LTA: Tales from the Hood 3

 Whether or not I get this out on time or after, Happy Halloween, belated or not.

In the past I sought out movies to review if I could see them for free, so not to judge it based on how well worth it my money was. But things change, and now I’m not only registered on Hulu and Paramount+, but I also buy episodes and movies from YouTube. What helps is that it’s a one time purchase and usually no greater than 20 bucks, so a drop in the bucket that you can keep as long as you want. And what did I decide to buy?

Tales from the Hood 3

Before I get into why I'm jumping to 3, let me go over some backstory. This is the third installment of Tales from the Hood, duh, released in 1995. Tales from the Hood was directed by Rusty Cundieff and produced by Spike Lee, it's a horror anthology whose stories are based on issues that affect African Americans, police brutality, racial profiling, domestic abuse, gang violence, and most obviously, racism.

While not the greatest anthology film ever, I give it props for being so raw when discussing the issues presented, they do not hold back in the slightest, and it has some charm in its dairy quality, or cheese. While not a rousing success, it would spawn a sequel in 2018, a paradox if you will. How can you cash in on your movie if you happened to be the directors of it? While Tales from the Hood was fairly on the nose when it came to the issues they talked about, at least the stories were written well enough for you to get into.

Tales from the Hood 2 isn't so lucky, and the tales suffer for it. If you're not with the message, you're not gonna have a good time. They have a section relating to Emmett Till, and there's a town election involved. It's also a lot cheaper compared to the first film, coming to a head in the first section. Keith David is also in this, and I'll give him this, he proved to me he can do more than deep imposing voices.

I was going to review Tales from the Hood 2, but given that American Nightmares, also by Cundieff and Darin Scott, gave me such a terrible time I question how far I'd make it before I'd find myself determining what happens because of how on the nose they are with their social and political commentary.

Tales from the Hood 3 was produced for the SyFy channel, a red flag given that a lot of that channel's original movies are quite frankly cheap and terrible, thanks a lot Nu Image and The Asylum. However in spite of that, most people consider the third film to be a return to form of sorts, or at least better than the second. Well, I'll be the judge of that, with 12 bucks on the line.

The Movie

As is customary of anthology films, there is a frame story that would lead us to four different stories. In this frame story, a man is taking a child to safety, safety from what look to be evil spirits. To keep the tension low, the girl tells him stories. The past two films had the stories told by one Mr. Simms, the devil in secret. It seems they're trying something new here at least, especially as the second film burned away any good will those wraparounds had.

One thing I learned is that the less we know about those in the wraparounds, the more likely they are to die. It's a step up from the previous film where everyone is a strawman.

Story 1

The first story deals with a slumlord, no other way to say it as it's a landlord looking after a slum apartment, David Burr, who wants to take down the apartment he's looking after to build high rent condos. Admittedly, not the first time I've seen a story like this, last time it was an episode of Tales from the Darkside, Parlor Floor Front, either way I can already tell who the bad guy and good guy are, but let's be fair here.

Burr wants to evict the Bradfords, but they refuse to go. They do a little something different here, with the reason being that their son has cancer, went through chemotherapy and the stress involved with moving to a new place, let alone if the family can find something new, can stress him out and potentially kill him. And in situations where a child is said to have cancer, this turns out to be true. On a downside, any sympathy we have for Burr is not as high as it should be, beyond some small details like him being up against his boss, who would sue him for fraud if the deal didn't go through, and another thing that will be brought up later. The issue is that we expect them to get it in the end, that they're not people, just characters. But credit where it's due, it's not as strawmanny as American Nightmares, even if he curses out a kid.

Here's where the plot gets going. Burr makes a deal with his friend to burn the building down, but as another sympathetic point, Burr intended to just drive the family out, and in the context of a horror film, of course that won't be what happens. But back to no sympathy, we get a strong implication an arson job had been requested by him previously.

I get it though, make it clear who we're supposed to root for, if the family winds up striking back we'd feel better about it. This black and white mindset works better in a series of self-contained stories so that way we don't need that much time to get to know the characters. We get a scene where Burr gets a bizarre phone call, implying there was a jump ahead in time, but then it goes to the apartments as the bodies get hauled out. Either it was poor timing, or a hint to how an ensuing haunting is going to occur.

For some more credit, for those who did die, it was the father and the son, and that honestly helps. If the father lived he would peg Burr as a suspect. If the son lived the phone sene would be pointless. The mother survives, but is horribly burned and likely to succumb to the injuries, and the only reason they didn't get out in time was because the smoke alarm didn't work. So far, things seem well thought out at the very least.

If Burr wanted to be sympathetic, he would call off the deal out of respect to the parted or tried to. Either he was remorseful or realized that this would come back to haunt him, case in point on the latter, that weird phone call from before? It was the boy dribbling his basketball, along with an answering machine that admittedly caught me off guard.

The way I see it, either this will end with Burr admitting his part in the fire and getting arrested, or he gets burned alive in his own house. We're about to find out, but first, Burr winds up killing the arson he hired. So, looks like he's taking that little secret to the grave, or his paranoia is gonna be his undoing. We also get a little more of the guy pushing Burr to drive the family out, and let's just assume he's going to die or something, even if he didn't intend for Burr to do first and third degree murder. The boss says he's going to board the love boat, and I would make a comment about how everyone involved with the series of the same name is dead, but it turns out only one of the main actors involved with it is dead as of this writing, and it was only two years ago, go figure.

Anyway, the mother is dead, and we get more apparitions and sudden phone calls, along with some gags like the phone suddenly catching fire and a Scooby-Doo homage that happened earlier on. Burr would go back to the apartments, and something tells me he's about to die either poetically or not, he's already planning on shooting ghosts. Anyway, clearly CGI basketball comes into play and nothing bad happens yet... because he's on the way to the scene of the crime.

I expected a jumpscare, just not in the way the movie would play out. If he had the opportunity to just walk out of the room I feel even less bad for his inevitable demise, it's just taking forever and a day to get there. I'm not saying that as a negative, I just know it's gonna happen. But hey, at least this film's drag isn't as bad as the typical Spumco cartoon, for one thing it's not ugly.

And of course there are some good jumpscares, the key is to not make the suspense drag out for longer, and catch us off guard. We're about to hit the end soon, as Burr is thrown out the window, and doesn't die right away... until a few seconds later. And that's it.

The story was fine, a good introduction, just a simple little tale. I think a twist could've worked where the family lied about the son having cancer and the fiery death turned out to be karmic justice. I mean it was worth a try.

Story 2

It seems Rusty and Darin couldn't help themselves, because this next story concerns a bigot, and it comes off as wishful thinking for a little girl to be telling the story. Then again this could be from secondhand knowledge.

One interesting I found is that the bigot in question vandalized a sign that said All Lives Matter, a phrase used by those who lobby against Black Lives Matter. Weird. The story sees said bigot who lives in a bunker isolated from the rest of the world, communicating via a racist radio station. Last time I encountered a bigot running a radio station, I watched American Nightmares, and I already have an idea that this one will be the superior of the two.

While the man spouts common racist talking points, it really just feels like bringing them together rather than making a strawman out of him, and if there's no one else, whom would he be a strawman to? Nobody, but the voices in his head. That seems like the schtick here, the man is driven crazy by years of isolation and that will be his undoing.

But that may change, as we see one guy shut off his smart watch implying he's trying to get him out. Either that or their constant focus on the man's sex dolls is gonna play a role in the ensuing twist, downfall, whatever. Or maybe it's the poster he muses over. Whatever the case, just like before we're taking some sweet ass time to get to the end. If the end is gonna see him get sweet relief from years of isolation, that'll be pretty bold given who he is and what the directors stand for.

After a while, we get our twist. Apparently the area he's in is surrounded by a force field, and he fires his gun which lands in his head. So... was he a prisoner this entire time and finally cracked? Okay I was close, he was trapped like an animal in the zoo, was because he's dead. So, it turns out this is the distant future, where the whole alphabet soup of degenerates are trapped like zoo animals. I don't condone degenerate behavior, but this is probably a dream utopia in action for MovieBob, or AniMat, or Quinton Reviews, or insert terminally online Twitter user here.

Benefit to this is that it subverted expectations, I guess he wasn't directly targeted, just left to his own devices.

Story 3

Simply put, a pop singer and her manager plot to murder a wealthy retiree, but we can count on things to go horribly wrong. Think story one, but with a focus on first degree murder. I will say, Chela does have pipes. Anyway, I guess the mere existence of one of the singers pisses another one off, no wait, Chela's the backup singer, and she would be picked up by a guy to become her manager.

The retiree in particular is Marie Benoit, another faded primadonna, see how many get that sweet Metallica reference. She had been burned due to her performing a rendition of Carmen, and outed for being a black woman doing so. I'd say she was well ahead of her time, but I'll go no further than that, I think the keenest eyes would know where that's going.

Anyway, with one scene where Marie asks for blood, two things come to mind, she'll either be revealed to be a vampire, or this will be a repeat of the third segment in Tales from the Hood 2. This segment has more of a focus on the characters compared to the previous two, and it's kinda interesting how Chela and Marie would form a kinship based on their burns from the music industry. I sense a betrayal is in bloom...

And look at that, I was right. When Marie didn't shower Chela with praise, she would literally murder her. I mean it's not funny, but this can apply so well to a lot of people these days, those who put themselves on a pedestal and crumble at the slightest bit of criticism...

Until it turns out it was okay to laugh for now because this was a fantasy sequence that clues us in to what kind of person Chela is. You got me there. Anyhow, I think we're about to get our plot device real soon, a jewelry box filled with expensive goods no doubt. Either that or we go back to the blood detail, as Chela goes to get a bag of it for a transfusion, and amazingly this turns out to be innocent.

But anyway, the two pull up to her house, Chela bringing her simp of a manager, and the two would consider murdering Marie, and somehow I feel like Chela has more of a soul than SSSniperwolf, why else does she have a nightmare? Oh wait, it's because this is what would encourage her to go through with the murder plot, at least that's how it looks.

Anyway, as far as their little murder plot goes, the blood transfusion actually plays a role here, as they plan to mix type B blood with type O blood, and the manager guy gives her the option to back out of the plan, so I guess while he may suffer she may get the worst ending possible. Marie dies, and hey, you ever wanted to see people swimming in money in live action? Now's your chance, these two are complicit as fuck, and also huge fans of Dave Chapelle by the sound of it.

But now I'm at a crossroad, how are they going to suffer at the end? We've ruled out the vampire deal by this point, so what is her dream gonna come to life? No, just guessing blindly, the music box may have something to do with it, then again maybe not, because right now we have to dip into what the fuck territory, with a man engaged in a satanic ritual.

But perhaps vampirism may play a role if my sporadic guesses suit me well. The manager turns out to be a twist villain, drinking blood and likely using Marie's death to get access to it, or perhaps Park, I really should get in the habit of referring to people on a first name basis, intended to use Chela as a means of providing fresh blood to rejuvenate Marie, using young talent to do just that, which, while predictable, works given the context.

Look at that, I was right, he was a twist villain. But there's more. Marie alluded to a man who helped her land the lead role in Carmen, and he is revealed to be that man, hence using young talent to steal their life to rejuvenate her and thus give her a chance to show a new world how capable she is, in a contrast to what was once a discriminatory one.

As of now, this is my favorite story of the bunch, it had a twist that caught me off guard and a surprisingly compelling end.

Story 4

Okay, throughout the wraparounds, we get the narrative of this big man attempting to bring a girl to her mother while avoiding evil beings. They build up to this at least, and I will say it's better than Tales from the Hood 2's wraparounds in that there's build up, rather than just taking forever to be upfront. But we have one last story to go over.

For this story, we focus on a simple tale of karmic justice. A thief assaults and robs his victims, and his method in doing so makes him known as the Punch and Run Bandit. Well, it's leagues better than Ronnie the Robber, and yes, that was a name used by someone unironically. In one of his acts, he would get cursed, and that curse would come in a pair of shoes he gets from a crime, you know, walk a mile in their shoes.

As is tradition at this point, they make us hate the guy that's gonna suffer the most at the end, but can I really complain about a crook being one-dimensional? About the only thing about, well, Percy, is that he's receptive, they point out a consistent element to his on-the-street work and changes it up. We get our plot device quite soon, a guy with a pair of gold shoes. He's not virtuous, he's just defining booty calls and is probably a few sins away from being that guy in a horror story.

So, as you may figure, the shoes are cursed and won't come off, and as you may not figure, he begins to go through the signs of death. It starts comedic with his bowls being voided, okay fair this is the first instance in this movie where toilet humor is used, and I guess you can't have someone dying without everything just letting loose.

It seems this is more of a comedy horror story, I mean it helps diversify things here. I don't have much to add to this story to sum up, but I do have one thing to share. Apparently whoever wrote this film's Wikipedia article really favored this story and gave a complete synopsis for it. Either way, I may skip to the end of this, but that doesn't mean I didn't watch the story the whole way through, I just don't have a whole lot to say about it, other than symbolism up the ass, I guess they wanted to flex their mad editing skillz with a scene involving an angel and a demon, they manage to portray the stages of death fairly well, more mad editing skillz, Ezra Miller as the Flash hauls Percy to his fate, Percy doesn't have a happy end, shocker, and we get a shit load of exposition, though to be fair it does kinda help explain the bits that seemed to exist for the hell of it.

But the final end, I assumed Percy would be begging for mercy at the end, but good thing I misread, because now, Percy gets torn apart as his body is linked to the guy he killed in getting the shoes, by an impatient bitch and another doctor he tries to talk to just says absolutely nothing as his body is now tied to reality forever.

Let me say this, compared to the last story I saw in American Nightmares, this is superior to that, not only because I made it to the end but because it was an interesting tale all together, he certainly deserved it at the end, I guess. Though one other thing about this story is that it seems kinda familiar. I have a feeling I caught this on TV time ago, certain scenes definitely look familiar. But maybe it's just me.

Ending

Back to the wraparound one last time, we get a twist ending, where the man is revealed to be a killer who targets children. He would be surrounded by the spirits of his victims, the bad things he was on the run from are escorts, sorta like the demons from the previous story and the girl herself is a demon. All else you gotta know is that the reveals on each are well done, keeping up the thrills and tension. It was totally worth watching through. And while we never got Mr. Simms, we do get his famous line at the end.

The souls of the slain are freed, so an otherwise happy end.

Final Thoughts

I spent around 15 bucks on this movie, and honestly it was worth the investment.

Tales from the Hood 3 doesn't hold a candle to the first movie, but it works with what it has. Its stories have enough twists to keep you on your toes, they commit to more gruesome scares and at least it doesn't try to regurgitate previous tales, while keeping with the spirit of the previous entry.

It's certainly better than the previous film, which was just cheap and way too on the nose, and as this is a SyFy movie, it just makes it even more commendable how well the third film turned out.

If you wanna see my ranks for the four stories, it'd be the third, followed by the fourth, then the first and then the second. But they're all good stories, don't get it twisted. And if not, this is way better than American Nightmares, that's the bottom, stories executed so badly you'd swear they're satirical.

I was desperate for something Halloween-related to cover, and I'm glad I gave this a shot. So with that, thanks for reading, and to all...

Happy Halloween... MOTHAFUKAS!