Horror is back in the hood! The sequel to the ground-breaking original film Tales From the Hood reunites Executive Producer Spike Lee (Honorary Academy Award® winner) and Writers/Directors/Producers Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott for an all-new gripping, horrifying and oftentimes devilishly comical anthology. Keith David stars as a contemporary Mr. Simms to tell bloodcurdling stories about lust, greed, pride and politics through tales with demonic dolls, possessed psychics, vengeful vixens and historical ghosts. Mr. Simms's haunting stories will make you laugh...while you scream.
----------------------
The second feature raises the bar slightly for the movie. It's a story about gangsters getting their jus-due. Nothing really moving, shocking or original about this sketch but, it is pretty funny. The message in it is clear although, it feels uninspired. This segment was clearly written just for laughs. It doesn't tell us anything we don't already know or even surprise us. It weakly borrows the premise of "gangsters are scum and deserve harsh punishment" from the original installment.
The third segment's message is very clear about how the writer and director feel about rape culture. It's pretty simplistic, predictable but, satisfying. It's fun without being too silly.
The fourth and final segment before the end of the wrap-around story is the best TFTH2 had to offer. While evoking the spirits of dead civil rights figures is pretty risky and could be deemed exploitative, it was handled in an effective way. It contains a message in it that a lot of young people need to hear, particularly people like Kanye West. The message is very preachy but, it is so deep I fear those that are supposed to understand it will not. It's earnest, heartfelt and makes you think about unimaginable sacrifices that past figures have made for our current way of life (that still calls for improvement).
The story that ties all of the other stories together has a predictable yet, funny ending. It certainly isn't as jaw-dropping as the ending of the original film but, it's satisfying. It might seem like from this review that I hated the movie or didn't enjoy it, but that's not true at all. I enjoyed watching the movie but, it did not have the same impact on me as the original. The original took itself seriously while adding aspects of humor. It was gritty and delivered important messages that everyone needed to hear. However, this film relied too much on Easter eggs from the first film and frankly did not produce many original ideas. Sadly, the issues in the first film still plague society today, over twenty years later. However, I would have expected the creators to come up with a more original way to approach these issues. I also think there were more important issues for the filmmakers to cover rather than rehashing issues from the original film. While the original film was easily a movie that deserved a theatrical release. Tales From The Hood 2 sadly presents itself as the straight-to-DVD release it is.
I wish this review didn't sound so cruel but, this was a disappointing experience for me. I'm just not sure what went wrong here. Obviously, it had a low budget but, so did the original. The budget does appear to be lower than the original. There is talk about it being a series and if they tighten up on the skills, a Tales From The Hood series could really be what the black horror genre needs. The recently released Purge series is currently being hailed as being much better than the movies so, there is always hope.
If you liked the original film, give this a watch. Will it result in multiple watches like the original? I think it depends on the viewer. While it's an adequately fun movie night watch (especially during Halloween time), I don't see it gaining cult-classic status as the original one did. Sequels hardly ever live up to the magic of the original and this installment sadly falls victim to that. This is, however, black cinema that deserves support and I truly hope it does lead to a television series that will allow it to truly shine very soon.
You can stream it on Amazon, Redbox on Demand, rent it on Redbox or buy it from Amazon.com.
Are you still planning on checking out this much anticipated sequel? If you did see it, sound off below on your thoughts!
The third segment's message is very clear about how the writer and director feel about rape culture. It's pretty simplistic, predictable but, satisfying. It's fun without being too silly.
The fourth and final segment before the end of the wrap-around story is the best TFTH2 had to offer. While evoking the spirits of dead civil rights figures is pretty risky and could be deemed exploitative, it was handled in an effective way. It contains a message in it that a lot of young people need to hear, particularly people like Kanye West. The message is very preachy but, it is so deep I fear those that are supposed to understand it will not. It's earnest, heartfelt and makes you think about unimaginable sacrifices that past figures have made for our current way of life (that still calls for improvement).
The story that ties all of the other stories together has a predictable yet, funny ending. It certainly isn't as jaw-dropping as the ending of the original film but, it's satisfying. It might seem like from this review that I hated the movie or didn't enjoy it, but that's not true at all. I enjoyed watching the movie but, it did not have the same impact on me as the original. The original took itself seriously while adding aspects of humor. It was gritty and delivered important messages that everyone needed to hear. However, this film relied too much on Easter eggs from the first film and frankly did not produce many original ideas. Sadly, the issues in the first film still plague society today, over twenty years later. However, I would have expected the creators to come up with a more original way to approach these issues. I also think there were more important issues for the filmmakers to cover rather than rehashing issues from the original film. While the original film was easily a movie that deserved a theatrical release. Tales From The Hood 2 sadly presents itself as the straight-to-DVD release it is.
I wish this review didn't sound so cruel but, this was a disappointing experience for me. I'm just not sure what went wrong here. Obviously, it had a low budget but, so did the original. The budget does appear to be lower than the original. There is talk about it being a series and if they tighten up on the skills, a Tales From The Hood series could really be what the black horror genre needs. The recently released Purge series is currently being hailed as being much better than the movies so, there is always hope.
If you liked the original film, give this a watch. Will it result in multiple watches like the original? I think it depends on the viewer. While it's an adequately fun movie night watch (especially during Halloween time), I don't see it gaining cult-classic status as the original one did. Sequels hardly ever live up to the magic of the original and this installment sadly falls victim to that. This is, however, black cinema that deserves support and I truly hope it does lead to a television series that will allow it to truly shine very soon.
You can stream it on Amazon, Redbox on Demand, rent it on Redbox or buy it from Amazon.com.
Are you still planning on checking out this much anticipated sequel? If you did see it, sound off below on your thoughts!
Comments
Post a Comment