I am terrified to write this review. Society has become a cesspool where you aren’t allowed to express an opinion anymore. I’m a white dude, and I’m about to critique a film with a very strong message about racism and sexism and all of that stuff. I’m not supposed to have an opinion on that anymore. I am supposed to parrot the same PC bullshit every step of the way or else I may be labeled with some hateful tag. That sucks, but that is how shit is nowadays. I’m going to walk this tightrope and hope that people can comprehend the words that I write.
I found this movie to be terrible. I hate to write that. You may not understand just how much I loved the original Tales From the Hood and why. We did a blog about it last year for our horror group. (Click here for the group blog on Tales From the Hood) This waste of time doesn’t deserve to be a sequel to something great. Let me break down each segment with some small spoilers and then when you see END SPOILERS, I will go back to discussing how this film failed.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Much like the original, we get 4 stories and a wraparound story. My first issue is how often they made Keith David say shit. Yes, we all loved the original with the dude saying knee deep in the shit. It’s like they knew how beloved that bit was and said “Hey, let’s just make Keith David say shit 50 times and people will love it! Now let’s make an Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen film where they are hilarious misfits who get hot chicks in their 20’s. YEAH!”
1. “Good Golly” was probably the second worst segment that they could start with. This was so over the top, outlandish, awfully acted. This was actually incredibly difficult to sit through because of the acting, the material, and the overall stupidity of it all. I did like seeing the one doll from the original film make an appearance in this one. Still, they really went back to the well with another doll themed story? Why? I also have an issue with how the old dude treated the young black girl. I’ll get to that later. Other issues with this include picking up a book, pick a random page in the middle of the book, and have that be the starting point of the book. Unless it’s a book of short stories, that doesn’t happen in other books. You tend to start at the beginning of the book, not the middle.
2. “The Medium” was by far the best story. This felt like the stepbrother to the David Allen Grier segment from the original. It’s about 3 guys that have dude tied up and want to know where he has hidden like 5 million bucks. Instead, the tied up guy antagonizes the guys until one gets so pissed off that he kills the guy. So they see a psychic medium on TV, think John Edwards. They decide to basically force their way in this guy’s house and force him to channel the dead man’s spirit to find out where the money is or else they will kill his wife. The problem is that psychics are great big phonies. Fortunately the psychic, he is able to channel a bunch of people from these guy’s past and this is so silly and over the top, but it worked. Eventually they get the spirit that they want and of course, he gets his vengeance. Everybody played their role great, but Bryan Batt as the psychic was surprisingly good given the material he had to work with. I think everybody did great with this one.
3. “Date Night” has nothing to do with anything other than some agenda about sexism and how guys are rapey. This was absolutely unnecessary and had nothing to do with the “Hood”. These 2 guys got these girls on Tinder and go to the girl’s place. They are aspiring actresses and the one guy claimed that they were like casting agents. Seriously, people in the 80’s would have found this premise laughably stupid. People are not this dumb and naive now, and if they are, well, I won’t say what I want to say. Anyway, one guy drugs the girl’s drinks, then they carry them upstairs, undress them down to their underwear, and set up a camera. Well, if you’re going to tell this story, this girls would have been nude, so definitely not going for authenticity here. On the camera, the girls are invisible because they are vampires. The guys get eaten by a bunch of other “victims” or whatever. This was pure trash.
4. “The Sacrifice” tried to be good. There is a good story here, but the way that they did it, ugh. I don’t want to be real and talk about why this failed for the reasons I explained in my opening paragraph. I fucking hate politics. Stereotypes are plenty here. The positives that I can talk about are the ghosts and their purpose. I liked that. I thought that was well done. I just wish they weren’t so heavy handed and this felt too similar to the story with the doll in the original. A racist powerful politician. What I like in some ways is that the ghosts are holding Henry accountable for quintessentially turning his back on the black community. In that regard, this did feel a bit like the original. This was the second best segment, but the Klan whatever, the ridiculous speech by Cotton (really, that’s the dude’s name), and just the overall ignorance of Henry. I loved Henry’s mom and the old dude that she brought to help. The mom was right, he should have been focusing on helping his wife in that situation. I liked that Medgar Evers was represented here. He’s underappreciated person when discussing segregation and civil rights movements. I just wish they didn’t go cartooney almost, toward the end, as the world was quickly altering. This felt like a cross between the evil politician and the crooked cops one in the original. Also, I am SHOCKED that there wasn’t a story about cops. I would suggest watching this segment because it’s watchable and good at times, but not great.
5. “Robo Hell” is the wraparound story with Dumass Beach, or as the robot calls him: Dumbass Bitch. I know that was supposed to be funny, but the Dumass joke I feel belongs to The Shawshank Redemption. Once again, a self-righteous white guy gets what is coming to him because he’s racist and a womanizer. Oh, and in the end, he was in Hell. Yeah, even Keith David couldn’t save this.
END SPOILERS
I will break this down like any other film. Story-wise, it missed more than it hit. One good story and a second one was debatable. The first and third stories were awful, as was the wraparound. The acting, once again, the segments that were good seemed to have the best acting, probably no coincidence. Fun or enjoyable factor, for me, was almost non-existent. If you call this film something else aside from Tales From The Hood 2, this movie wouldn’t even find it’s way on NetFlix, and they have some awful films on there.
Finally, I have already had this debate, but I will make this claim. This isn’t close to a spiritual successor to the original. The original had morality tales and such, but in the end, it taught accountability for EVERYBODY. The first story goes so against that thought process. I will ask the question without providing an answer. If the young black girl used the N-word casually, quintessentially taking away it’s power, why does the old guy insist on continuing to provide that word with so much power and hatred? The second one was strictly a vengeance story, so no need for it. The third story didn’t belong. Thanks for the moral lesson of it’s not okay to drug a girl, and film raping her. The fourth segment is the toughest one to really figure out. Does Henry’s sacrifice stop Cotton from winning and removing some of the polling locations? I doubt it. Had they shown how his sacrifice had further implications, it would have really helped. Instead, it just made his wife happy basically. This was a missed opportunity, big time. Had they shown the implications, you’d have known that his sacrifice actually meant something to the black community. The idea was there, the execution wasn’t and therefore it failed as a moral story. The wraparound story, why did the one lady get killed? What moral was learned by her? Get your ass grabbed by your boss, but you keep working to try to provide for yourself and possibly your family, and that warrants death? That makes zero logical sense. A person who is getting mistreated by their employer shouldn’t have to fire just because their boss is an asshole.
If you consider the original, each story a lot of relevance. Crooked racist cops, child abuse, racist politicians, and black on black violence. More importantly, the right people got punished in each story. Most of the story felt like it took place in the “hood”. It had a darker tone, the imagery set the tone better. This one didn’t have the same vibe. That’s just my personal opinion.
I have really reached my N-Bomb limit for the year thanks to this film. Go ahead and drink every time that word is used. Or if watching with a friend, flip a coin and the other person drinks every time Keith David says shit. You’ll both be feeling good by the end.
One final note. It’s sad that we’re in 2018 and people feel that we need films like this, and they aren’t wrong. I don’t know what the fuck happened, but this country has regressed in regards to racism, and that’s pretty fucked up. If you are a person pissed off at a race, perhaps think about what pisses you off, what the root of the problem, who the problem is, because it most likely is just a small percentage of the whole. The loudest people you hear tend to be the biggest morons in the room. Take power away from the loud idiots and put it in the hands of people that have everybody’s best interests in mind. America, get your shit together.
Rating: 3.0 – I would give 1 point each for the second and fourth story, as well as Keith David. I’m sure some will like it more than me, some will hate it way more than me. This is as fair as I can be judging a film that I feel is beyond insulting to the original film that I loved. I hate to say this, but there’s a reason that this just came out and then became available on NetFlix without being advertised in any of those “Coming to NetFlix” articles, even ones specializing in horror. (Edit) I may have been too harsh on this. The first and third segment pissed me off. The first segment was so bad though, it’s worth a negative point. If I say that each segment and wraparound story is worth a maximum of 2 points, I would say that the scoring would be -1.0 , 2.0, 0.5, 2.0 (This was better than I gave it credit for), and 1.0 for the wraparound. I can’t give the wraparound higher because it didn’t work for me. I get that it’s supposed to be cheesy, but I didn’t like it. So final rating has been upgraded to a 4.5. I punished this film a little harshly for the first segment, which isn’t fair, but it was so fucking bad.
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