Tales from the Hood

1995 Directed by Rusty Cundieff

Horror Marathon 2024 Day 12 Film 26

This is a dense anthology of 4 short horror stories that deal with black community themes in America. The stories are framed around a funeral home- with Clarence Williams III giving a creepily crazed performance as the director telling stories of the dead.

Although the campy setups and acting creates comedic flair it's a balance of the heavy themes on display. Cops as another gang, family brutality, slavery, and black on black violence are shown without pulling back from the lasting effects on the community.

The screwball comedy of puppets goring a southern plantation owner and former KKK member running for office was especially gruesome and hilarious. The scenes of family violence were hard to watch, but end up on a nice comic book like moment of the power of a child's imagination.

The film ends on a pointed critique of gang culture itself- that the means of violence don't lead to happy endings. Usually anthology films have a few stories that don't quite work or drag the film's pacing with the runtime. Fortunately every one of these stories stands on its own while delving into the creeping underbelly of these thematic horrors.