[Review] Love, Laugh, and Fear: Memories of Tales from the Hood

Tales from the Hood was one of the first scary movies I watched in the theater, so it has a special place in my heart. Don’t ask me how I managed to get into the theater to watch this without an adult when I was 11 years old, but I watched it with my friends which made the experience symbolic of my new freer pre-teen life. When I watched it again for this review, I could still clearly remember the stories told and the terrors they embedded; but as I let the movie play, a terrible realization set over me. For anyone who hasn’t watched this film, if someone were to erase 1995 and stamp 2022 on it, it would still deliver many of the same hair-raising shocks because of how relevant it is to current race issues in the U.S. Unlike other horror movies that were released over 20 years ago, Tales from the Hood doesn’t feel distanced from today and its nearness serves as a reminder of our frightening social-historical stagnation.

Tales from the Hood is a horror anthology that explores serious social issues while simultaneously using gore and guts to captivate viewers to its unforgettable ending. I must warn readers that there are topics in this film that will not go away when you close your eyes and pretend they don’t exist. There is racism, child abuse, domestic violence, gang violence, and explicit images that tell the hard truth of American history, particularly that of slavery and white supremacy. In four stories, the film provides a perspective on our history that is not sugar coated for sensitive audiences. Whether the stories feature classic monster figures seeking revenge, haunted artifacts that often live longer lives than we do, or experimental machines meant for behavior modification, this anthology challenges viewers by presenting horrific impossibilities mixed with real-world brutalities. Furthermore, it accomplishes all of this while making you laugh on occasion, which is needed when you have to emotionally process the unrelenting violence and injustices displayed. The movement between stories and genres alongside twists and turns that leave you disoriented produce a comedic socio-political horror movie that seems to have time travelled between now and then or vice versa.

Interweaving comedy into horror is not unusual, but one of Director Rusty Cundieff’s many successes in Tales from the Hood, is in how he uses comedy to point out the ridiculousness of what is happening before our eyes. For instance, the opening scene is filmed with such undeniable gothic undertones⸺ imagine an old-style funeral home with glowing red, green, and blue glasswork windows as an organ plays a fear-inducing melody⸺that when three young Black men, named Ball (De’aundre Bonds), Bulldog (Samuel Monroe Jr.), and Stack (Joe Torry), arrive to the funeral home’s front lawn, their pragmatism is a perfect reaction to the obviousness of this scary scene. After checking out the location, saying the place looks “evil”, and fighting about going inside or staying outside, they ask a very important question, “How are you supposed to kill something that’s already dead?” (4:36). The answer is, of course, you can’t, but this doesn’t stop them from going inside the funeral home to finalize a business transaction. In another scene, the reanimated corpse of a much wronged Black councilman and political activist, Martin Moorehouse (Tom Wright), carries out his revenge in a manner that would make anyone with, and without, a male sex appendage recoil at the possibility of such damage right before laughing with relief from its cringe-inducing silliness. Granted, the nuances of the comedy probably escaped me when I was 11 years old, but those moments also led to its permanence in my creepy-curious little heart at the time. After all, even though it has been 27 years since that first viewing in the theater, I could never forget Mr. Simm’s (Clarence Williams III), the funeral home owner, petrifying stare and his eerily jolly engagement with Ball, Bulldog, and Stack. Lastly, without giving anything more away, the ending is the perfect finish to this experience because of how it leaves you wondering⸺what the actual hell?

Therefore, if you haven’t seen this film, I can’t help but recommend it (like yesterday). Yet, keep in mind that you will be challenged in the classic ways horror films challenge viewers, but also in other ways that can’t be left behind when returning to the “real-world”. Of course, that is if viewers care enough to acknowledge how this film’s scariest aspect is in how it signals that time must have stood still since it was first released. Since the U.S. seems to be caught in the same cycle in how it hasn’t succeeded in addressing the social consequences of racism, slavery, and white supremacy, Tales from the Hood is as relevant as ever. We are stuck because we are stunted, but not because some creature subdued us, but rather because we have failed to open our eyes enough to the monstrous heart of our history. For instance, I recently watched the remake of Candyman (2021) and because its visual representation of the importance of telling one’s story first hand, made me love it, I was curious to see what others thought as well. As I read through some IMDB reviews, negative reviewers used the word “woke” a lot as if this is what makes the remake unsuccessful. However, the topics explored in movies like the new Candyman, or the classic Tales from the Hood, are only “disturbingly” woke if you have been sleeping for at least the past decade or two.