The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2019: Tales from the Hood (1995), directed by Rusty Cundieff

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "The World is a Ghetto", by Geto Boys

       Collecting separate pieces of literature into one work has been a thing since books started being more than something monks did in between making wine and cheese, but for whatever reason I’ve always associated it with horror fiction above all else. Perhaps it comes from that classic image of a group of people telling ghost stories around a fire, doing their best to scare their friends while being scared themselves that does it, or that the nature of horror lends itself to short, explosive bursts of suspense, making them easily digestible and so taking several in one go sounds practical. I dunno, but that’s how it seems to go for books and, occasionally, films, as we’ve seen in previous Marathons with Tales from the Crypt and Spirits of the Dead. So why not do it again this year?

One dark night, three young men travel to a mysterious, almost anachronistic mortuary, on the basis of picking up a lucrative amount of drugs that the mortician had discovered (by force). When the three arrive however, the macabre mortician (played to eerie effect by Clarence Williams III) isn’t in the mood for drug deals. He’s interested in the dead, and the events that up to their demise. Tales of killer dolls and monsters lurking behind your door at night, of killing and being killed, or hatred and death. Tales from the hood, as the title says, and tales which for these three young men might be closer to reality than they’d hope…

       From the title you might assume Tales from the Hood is taking cues from Tales from the Crypt, and in some cases that comparison is accurate. Both feature a framing device with an eerie narrator relates stories in a location associated with death, both like to dig into a bit of the old comic aesthetic (especially the final story in this case), both like a little gallows humor here and there. However, where Crypt was all about the darkly ironic twists, especially the television series, Tales from the Hood is geared towards social commentary. All four stories, although featuring supernatural elements, center around issues that directly impact African-American communities: Police brutality, domestic violence, gang violence and so on. Subjects which they tackle unflinchingly, and honestly hit harder than the things in the film that we would label ‘horror’. In that way Tales from the Hood is the most effective film we’ve covered so far, even if its presentation is a tad tongue in cheek. That gallows humor coming into play, perhaps.

       I’m also reminded a bit of Rod Serling’s second show Night Gallery, in that the segments tend to be faster paced and narratively direct. There are four stories in total in Tales from the Hood not including the framing device: “Rogue Cop Revelation” (featuring Wings Hauser), “Boys Do Get Bruised” (featuring David Alan Grier), “KKK Comeuppance” and “Hard Core Convert”, all of which are clear in what they mean and what they’re trying to say. Of the four I’d say I was most partial to the final story, “Hard Core Convert”, which at first seems to be heading in A Clockwork Orange territory before suddenly veering into something reminiscent of Ambrose Bierce's “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, which I honestly didn’t see coming. It’s also the segment which I think maybe moves a bit too quick for its own good, probably could have been expanded on a bit more if they wanted, but that’s the way she goes when it comes to anthology movies. 

       Consistency, I guess the name of the game here is today. The stories work, the performances work, the direction and the special effects work, it all works. Which may be a matter of course in regular film, but I’ve covered two other anthology movies before this and there’s always been at least one segment there that could’ve been cut. Not so with Tales from the Hood which, countering Tales from the Crypt and Spirits of the Dead, has a sense of uniformity that feels and functions like a complete film rather than a couple of stories tied together by nothing more than someone’s personal preference. It may not have anything have flashy as ‘Nightmare at 20,000 ft.”, but then who remembers anything about The Twilight Zone Movie beyond that segment? Who even remembers there was a Twilight Zone movie? Besides the guy who’s probably going to blog about it at some point, I mean.

        I feel like I might be talking in circles here, or that I’m not being as descriptive as I should be, but I can’t think of much else to say. Tales from the Hood is good. I enjoyed watching it, I think other people would enjoy watching it, so I’m recommending it. If you do decide to throw this on your Halloween film queue this year however, you might want to avoid the sequel, Tales from the Hood 2. Similar in structure, yet lack much of the charm and soul of the original. The choice, however, is yours to make.