In addition to the usual reviews and comments you would find on a horror movie blog, this is also a document of the wonderfully vast horror movie section of the video store I worked at in my youth.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Tales From The 'Sauga

Do you know those movies that you won’t watch? There’s just some bad association with them for whatever reason and then so much time goes by, you don’t even remember why you didn’t want to see them in the first place.

Tales From The Hood was one of those movies for me. Something about it seemed – for lack of a better word – ‘ghetto’, so I never really entertained the thought of watching it. The poster wasn't really helping their cause either to be honest. Then, last weekend, at Serena’s latest movie night, the theme was anthology horror and Tales From The Hood was on the docket. I was going to see it, predispositions or not.

Thankfully, I ended up enjoying it. I certainly wouldn’t put it anywhere near my favourite anthologies (Creepshow and the original 1972 Tales From The Crypt), but the ‘hood’ element certainly added to some of the stories. It didn’t have me right away though. The gangstas at the start were walking clichés that had me rolling my eyes (inwardly of course, as I was in the company of people who loved it), but it became less distracting as time went on.

I’ll tell you what though. There were a couple of occasions where I thought I had the stories pegged and then was completely wrong. My favourite of the quartet of stories was probably the one with Corbin Bernsen as the racist politician living in a haunted plantation estate. It had some creepy stop motion animation and a great finish. There was only one weak installment, which was basically a mishmash of A Clockwork Orange and an early Twilight Zone episode. However, it did serve the purpose of setting up the conclusion, so it can be forgiven.

So, in the end, Tales From The Hood is further proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Also on the slate that night was Creepshow and Planet Terror. Creepshow still holds up beautifully. This time though, I was able to fully appreciate the comic book artistry of the narrative that I obviously didn’t as a kid. My favourite story is still ‘Something To Tide You Over’ with Ted Danson and Leslie Nielsen. I never realized until now that Nielsen’s ill fated wife was Gaylen Ross (Fran from Dawn Of The Dead). Planet Terror is still a rocking good time. The extra footage doesn’t really add anything to it though. It just further validated my decision to hold out for the theatrical Grindhouse release. I’m sure as hell not getting the current DVD version of Death Proof; the last thing that movie needs to be is longer.

No comments: