Hood of Horror

Snoop Dogg’s “Hood of Horror” is actually a rather nice surprise. Gritty settings with mostly African-American actors, this urban horror anthology offers some rather unpredictable and inventive storytelling, tackling societal issues and the like. Snoop Dogg is the MC, an emissary for the devil after he offered his life for his sister’s (the opening credits are in animated form where Dogg is a gangster firing off rounds at an adversary, hitting his sister by accident, cursed by his mother as evil, and eventually offered a reprieve by a demon looking to recruit him), setting up each tale, often even taking part. Snoop Dogg has always been a cool cat with plenty of charisma to spare, so him being a type of horror anthology host wouldn’t stress him none.

**½

The first tale deals with a very angry graffiti artist who saw her father kill her mother during a domestic dispute then turn the gun on himself. She has utter hatred for gangsters, associating those she meets on the streets with her [dead] old man. Aggressively hostile and vocal towards a trio of graffiti hoods, she antagonizes them into pursuing her, but she fortunately evades them…right into the company of Danny Trejo’s demon. Trejo tattoos her arm, providing her the power to X through the painted stylized names of artists who graffiti the walls of the streets she calls home which results in their deaths. As she X kills more and more gangsters, the community mourns the loss of youths, and Trejo soon introduces her to a few of her undead victims. A mural she was supposed to paint for community outreach eventually is finished…with her own flesh and blood as she literally paints it red!

The second tale deals with the lecherous son of a military colonel (it is revealed in a flashback memory that the son run through his father with his car, the bull horn ornament impaling him!) and his greedy bimbo, fake-boobed wife having to stay at the apartment duplex with four retired soldiers who served with his pops. The soldiers (including Ernie Hudson and Richard Gant) tolerate their disorderly conduct (they want the upper floor to themselves, including carpentry renovations by the soldiers on minimum wage salaries, and cut back on food and services, even insisting on paying back supposed extra financial benefit provided by their dead colonel) as this is to be a year-long living arrangement due to a clause in the colonel’s will that his boy learn integrity and honor from those he served closely with in the war. Instead, one of the soldiers dies because he didn’t get medical care needed and a nurse that visits daily and helps them by cooking meals and tending to housework is accosted during intended foreplay she resists and suffocated with a pillow. This sets the soldiers off and their mistreatment is visited upon the two who took advantage of and victimized them.

The third tale has a rapper betraying his musically talented partner and best friend when he feels the need to be a solo act. Through a staged robbery, the rapper’s bodyguard pretends to be a hood, shooting the partner in a convenience store. Soon the spirit of that friend returns to visit the rapper, setting the stage for a murder and shootout that is quite unexpected.

The first tale, “Crossed Out”, doesn’t have very much humor. Daniella Alonso is intense and full of venom as the loner who wants to press her foot on the throat of gangsters who symbolize her father. The memory of that horrible day as a child never leaves her. And the gangsters she particularly targets aren’t the most sympathetic, so when Alonso does start X’ing them out, I can’t imagine a lot of teary eyes for these “dearly departed”. A gun going off in a victim’s pants as he is trying to unzip his fly so that a girl he just slapped to the floor would blow him, slipping on booze-puddled sidewalk another victim falls mouth-first on a bottle, impaling him through his skull (!), and a phone booth visit results in a third victim being strangled by a phone cord (seeing is believing) are the violent highlights. Of course Alonso’s eye is peeled off a wall by Snoop so there’s that. Billy Dee Williams, as a community leader, guess stars.

“The Scumlord” has a game Anson Mount as the heel, Tex Woods, Jr. Hudson is the main voice for his soldiers, often questioning futilely Mount’s demands and misbehavior. Mount sinks his teeth into the amoral asshole, while Brande Roderick as Mount’s bleach-blonde, collagen-lipped squeeze is perfectly loathsome, so involved in spoiling her little dog while the soldiers starve downstairs. The use of caviar and a vacuum cleaner must be seen to be believed…included in this set piece is bloating and flatulence. Yes, it is that kind of tale. Sydney Poitier (Sidney Poitier’s daughter) guest stars as the nurse who combatively addresses Mount about his rotten treatment of those in the building he occupies.

“Rapsody Askew” features Pooch Hall as the self-absorbed rapper only out for himself, while his bro, Aries Spears, tries to make their partnership a success. Diamond Dallas Page is Hall’s agreeable bodyguard who is willing to shoot Spears, while costumed as a robber, so that Hall can step out of the shadow of his best friend. Loyal to a fault, Spears could have went solo but put the friendship over his own self interests. Well, Spears, in the form of a demon whose disfigured face is a reminder of the gunshot wound to the forehead, visits Hall to torment him, payback for the betrayal. This results in a DOA DDP and Hall framed for his murder by Spears, with the cops, guns blazing, and a trip to hell following suit. Lin Shaye, as a demon who forces Hall to revisit his horrid actions towards Spears, and Jason Alexander (of Seinfeld), as a record exec offering Hall and Spears a rap album opportunity, guest star.

Snoop has a dwarf demon tagalong who likes to vomit (yeah) and two babes with vampire teeth often by his side while he spins rap to each tale, explaining them in his own unique way. The animated sequences aren’t too shabby. As you might expect, the language is vulgar at times and there’s lots of grit and attitude. Still, this was shot with energy and flair, moving each plot along without much fat left on the bone. This might be a good companion to the superior Tales from the Hood.