On this weeks episode we're jumping into spooky movie month with Tales from the Hood. A 1995 horror anthology film that presents four short horror stories based on police corruption, domestic abuse, racism, and gang violence, all presented within a frame story of three drug dealers buying some "found" drugs from an eccentric and story-prone funeral director. directed by Rusty Cundieff starring Clarence Williams III and an all star "black famous" cast including David Alan Grier, Lamont Bentley, and more.
Join the Black Ass Movie Club
On this weeks episode we're jumping into spooky movie month with Tales from the Hood. A 1995 horror anthology film that presents four short horror stories based on police corruption, domestic abuse, racism, and gang violence, all presented within a frame story of three drug dealers buying some "found" drugs from an eccentric and story-prone funeral director. directed by Rusty Cundieff starring Clarence Williams III and an all star "black famous" cast including David Alan Grier, Lamont Bentley, and more.
Join the Black Ass Movie Club
I never think about what we try to think about.
TJ:We ever think about.
Brooklyn:Florida. Welcome back to the Black Ass Movie Podcast, where we are putting together the quintessential list of Black Ass movies that you must watch. I'm Brooklyn and I'm DJ, so this week we are getting our feet wet into the spooky part of Black movies. I am a horror movie junkie. That is my ish, yeah, you are. So this is like my favorite time of year. So I was really happy that we started this when we started it, because we quickly out into October.
Brooklyn:Yes, the film we're watching this week is Tales from the Hood. You were about to say Boys from the Hood. I was about to say Boys from the Hood. It took me a second, but we were watching Tales from the Hood. It is one of the movies that I honestly have never seen. I think all the way through, maybe once or twice, like years ago. But it's one of those movies that you know it's on and you watch it, but you never really know how the three guys get into the funeral home, why they're there with or actually there for. Why does the funeral director have drugs? Apparently that they're looking like, all of those questions you don't really know unless you watch it from the beginning, and I've never seen it really like from the beginning, with understanding of this is what's happening.
TJ:I was going to say, this is the first time I've actually sat down and watched it from beginning to end, because I feel like I've always gotten dropped into it because they were like three or four times where you were like I don't remember, I don't remember. But it was interesting, like I had to see it all in one sitting. I feel like I have a different appreciation for it now than when I was younger when I saw it, yeah, and I also think I only saw the edited version the TV version.
TJ:Yeah, because they take out a lot when you see it on. Bet, Because that whole last story which we'll get to in a minute but that whole last story. There were some scenes in there. I was like oh, they showed that. Ok don't remember that.
Brooklyn:I've been around that scene a couple of times as a kid. When we get to it, we'll go a little further into detail and as you did and anyhow.
Brooklyn:So the first story is actually them getting to the funeral home, because that's the first story that starts because this is an anthology series. So we instead of being one long story, it is four stories that are being told throughout the entire night, with one through line story of the three guys coming to pick up drugs that apparently have been found by the funeral director in the alley behind the behind the funeral home. How they knew this happened, I'm still not 100 percent sure. I was gonna say how did they get there? He was expecting them. So I'm like, do they call ahead and say, hey, we're coming to pick up those drugs? Those questions will never know, but that's the reason that they're there. And we begin in one of one of the parlors that are getting ready for funeral, where we we learn is a rookie cop who was out for rounds with his more experienced police officer partner and they happen upon two other police officers from the same precinct harassing a black man who's been pulled over for at the time, but we know no reason.
TJ:Right Until they break his headlight. And now, all of a sudden, he's being pulled over for a broken tail light.
Brooklyn:This story? It is not. I will say this. Jumping headfirst into this was not the most fun to start off the movie with, but this it was rough is actually the one it's the story of. Of the four stories, it's the one that scares me the most Interesting. I do not know, I'm not.
TJ:I was going to say why is that?
Brooklyn:I don't like people coming back from the dead. That's not something that I like. I like horror movies. I'm not a gore person and I'm not a torture person, got it. So zombie movies are off the table. Zombie movies not off the table, but I will say that they're still kind of the movies, if done correctly, can scare me Gotcha. You know Freddie Krueger.
TJ:Michael.
Brooklyn:Myers Scream, all those things. They don't really scare me, but there's something about a zombie movie that just makes my skin crawl a little bit. So in this one, when the police officer goes crazy and he's hearing voices and he's being pulled in to assist in this revenge with the with the undead it is, it creeps me out. And maybe we haven't said yet but if you have not seen the movie yet spoiler alert you should probably turn it off because we haven't gotten to the first story at this point. But he is subsequently beaten by the police and then killed, and the way that he's killed is kind of messed up, like real mess up, because they're trying to destroy. Not only they're not only trying to kill him, they're trying to destroy his legacy and his name because before they push his car into the river they shoot him up with with some sort of drug I assume that it's heroin of some sort and also put either cocaine or heroin in the trunk of his car.
TJ:Yeah, so I also thought it was interesting that they just had that on them yeah.
Brooklyn:So what I? What I didn't notice before, that I noticed this evening, is that his whole storyline is that he is a community leader who is trying to get basically dirty, copped out of the neighborhood, out of the precinct, because they're suspected of selling drugs. Yeah, so in that moment, that's confirmation that they are in fact selling drugs in the community and they're supposed to be the people there to protect and serve. I found it interesting that they were in the community Interesting.
TJ:There's a moment in the movie when the the black cop that is later within the story put into this ain asylum, when he goes to run the license plate and he looks up the guy's information and as is processing, there's a little line that pops up at the bottom of the screen that says political aggregator, which I thought was interesting and an interesting descriptor of how the police viewed him and the difference how the community Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Brooklyn:Even today, when the police do something to someone, the first thing that the news does is it pulls out any mistakes that this person has done, like if it's a black man who's been killed, the first picture they show is a mugshot, or like any sort of situation where they could, where they can basically demean that person to make people go. Oh well, if he was that kind of person, then maybe he deserved it. It's interesting.
TJ:you say that because there's a scene in the movie when we flash forward I think it's supposed to be like a year later in time. We flash forward to the cop who has kind of he's left the force and he's not doing well mentally. Um, and they it's a very quick shot, but I picked it up, it's a very quick shot of the newspaper next to his bedside that says that it was um death by drugs or whatever it was.
Brooklyn:It was. He was suspected drug dealer death. He was high when he went into the lake and I think the dirtying, I think the dirtying up of our leaders is something that was illustrated into this so seamlessly that watching it as many times as I've watched it in my adult life still didn't pick up on it, and so I was really really watching it, yeah.
TJ:Yeah, it's interesting too, cause I'm trying to remember when I saw this the first time and I had to be what, maybe 15, 16 somewhere in there. When I saw this the first time, like I was young, but not like that young, but still young enough to kind of like where you were.
Brooklyn:This 97?
TJ:I think so. It's like mid, mid to late 90s. Okay, but I will say that in watching this now it it's interesting to compare it to like a Jordan and Peel, because I feel like that this movie was the first movie that I think I ever saw. There was some sort of like social commentary in the horror, where the black people in the movie, yes, may have died or like, weren't necessarily the hero in the movie, but it was all circumstantial, like it was because of their circumstances around them and not necessarily because of a monster or killer or you know some type of natural disaster type of thing. It is true.
Brooklyn:It's one of the first films that I can think of that black people were centered, that it was of the horror genre and it was a reflection of. It was a reflection of the ills in our communities that we deal with in that way.
TJ:Yeah, and then Jess took her back for a second. The movie was done in 1995. Okay, which I was? Oh, six.
Brooklyn:Yeah, I think I was Mathing, I don't yeah, I was either five or six, because, yeah, I'm sure I didn't see this, well, until it was on TV. Oh yeah, if it was 1995, I'm sure I didn't see this until like 98, 99 maybe.
TJ:Yeah, like I'm pretty sure, by the time I saw this, it had to be, I would say, between somewhere between 99 and like 2003.
Brooklyn:Yeah, it definitely was like 10 or 11 when I saw this. I wasn't like I don't think I was a kid when I saw this, but I can't, you know. We're really the first story. Everybody gets to come up and which is beautiful. It is interesting at the end when the black cop who is there ends up in the same asylum, basically having to deal with the consequences of his choices like for the rest of his days, yeah, which I guess didn't go that long, since he was in the funeral home when we got there, that's true.
TJ:So it's interesting too, because there's right before we cut to the end of that story when, after the politician has come back and like, killed off all of the white cops, the final cop to die, that is then imprinted onto the mural. The black guy comes up to him and says are you happy now, brother? Something like that. Yeah, and the politician says why didn't you help me? Where were you? Uh-huh, uh-huh. And I find that interesting, cause I'm like again, it is this tight rope balance of the social commentary and the horror aspect of the movie where in that moment it is very much shining like giving a mirror back to the audience to say in these types of situations we have to rely on each other.
Brooklyn:Yeah.
TJ:Yeah. So moving on to the second story entails from the hood. I keep wanting to say boys from the hood. But moving on to the second story, this is the story I think that is imprinted on my mind, my child mind, that I think just about everything seen. I remember, Okay, but it is again, if you haven't watched it, spoiler alert. But it is this little boy who I feel like was in every 90s movie as a child, is the kid from Soul Food. But it's this little boy and we start with him in class, I believe.
Brooklyn:This is his first day of school.
TJ:This is his first day into this new school. He's just moved you know, moved into this new school and he's outside playing with the kids and he gets into a fight at school, right, and I think, as an audience member, you're sitting there and you're watching this like, okay, what is this gonna be Like? We've just come off of this politician zombie, right, and now we're going into this child Like it's. The child possessed, like you know, cause my mind goes to like the exorcist type of movie right but then, it takes a twist.
TJ:But wait, that's more. But then it takes a twist because he's like he has a fight with some children at school. He goes to the nurse's office and the nurse notices like a little something on his eye. So she's just coming in, you know, trying to check on him and see if he's okay, and notices the black eye and ask if the kid did it, and the child's response is no, it's the monster. Yeah, which, yeah?
Brooklyn:Well, before we move on, just a quick thing. I do this a lot. I kind of want to take a moment like later to go back, because we get like a full, like face close up of him during the first day of school and I do not remember him having a black eye.
TJ:Yeah, no, I don't remember.
Brooklyn:So I'm like, from that moment to being in a nurse's office, it feels like we kind of maybe just wrote that in at the last minute.
TJ:Well, you know.
Brooklyn:Where it could have been or should have been, like a bruise on the arm, something that we hadn't seen before. Right, but please continue. I'm sorry.
TJ:I mean, it also could have been, you know, on the other side of his face. We'll give them credit for trying. But the teacher asked you know what happens to his black eye? And the kid explains that it was the monster at home. And so, you know, the teacher is a little confused and concerned. So he's prodding and, you know, questioning the child of, like, well, you know what happened, Like, do you want to tell me what actually happened? Assuming that the kid is, you know, fibbing. And so fast forward to the child going home, coming back for another day of school. The kid is back in the nurse's office again now with a bruise on his arm, and that's when the teacher is kind of like, I guess, freaked out, right. So we start to see the teacher unravel a little bit, and so we go into the teacher visiting his home.
Brooklyn:Which I hated that part yeah, I do, yeah I do. And so, like very obviously abusive father walks in and you decide that that's your moment that you're gonna have this conversation about bruises and him saying that it's the monster doing it. That's the moment that you choose to do this and you're pretending, like what do you think is happening to Amad in that house? His name is not Amad, his name's Amad in soul food, oh Jesus.
TJ:Okay.
Brooklyn:What do you think is happening to Walter in that house, that one of those two people that you are currently speaking to, the one of the adults, is not the monster? Yeah, why was ACS never called?
TJ:I was gonna say that was my first question when we saw the second bruise. I was like I'm pretty sure there are rules with working in the public school system that, like, after so many hints that you just reach out to the child services. I was gonna say that I also appreciate the filmmaker on this of like given the audience glimpses of the monster but not really knowing the full story until it unravels. Of like cause there's a moment in between him coming home from school the first day and then going to school the next day where you see the claw of the monster like hugging the door. And so I appreciate the filmmaker for like giving us those little bite-sized moments, because then we are on the side of the child of like, oh, there is actually a monster.
Brooklyn:Your adult brain then sides with the child with the assumption that there's an actual monster in the house and not that it's you know, Like we know where we are at this point in this kind of story, so we're like it could actually be a monster. I would like to give my I would like to. I stand corrected. I just went back and watched the scene and it is not as noticeable, but he does have a black eye when he walks into the classroom.
TJ:Come on continuity.
Brooklyn:At least they did their job, Cause you know so many times we watch movies and Cause I was like he was in school the whole day and no one noticed that this child had a black eye. We went to recess and everything. So that story. I am the son of a single mother. I grew up in an environment where stepfathers were a thing. I personally have never experienced anything like that where my mother's spouse honestly ever even thought that they had that kind of authority over me to hit me or to discipline me. This story did not scare me so much as a kid as it made me.
TJ:There were a lot of people that I drew at that point in my life who I definitely burned or crushed in the hopes of Speaking of burning and crushing, there's a moment in the movie I think it's after the second bruise where Walter is talking to his teacher and he shows him the picture of the monster for the first time and the teacher is like, oh, what is that? Who is this? Or the thing he says, what is that? And Walter explains that this is the monster that I was telling you about and that the girl behind him in class told him that he should draw it and burn it to kill the monster.
TJ:And I had a moment today when we were watching this where I was like bravo for whoever mother that is that taught this child that you put a name to something, you write it down, you burn it, you let it go and I'm like that girl she's gonna grow up with some good information for our life.
Brooklyn:That story also ended nicely for the victim in that and as an adult, if a child tells me something like there's a monster, sometimes kids just don't have the necessary language to say what's happening, so it has to go beyond more than just a surface question.
TJ:Right, I was gonna say this story.
TJ:I think it hit harder as an adult than I remember as a child, because it does really. This particular story brought up for me that it is important to actually listen to your children, because I agree that sometimes they don't have the language, but they're in my opinion, they're sometimes some of the most honest people. Oh, absolutely, because there is no fluff. It's like this is what hurt me, this is what it is, and I feel like, as adults, we have gotten to the place where there's all these complications and stuff around our problems, whereas this kid, walter, literally said there's a monster hitting on me. That's it, end of story.
Brooklyn:He's back he hits me.
TJ:And how all these adults in his life try to diminish and deflect and get rid of his idea of whatever fear he had towards this monster.
Brooklyn:Yeah, so then we go into what I feel like is the most infamous story yeah. Which is the dollhouse. This is my favorite one.
TJ:This was my favorite story.
Brooklyn:This one, I don't I think, scared me more as a kid.
TJ:just from the sheer, it's a doll yeah this scared the shit out of me when I was a kid.
Brooklyn:It's funny watching it as an adult the white politician who was this like Duke or something. But his character to me as a kid was almost like comical, like I didn't really see a lot of the racist tropes. He was. A lot of the references he made I didn't get when you were young. I didn't understand when I was younger. Watching it back today and for context, we're looking at a government shutdown right now because the Republicans have voted out the Speaker of the House.
Brooklyn:Well, you know when this was recorded, and yeah so that's kind of where we are right now and just seeing what the Republican Party is right now and the people who are currently in control and it makes you think about. He is basically the embodiment, like if this was 1995, he was the step that led to where we currently are now he would have been, because I wouldn't even call him the Donald Trump of this, because he's not that I was gonna say.
TJ:he gives me Hollis Doyle from Scandal.
Brooklyn:Which was a lot more. Southern races, which was a lot more, because I think in this he supposedly is a ex and I say that in quotes Klu Klux Klan member who is now running for governor of where this small town down South somewhere looks like somewhere.
TJ:maybe I wouldn't say Georgia, like maybe, like I don't know, they didn't really give us a particular state that he was running for, but it very much was giving your everyday Southern state Like it could have been any one of them. It's interesting because I have, I think, because I grew up down.
Brooklyn:South. I was like I know who this person is.
TJ:Like I didn't as a child, like I would watch that section of the movie and it didn't affect me Because I was like oh yeah, yeah, that's right, that seems right, I will say this.
Brooklyn:It's something I thought about while we were watching it is that as a kid, the word spook, oh yeah, like it didn't mean anything to me, so I knew all those words, yeah. So now, watching it with the context necessary To see it, you hear things now. You hear him say stuff. Now that you understand more, you get, like some of the references to things that I've now read and heard and seen from that time period, and I mean like pre the civil rights movement, during the civil rights. There's a lot of those things that would have never I never would have thought about in those moments.
Brooklyn:Yeah.
TJ:It's interesting for that section of the movie. As an adult watching it now, I focused more on the like political aspect of it all than the horror aspect of it all, and I think because it was my favorite of the short stories in the movie. But I had a different point of view this time around because I was watching this on the fold, with this political figure that like completely disregarded the community that he was in, didn't listen to the people, was running in a state that was predominantly black and like was ignoring all of these signs, that like he shouldn't be there when I'm like where does it sound a little too familiar?
TJ:if you ask me now, versus, as a kid my focus was on the puppets and how terrifying they were and I was like I'm not going to be scared of that character Because, for those that don't know, chucky was my, you know, scare the shit out of me as a child. A horror character.
Brooklyn:So seeing not only dolls but black marionette puppet dolls running around the house scared the shit out of me as a kid. I will say it I'm a huge fan of practical effects and the fact that they use like stop motion in this. It sucks to me now because you didn't mention it towards the end that having it like doing like a reboot not a sequel to it, but like rebooting the entire franchise and doing it today the thing that I would really and truly hate about it is that that entire sequence would be CGI.
Brooklyn:And it would be so bad to do it that way, Because having those dolls they're scarier, because they're in space they're there.
Brooklyn:And you can look at them, you can see them, you can interact with them. We haven't gotten there yet with CGI, maybe in some instances, but like we haven't gotten there yet, that that kind of scene would look good and scare you because you know it's digital. It's like them being in that space made them so much more like terrifying than they were. And something that did find out while researching the movie is that the woman who plays the spirit of the, the woman who moved into the house, who was the voodoo person, she is the director's mother.
TJ:Oh, that's nice. Is there only acting credit? I love it. Well, you know, get in where you fit in.
Brooklyn:I would say this probably takes place in either somewhere Louisiana or, like Arkansas, mississippi, alabama, georgia.
TJ:I was gonna say with that, with the voodoo thing in mind, I would definitely say Louisiana, potentially Florida as well, because that makes sense.
Brooklyn:You know I never think about Florida, but they were a big like plantation state as well. I never think about, we try not to think about Florida. So we know how that story ends. He ends up getting attacked by all the dolls after attending a funeral. They actually don't kill a lot of people in any of these. Yeah, it's usually just like the main character or the person who's wrong the main character. So in this one they kill the the lighter skin gentleman who is assisting him with revamping his image.
TJ:His like campaign manager.
Brooklyn:His campaign manager, which, hmm Well. Yeah, but you know, what I'm not mad at him. 10,000 dollars a week, that's not terrible, and in 1995, that's not terrible that's not terrible and I'm sure he doesn't live down there. He came down to get this man elected. Then he's gonna go deuce-ess.
TJ:He probably lives somewhere in the Midwest or up North Let me get my money and go. Yeah, and it's interesting because in my child brain that was the last story that I remembered. Like in the order of the movie.
Brooklyn:Like my brain shut off after that story oh no, crazy case yeah, which is crazy because I remember the very end, but I didn't remember any of the like hallucination or a dream that happens.
TJ:I don't remember any of that.
Brooklyn:I don't think I comprehended what happened until I was much older, cause looking at that story the final story now it is I understand where we were. It was very much a. This is the moment in time, with this person who, cosmically, is given a chance for redemption, who gets taken from prison, is given this chance to confront the thing that ills him, the fact that he has killed so many people who look like him for some of the most asinine reasons, and it really like it shines a light on what is something that me and my mother were having this conversation just the other day. Is that maybe because we didn't have social media and news was more local, that it didn't seem as bad as it is? But I feel like I grew up in a generation where we fought. If you had an issue with somebody, it was a fist fight.
Brooklyn:Y'all moved on and I feel like currently I'm from Baltimore and we've moved up so far on the list of murder capitals of the United States that it's confusing to me, like Baltimore was always a little rough and I'm I always say I can go to any hood and feel just comfortable because I grew up in Baltimore, but I don't know if I'd feel comfortable in going home right now because it's such a.
Brooklyn:It feels like such a different place. It feels like everybody is. If someone disrespects you, that person has to die, and I feel like the story of Crazy K was very much. He was the product of that kind of thinking, of that all I have is my name, my respect and my reputation. So if anything threatens that, that person must die, and even at the beginning of the story, the person that he is upset with seems like he has no idea that they even have beef and he just walks up and shoots him, and that is that I feel like that's so relevant right now. That person, the cra like we have a lot more crazy Ks running around now than we did just hurt people who are out there, just hurting people. Yeah, it's interesting because I don't.
TJ:I don't remember when this shift happened, because I also grew up in one of those cities that was like on the list of, you know, one of those news list of cities that has, I think, y'all number two right now, right behind St Louis. But it's crazy because I don't. I don't know when that shift happened, because even growing up in Memphis, like yes, I would hear about the occasional shooting, but it wasn't nearly as much, it wasn't every day as like it is now.
Brooklyn:Yeah, it wasn't, and it wasn't. And maybe because I was young, it wasn't 16 year olds yeah, it was like, oh no, they were older, they were selling drugs, it was a gang thing and those were like one off thing, right, it was one thing in the blue moon. But now whenever I speak to my mom, it's like, oh, this person passed, this person died, this person died. We had three shootings at the mall the other day. And it's like, yeah, when did we get here?
Brooklyn:Yeah, but this story about taking that person who was in that place, who was in that chapter of their life where they're just angry and basically wanna watch the world burn and wants to take everybody with them, he's given this moment of redemption. He has shown a white supremacist who has an idea, which is not an idea that I haven't heard before, about starting basically a race war and building an army of blacks to kill the other blacks and the ones who fight for him. They can live out the rest of their lives as slaves, and the unfortunate truth is there are plenty out there who would be in that army. That's a different kind of world that I wanna be in, but he's shown that the thing that you do. The things that you are doing plays right into the hands of a white supremacist. It's like they love that.
TJ:Yeah, I was gonna say, and I think that's when it really drives home the social commentary of this whole film as a whole. I assume I don't know the director writer's intention, but as an audience member watching it, it's one of those moments that when you're watching something and you're like, see, this is why we can't have shit, you know what I mean? Yeah, but in watching that in Crazy K, is that what you're saying? Yeah, in watching Crazy K's story in Tales from the Hood, it shines this light on how, for some odd reason, we have this urge, some of us have this urge to continue to tear our own people down, and I've never understood that concept because I'm like we fought so long and hard to get away from people like that and now we're doing it to ourselves.
Brooklyn:We're imploding from within. Yeah, yeah.
TJ:Meanwhile, everyone else is living their best lives, building empires and using it.
Brooklyn:Never mind.
Brooklyn:Let me move on so if you are, if you're listening to this and you have not seen this movie before, this is where I would say brace yourself. Yeah, because after that encounter with the white supremacists, he's taken to the rehabilitation, which is the reason that he's there. The reason he has been taken from serving a life sentence, from shooting the other man in the beginning of his story, is to be rehabilitated in the hopes that he can turn his life around and they'll release him from prison. So we start this journey with strapping him in. It feels like we're not sedating him. I would say maybe keeping him awake so that he can't close his eyes, or anything like that. But he's watching images of gang violence and black men being slain, intercut with historical lynching photography, and it is a sequence. It's not for the faint of heart. Yeah, it's not easy to watch. Yeah.
TJ:Like there were a few times where I had to just get up because I was like I've seen all of this before and I don't want to relive this moment.
Brooklyn:Yeah, it's a really dehumanizing series of images. So I will say, if you're going to watch this and you can't do it, and that's totally fine. When you see them put the eye mask over him, that's when you should probably walk away. The sequence probably lasts for about six or so minutes.
TJ:And I would say skip ahead. Yeah, the scene in the deprivation chamber. The scene in the deprivation chamber was my least favorite scene in this, and why is that? Mainly because it goes back to this whole like us killing each other thing. I think, so okay, go with me. I could sit through the lynching scene of him like spinning.
TJ:I don't think I could sit through the gunshots scene of the kids and like the different innocent people Gotcha Like that was harder for me than like the lynching things Only because I think growing up where I grew up I've seen a lot of those images before.
Brooklyn:Yeah.
TJ:With, like, going to the museum and like all that, so like it's, I'm more detached from those, whereas watching the deprivation chamber scene and seeing essentially these like ghostly figures of all of these people that he's killed, that struck me more, so I was like I need to take a break.
Brooklyn:I would have to completely disagree. I think that the and it's maybe just the. It's a difference in the way we came up, but for me, watching the sensory deprivation chamber scene is. It's haunting, but you have to remember what that chamber is. None of that's there. He's literally sitting in silence in the dark and he's being forced to confront With. Honestly, for me shows that there is some humanity in there somewhere, Because it's just you and it's just your brain. So you feel guilt somewhere in you for the things that you've done, Because all of the rest of the people you could argue away, but the little girl, that's something that on some level, somewhere really stuck with you, because that's what comes at the end.
TJ:And it's interesting in that scene because I can't remember what her line was, but I remember his response to her line and I was like that's fucked up. And that shows the guilt that you actually have when he says you were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. And I'm like sitting in her own room. Sitting in her own room she was in the wrong place At the wrong time.
Brooklyn:He's in that room for redemption. That's where he is. He's in that room for redemption. His subconscious and his guilt and all of that is bringing these images to life and it comes flooding out of him. But the ego and the sociopath that he is slowly snuffs out every single person in that room and I can't help but to think of him, almost at the end of it, like an abused dog that he cowers back into a corner and puts the girl in a chokehold to try to get out.
Brooklyn:And instead of actually confronting, yeah, he's basically barking at that point Like he's terrified, wants to get out. But he has completely detached from all of his guilt at that point and it was no saving him after that, so they had to let him go back to basically face his fate.
TJ:Do you think, because I wanted to and watching it this time around, because, again, I don't think I even caught this when I saw it as a kid do you think that that whole moment I called it a hallucination earlier but I'm like, do you think that was his opportunity or potentially his entry point into going into quote unquote heaven? Or like the decision between the two, because then what happens after that scene is finished and that whole thing is done? He goes back to his body in the moment before all of that stuff transpires.
Brooklyn:I think what potentially would have happened to him is that there was no, he was going to jail. He had done too much to be forgiven on this plane. But if he had been able to, I don't wanna say repent, because that sounds more religious but.
Brooklyn:If he had been able to see the error of his ways in that moment and be redeemed for the thing that he was doing, he would have maybe had a chance to survive that situation. The whole police rescuing him thing would have been there. He would have gone to prison, but he would have had a much different experience there where he could have potentially been a true beacon of I've done this Don't be like me to other people but because he was snatched at that moment, put in prison, still being the same crazy K got this opportunity and then at the end he failed. There was no-.
Brooklyn:He didn't actually have that path, yeah there was no reason for him to still be here, so he had to go, so he had to die.
TJ:So this, the next section, the fourth story, or no, this was the fourth story.
Brooklyn:Yeah, that was the fourth story. That's where we end.
TJ:Ending the fourth story and going back to the through line of the whole film of these three characters coming into the funeral home. I think this section of the movie is the most maimed, the most quoted like. Everybody has a clip of it on YouTube somewhere.
Brooklyn:What is his name? Clarence Williams III.
TJ:Yes, ugh, he Can. We just pay respects to the acting on his part Because by far like this man when I tell you I believed everything that came out of his mouth, every beat of sweat.
Brooklyn:No matter how unhinged I was, like you're this person.
TJ:You are in it. This is just who you is. It is. What is it? When they come back to them? They come back from the end of Crazy K's story and come back to the funeral home and the guys are like, yeah, let's get the shit, let's get the shit. He's like, yes, the shit. Like I know that it's not meant to be funny, necessarily, but it is my favorite moment.
TJ:It's so stupid it is so stupid and it's so perfect. From an actor's point of view, it is such a perfect choice to make. They're like when you read that and you're like what can I do with this?
Brooklyn:Okay, got it For me. It's after he gets slapped with the gun in the basement and he goes whoo.
TJ:Oh, my God.
Brooklyn:It's such an unhinged performance but nobody else could have done it. It was perfect. Like him in that scene, him throughout the entire film was brava hands down. He was exactly what you needed, because this is which I found out when we decided to watch this again is that there is a part two and a part three starring you know, no shade to him, but starring Keith David in that role, so he took it over so still good, but not quite as. He is definitely more dignified if you will not so unhinged in like out there.
TJ:Which I feel like this film calls for that.
Brooklyn:It has to be.
TJ:Like because of the stories you're telling within the film itself, and like because they're so connected to social issues, like you need a little bit of levity, to kind of like bring it all together, and I feel like he delivered on that.
Brooklyn:He kind of what his character makes me think of is like the crazy old man who lives at the end of the block that you and your friends like. Mess with him.
TJ:But you know not to mess with him.
Brooklyn:You know not to mess with him because he's crazy and this feels like you act like he actually caught you and you are now in his house. That's the creepiness that he gives you, Like it's funny and it's comical, but it is so unnerving like it's scary, especially as a kid like he. His entire monologue at the end before he reveals it. I was gonna say that moment Kid me leaves the room. At that part I have had dreams about that moment.
TJ:I will say, watching it this time around, his monologue at the end, I am living for the sweat on his face. I'm living for that stare in his eye. He doesn't blink once, not once.
Brooklyn:He is just staring directly into the fucking camera and going crazy like unhinged and you have to think about that, that all of this in real life is happening on a sound stage. No music playing.
TJ:Yes yes, no props. I mean well, not props. Props are there no.
Brooklyn:CGI. It is just him looking at a camera doing this emoting. Oh my God, it's so good, it is so good, and everybody else was fine too, but, like he was, he made this movie he truly truly did.
TJ:I also love the realization of the three guys when they see themselves in the caskets and they lose their shit yeah. Yeah, welcome to hell. So good, fuck us.
Brooklyn:Yeah.
TJ:And that little snake tongue comes out. It's so good.
Brooklyn:It's safe to say that we very much enjoyed the movie.
Brooklyn:Yeah, I think we did I. It's a classic. I don't think there was ever any debate if this movie doesn't have its classic hood at this point, like if you haven't seen it, it is a little bit of a deep cut. So I kind of like I get that, but if you have seen it and you haven't seen it a while, I would 100% suggest going back to watch it again. I agree, if I had to give it a score, I would give it 10 shits out of 10. Okay.
TJ:All right, I mean I'd give it a solid eight. Okay, I'd give it a solid eight. What would make it a 10 for you. I think, ooh the definitely the effects.
Brooklyn:Well, you can't Like some of that CGI stuff. You can't knock points off. The movie was in 1995. I think they did pretty damn good for what was available to them they were. They were a small production, yeah.
TJ:I mean, I was still given an eight. Okay, I think so there are some performances that are not great.
Brooklyn:Okay, see that I will accept. I won't accept I will not accept slander of points because of something that they couldn't control, because of the time that the movie was made.
TJ:Yeah, I would give it an eight based off of some of the performances, because some of them were a little phoned in, if you ask me. And then also, I think I don't know, I mean I don't know what life was like in 95 slash, you know, if they did it in 93 and under four when they were writing it, and they went into production. But I feel like there were probably some other stories that could have been told. That might have would have bumped it up even more.
Brooklyn:Okay.
TJ:And that's why that's the only reason I would give it an eight. I feel like there were probably some other stories that could have been.
Brooklyn:I do look, I do understand what you're saying. There I think that it was definitely more West Coast leaning and I feel like a lot of the at least three out of the four stories, apart from the throughline story, took place in LA. Okay, and that makes the only one that took place outside of LA was the one that took place in the south.
TJ:Yeah, so which I think, which is crazy to say that I feel like that would be the one that I would drop. Yeah, Mainly because I'm like it's not really cohesive with the rest of what's around it. It is.
Brooklyn:It's a step, it's a standout, yeah.
TJ:And not to say that I don't like it as its own thing, but I feel like, if we're talking about cohesion, of like, even though they're three individual stories, but the tone of the movie as a whole, like that kind of sticks out a little bit.
Brooklyn:Yeah.
TJ:And I also feel like I would cut the domestic violence piece, Like I would figure out a better way to tell that story of him being the monster, mainly because I feel like in the nineties and maybe just my point of view but I feel like those were everywhere, like domestic abuse stories were everywhere in the nineties. It was just, it was just a way of telling a story, but was there a reason for that? Well, I mean that's.
Brooklyn:That's true. There's a lot of.
Brooklyn:There's a lot of women who came out of that and a lot of men who because let's face it, because even in the early like in the early nineties, during the golden age, the Renaissance of black cinema, new Renaissance anyway was a lot of black boys who had. They were the black men who ran it. Where had black boys in the eighties and the seventies who watched that? So it makes sense that that was a. That was a storyline for me. I think it was.
Brooklyn:I think those three stories the cops, the monster and Crazy K are definitely the stronger of the three stories and I think that the one that takes place down south was kind of that to pull you out, give you like a headbreak, so that when we went to Crazy K you came from a place of like almost because you were rooting for the puppets at that point. So you got that moment to root before we ended up there. So I'm going to ask the question, just to ask the question, but I think we both know the answer. Does this make it onto the much more the must watch list?
TJ:Oh, definitely. I think it. I think it is a must watch, purely for, if nothing else, purely for the fact that, in my opinion, it's one of the first black horror movies that we got. That wasn't about just killing, like there was a social undertone underneath that I think is important and that at that particular moment in time we weren't really doing.
Brooklyn:Yeah, I feel like it definitely goes on my list. I feel like everyone should see it. I think that it's the precursor to someone like a Jordan Peele. It is. I don't think. I don't think they were the first. I don't think Jordan was the first. I don't think the brothers who wrote this or the man who wrote this was the first. I think that it's an important step to get to where we currently are, because, let's face, there aren't.
Brooklyn:finding black ass horror movies was difficult this month because we have a lot of thrillers, we have some stuff like this, but they don't. They don't happen often and if they do happen, they're not always respectful, and I feel like this film was respectful. It showed different versions of black horror and I respected for that and I think it's one of the ones that still holds up today. If I watched it a few more times I'd probably find things to go, but nothing in there was glaring that it couldn't hold up today under scrutiny. I think it's. I think it's a classic. I think that it is definitely on the black ass movie podcast list of must watch films. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, Cool.
TJ:Thanks for joining us on another episode of the black ass movie podcast. You can find us on Instagram at the black ass movie podcast and please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the show. We'll see you next week.