't stop the real monster in his life -- his father, who beats both him and his mother once Garvey leaves. He returns to intervene, but Carl (David Alan Grier, In Living Color) is too powerful, beating all of them down until Walter crumples his drawing and decimates the man.We see Carl's twisted and burnt corpse as Mr. Simms shows the three gangsters a small doll, which is part of the next story, KKK Comeuppance.Duke Metger (Corbin Bernsen, Major League) is pretty much David Duke. He was in the KKK, he's racist and has an office inside a haunted slave plantation. Well, maybe not that last part.While reporters gather outside, character actor Art Evans appears to tell everyone that the plantation is haunted by the souls of the people murdered there. Now, they live inside the body of small dolls.Of course, those dolls are going to kill everyone they can. And they sure do. Much like Trilogy of Terror, the rest of this chapter involve Metger battling one, then several of the dolls until he is consumed by them.The drug dealers are now angry, as they just want to get "the shit" and get out. But when they see the body of someone they know, Crazy K, they have to hear the story of the Hard-Core Convert.After following one of his enemies and killing him, Crazy K is attacked by three men who shoot him repeatedly before they are all killed by the police.Yet somehow K survives and is taken to a rehabilitation building that's something out of a mad scientist movie. Dr. Cushing (Rosalind Cash, The Omega Man) hopes to use her mental techniques to retrain his mind, but he proves to be too uncaring to be saved. There's a great sequence here that predates Get Out where he is placed into sensory deprivation and basically goes into his own mind.Because K decides that he's fine with his crimes, his mind goes back to the moment where he was shot by the three men and he dies. And the three men?We've been following them all along. They are the gangsters and "the shit" is their closed coffins, with their bodies inside. And Mr. Simms? He's Satan. And this is Hell.Yep. The Amicus ending!I was really struck by the gorgeous camerawork in this film, which elevates it beyond being the low budget schlockfest that I had always believed that it was. Turns out I was wrong. Dead wrong. Cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond has quite the pedigree, working on films such as Candyman, The Man Who Fell to Earth and Don't Look Now.

utgard14 Horror anthology movie directed by Rusty Cundieff and produced by Spike Lee. Features four stories plus a framing story that ties it all together. The first story is about a rookie black cop who knows three white cops killed a black politician but doesn't say anything. He's then compelled by the spirit of the politician to bring the murderers to his grave. The second story's about a little boy who shows up to school with bruises he claims he got from a monster in his home. The third story is about a doll terrorizing a former Ku Klux Klansmen running for office. The fourth story is about a killer who agrees to participate in a behavioral modification program in order to get early release from prison. The framing story sees three gangbangers visit a funeral home where they intend to buy some drugs from the eccentric mortician (Clarence Williams III). If you've seen any horror anthology movies before, you'll easily predict how this turns out. Violent, profane, and ugly. The much-ballyhooed social commentary is obvious and insulting. None of the stories are fresh and you'll probably feel the need to bathe after watching this.

rpattz3000 As Mr.Simms says......ahhh....the s***. I really liked this movie.When I first saw this movie I was 15 yrs old and it scared the crap out of me.Especially the first story where those cops beat up Mr.Moorhouse and drove him to the deck and the cops put him in his car and drove his car into the water after they had over dosed him with drugs and after that he was calling out for Clarence to bring the cops to him and when the police came and that one cop whizzed on Moorhouses grave and he made his other partner whiz on the grave too and Moorhouse grabbed the cop and pulled him in the grave and tore his heart out and they showed Moorehouse standing there holding the cops beating heart and then he went after those other 2 cops.I didn't sleep for 2 weeks.I kept thinking I was gonna see Moorhouse standing over my bed or something when I woke up.I liked the story about the the boy who was being abused by his step dad and he said his step dad was a monster.And the one about the dolls was good too.

Vomitron_G I had to wait more than 10 years to finally see this one. Not one single copy seemed to be available over here in Europe. That was until 2007, when I finally got my hands on a Region 1 DVD copy.If you like anthology movies, then you have no excuse for not seeing this one. One of the best anthology movies of the 90's (it's up there with "Tales From The Dark Side: The Movie" and "Necronomicon", if you ask me). And probably the best horror movie from the hood with a nearly all Afro-American cast ever made (because I can't really say I've ever seen a ghetto-horror flick that was actually any good). Three hood-rats, out to collect some 'shiiit', visit a freaky coroner who tells them 4 terrifying tales of the supernatural.The first tale is about three corrupt white cops who had it coming... Wings Hauser is especially enjoyable in this one. He already evoked my interest at the time after having seen his enjoyable performance in "Night Shadows" (AKA "Mutant"). And by know I simply love the man. Second story is about a boy and his bruises, which are being caused by... a monster supposedly living in his house. Great and fascinating conclusion this one had. The third tale has some killer-puppet action going on in it of which Charles Band could easily be very jealous. Corbin"The Dentist"Bernsen stars in this segment that revolves around voodoo and slavery. The fourth and last segment gives a big nod to Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange". Enough said about that one. The wrap-around story wraps it all up nicely, and has a very satisfying conclusion. "Tales From The Hood" is actually more than 'just a horror movie'. With Spike Lee being executive producer, you can rightfully expect that this movie will carry important themes & topics like racism, politics, police brutality, guilt, child abuse, brothers killing brothers, etc. The message always comes across, but possible statements & points of view never become too dominant. This film's primary goal is to entertain a horror audience. And it splendidly succeeds in that. The filmmakers also clearly know the rules of the horror-anthology-genre as well as the tricks of the trade, all to great success. Need I even say that the make-up and special effects are darn excellent too? The tales from this hood, are all winners.