Tales from the Hood (1995) KILL COUNT

[Music] welcome to the kill count where we tally up the victims in all our favorite horror movies i'm james agenese and today we're looking at tales from the hood released in 1995. tales is an anthology film meaning it's a collection of different short stories rather than a single feature-length narrative the only other anthology film i've covered on the kill count is trick or treat way back in 2017 but while that movie featured intertwining stories that all took place in the same location tales from the hood introduces its shorts individually using an overarching frame narrative it's the old ec comic style framing device that's conventionally used in anthology films including in the best known example from the horror genre creep show tales from the hood was co-written and directed by rusty cundiff a filmmaker who would go on to direct 25 episodes of chappelle show it was cundiff's idea pitched to his co-writer darren scott to make a horror movie that also had a message to it and when rusty first said we should make these about social issues i was like what entertainment is a horror thing and then the more i thought of it i realized he was right and that's what's made the project special all these years tails uses the horror genre to explore issues facing black people in america and while the film isn't super gory and doesn't have any sexual assault it does depict uncomfortable subject matter like police brutality gang shootings and domestic violence so heads up on all that the great thing about tales though is that it's able to explore these heavy topics with a tone that keeps the movie fun nowhere is that more apparent than in the zamy performance by clarence williams iii who i've been quoting for two decades thanks to his role in half baked as samson simpson i'm cuban yes cuban b as funeral home director mr sims williams guides us through a bunch of earnest stories skillfully directed by cundiff that never get too preachy or heavy-handed because despite its messaging tales from the hood remains a horror movie first and foremost with some legitimately scary moments and memorably hilarious lines with five different stories going on it's also gonna have a bunch of kills for me to count so let's get to work [Music] the movie begins with a gun-wielding skeleton and he is smoking a trio of gang members named bulldog ball and stack approach a funeral home in south central l.a their pickup spot for a bunch of drugs they're acquiring now the sooner we get the shit the sooner we raise about this motherfucker man well get in there then and quit standing around talking about refried beans why the fuck you gonna refry some beans man why not just fry that shit right the first time and get up the parlor is owned by a guy named sims who really knows how to make a head banging entrance i've been waiting for you boys the drugs these dudes are picking up were found by sims in an alley and he just wants to get rid of them he's not exactly familiar with the narcotics business nor its terminology now where's the shit the shit the shit the shit god damn i love when clarence williams says the shit even when he's got cigar flakes on his teeth don't worry you'll get the shit happens to the best of us man i know from experience business before sims grabs that dookie for him though how about they check out this dead body ball asks what happened to the dead young man named clarence and his question kicks off our short story format in rogue cop revelation we see that clarence was a young rookie police officer who one day responded to a call in a quiet neighborhood with his partner newton they find that two other officers have pulled over a guy for uh let's see here oh yeah broken taillight gotta get those fixed you know the man being harassed is martin morehouse a city council member who's been taking down corrupt cops for selling drugs that doesn't win him many fans in the force though their harassment's not enough to deactivate this activist i've got nothing against good cops you what i said i've got nothing against good cops but i will see low life scum like you run out of the department a fight breaks out and like i said content warning because it's tough to watch as morehouse is beaten by officers billy and strom who's played by wings hauser and whose name evokes dram thurman the long-serving racist dixiecrat senator from south carolina clarence's partner newton is no gentleman either and also participates in the brutality all while billy holliday's haunting strange fruit plays on the soundtrack clarence stops the beating but is escorted away by newton who tells him he has no right interfering in matters like this those assholes are cops who the fuck are you the judge though they promised clarence that they would take morehouse to a hospital officers billy and strom instead drive him to the dock where they put him in his front seat and stick him full of heroin because they want to ruin his reputation as well as end his life a little cocaine here a little gravity there and martin morehouse is killed in a murder set up to look like a drug-induced accident a year later an out-of-work clarence is nursing his guilt with alcohol but that doesn't stop him from having hallucinations of the martyred martin morehouse parents bring them to me clarence agrees to do just that so he summons his three former co-workers to the cemetery on the anniversary of morehouse's death i like how cundiff and scott wrote the three evil cops here giving them individual shades of malice from ringleader to weak-willed follower to someone who fraternally defends heinous actions on the force the personalities that exist are everything from cowards to heroes to idiots it's just everything that exists in the normal world exists on a police force clarence brings them to morehouse's grave which strom promptly defiles by pissing all over it man that's not cool way to go strong that's pretty cool oh never mind officer billy thinks it's cool hilarious line delivery there by dwayne whitaker who's probably best known as maynard the pawnshop guy in pulp fiction but who's also been in some rob zombie movies he was the guy in halloween two who got stabbed in a field and an occult specialist in devil's rejects and three from hell strom orders billy to join him in urination and since these guys are the kind to follow orders the mustachioed officer steps up to comply right as strom and newton go to execute clearance billy's grabbed by a zombie ham that beats his head against the tombstone and pulls him underground the grave then erupts open and billy is shown to be dead he's got a big old hole in his chest because his heart was ripped out by a zombie martin morehouse and boy is that zombie man production shot this scene in an actual graveyard which is wild when you consider that special effects supervisor kenneth hall had to dig a fake grave there and fire off an underground air cannon for these effects bullets don't phase the undead man so the other officers flee and after morehouse pulls a knight of the living dead cemetery zombie on them they drive away out of the graveyard only problem for the cops is they can't seem to shake this guy how far back not far back at all dude after a few more jason takes manhattan styled teleportations morehouse gets the cops to crash which allows him to murder officer strom by pulling him through the car roof and decapitating him i could use a few more blood spurts on that headless body but at least we get a good fake head made by k b effects that morehouse holds out like a predator newton takes aim with a faulty looking fake gun and fires some shots that blow up his service vehicle along with zombie morehouse seems to do the trick at first but apparently not even this kick-ass fire can put the zed down because he appears behind newton in an alley and lifts him up until he's air planking newton rips off some of morehouse's chest exposing a little chem lab inside his torso cool and then the zombie council member uses some supernatural forces to send a bevy of hypodermic needles into newton's body they pin him against the wall where the mural to morehouse is and after one final needle is sent straight to the back of his mouth newton is killed in a spectacular way kind of melting against the wall and then being turned into graffiti meant to warn people to treat each other better welcome to my world bitch zombie morehouse isn't quite done he's still mad at clarence for not preventing his death in the first place so he attacks him in a way that leaves him locked up in a psych ward and blamed for the other cop's deaths might seem harsh but cundiff says it's to show how people's actions and inactions have consequences it kind of goes to when do you decide to do what's right sometimes coming up around to the right side is just too late with that story done we're back to the funeral home and although the three gangsters would like to get the shit and leave mr sims just keeps going on and on about dead bodies find an interest outside of work guy i suggest drumming sims next story is boys do get bruised young walter johnson played by baby michael jordan from space jam has got a problem a monster problem and i don't mean the monstars this monster is much scarier get a load of its creepy claws adding to his issues walter just started attending a new school where a douche kid named tyrone fights him at launch but the black guy he's got didn't come from his peers the bruise is noticed by a school nurse played by takiyah kristal kima known for in living color she brings it to the attention of walter's teacher richard garvey another symbolically named character played by director of the film rusty condem cundiff began his career as an actor in films like school days written and directed by spike lee who serves as an executive producer on taos from the hood which basically means he helped get it made through funding and influence walter tells mr garvey that his injury came from the monster at home it came after my dad died the boy draws pictures of the monster which he says will act as a voodoo weapon if he destroys the picture it'll destroy the monster i'm gonna burn him up he's also drawn a picture of tyrone and you know what looks like that crayola magic works cause all of a sudden tyrone's on his way to the hospital with both his arms and legs broken boy must have had weak bones yes weak bones guess he couldn't draw on their strength anymore mr garvey visits walter's home that night and meets the legs of walter's mom sissy played by paula j parker who i know from friday and as trudy freaking proud she tells garvey that walters bruises are just a product of his clumsiness then comes on to the teacher cause she loves a man in a nice big 90s suit when garvey mentions the monster sissy gets pissy she yells at walter for all his monster talk until they're stopped by the sound of the monster getting home i love how this scene is shot from walter's perspective it really puts you in his shoes as he watches his mom's boyfriend carl get home and ask garvey what he's doing there carl was played by detroit's own david alan greer who got his ba from u of m go blue and his masters from yale after a stage career that earned him a tony nomination he turned to screen work and was cast in hey look at that a living color thus he was largely known as a comedic actor when he was cast as this monster of a character who's already fixing to hit walter some more i will talk to him yeah something tells me the only language carl knows is violence carl makes sissy show garvey to the door and after walter watches his hope for salvation prepare to leave the monster comes back into his room angry about having its likeness drawn domestic abuse alert because carl gets physical with both walter and sissy whom he beats with his hand and a belt the abuse is overheard by garvey who races back to the house and is led in by sissy carl turns his attention from walter to the teacher and another long fight ensues occasionally producing bubble yum blood it doesn't end until walter hoping to stop carl from using a frying pan against his mom breaks his arm with the drawing he then breaks the bastard's body all over with a series of creases and one mighty final crumple i love the effects for this sequence done by screaming mad george which makes a lot of sense if you remember his rubbery surreal nightmares from movies like silent night deadly night 5 and of course society the voodoo attack leaves carl looking like a little monster who got exposed to light this shit ain't over yet bitch it really is though dude a stop from sissy silences carl and to cover up this peculiar cause of death walter lights the paper on fire leaving carl's corpse nothing more than a burnt bastard scally yes sir walter killed the monster you know i've heard of drug dealers keeping their buyers around by talking too long but this is just getting ridiculous sims fuck it though guess they'd better just sit back and hear about where this doll came from hit us with the crazy hair kkk comeuppance begins at the plantation home of a southern senator he's running for governor now but also he's an ex-clan member so some people are not fans of his jesse helm style pro dog whistling campaign they were as relentless about finding a job as they are hounding me am i putting into welfare duke metger whose name of oak's david duke is played by corbin bernsen aka dr alan finestone aka dr larry kane i didn't even recognize him with all that hair the protests are fueled by duke's recent purchase of this building called the dollhouse by an angry man named eli whose actor art evans was also in christine where he played the first guy killed by the evil car the so-called dollhouse has a bloody history to it after the civil war the confederate owner of the house decided to massacre his newly emancipated slaves rather than let them go free 12 bodies hanging from that tree alone strange fruit indeed according to local legend the souls of the slain slaves remained at unrest until a voodoo woman named cobbs bought the place and put them into dolls where it is they remain in the house right to this day and although he hasn't seen them yet they really are there duke doesn't mind the risk though and is happy to turn this place of slaughter into a campaign headquarters i think the whole thing adds to a certain southern charm corbin bernsen is great at playing this despicable character who ends up saying a lot of really offensive things i think as we rolled i apologize to everybody before each take nice sentiment but it sounds like it wasn't necessary i looked at darren and rusty and they were cracking up behind the camera they were loving it working for duke is an image consultant named rody played by roger gwenveer smith who was in a bunch of spike lee movies before this road is ready to help take the racist edge off of duke's rhetoric no matter how distasteful ms cobbs might have found his job he practices interview questions with duke and even cracks a racist joke while role-playing as his boss well the only spooks that i'm afraid of are the ones with god that's a good one brody i like that i believe i'm going to use it oh no not if you want to get elected you want during the drill though roadie trips backwards down the stairs and dies when he cracks his head open against the wall duke attends the funeral where a sermon is given by a priest played by the director's dad john a cundiff and tells the reporters that rhodey's death was just an accident it wasn't caused by haunted house problems so you're not afraid of the ghost well the only spooks i'm afraid of are you spooky reporters good fucking save dude good fucking save the very out of place looking eli tells duke that if he doesn't leave the dollhouse he's gonna have more problems but duke ignores the man and drives off in his limo oh sweet free doll oh i forgot no doll time in the limo damn turns out that doll is actually responsible for roadie's death duke notices the little guy in a primo tripping position when he looks over that tape wow zoomy duke realizes that the doll is missing from the ms cobb's painting which means the slave's soul has flown the frame and is able to run around in a panting pov shop like this is puppet master or some shit [Music] duke finds the doll sitting on his staircase with a sinister smile he screams at the doll that he's not responsible for slavery and yells no reparations while throwing a vase but i think the guy needs to get a hold of himself throwing vases at dolls that ain't even there he starts to hulk smash and attacks the painting with a flag which causes it to bleed reg pigmen all over the place the plantation doll returns with some wonderful stop motion then leaps onto and chomps at duke until the senator overpowers his weak little doll body duke dispenses of the doll with a shotgun but he may be in more trouble than he thinks because that painting all of a sudden looks like a half-used sheet of stickers duke finds that he's failed to stop the pissed-off doll which was created by charles and edward kyoto aka the kyoto brothers the wonderful dudes who brought us killer clowns from outer space they created three or four versions of the doll in various moods and physical conditions and for many shots used simple rod puppetry to move the limbs and head for other shots though they had to use stop motion a technique i always love to see in movies there's something organic about the stop motion that i i think makes it cool at this point the painting has been entirely emptied of its puppets they're all here in duke's office and ready to rumble and they don't want your brandy dude so don't even bother there he drapes himself in the flag but since this isn't an election he's not about to win that way duke was originally going to die by being hanged with an american flag from the tree outside his office but the studio said nah people want to see the dolls take them out and we said yeah give us the money to do that so the kyotos and bernsen got some extra days of work and duke dies at the hand of a swarm of puppets who tear them apart with their teeth his death is so poetically just that ms cobb shows up for a front-row seat to the spectacle played by the director's mom christina condem i bet she's real proud of her son right now at the funeral home the trio of gangsters is getting real sick of stories and just wants the shit oh the shit after one final body boys the most relevant one of all you knew him we didn't know him he was just a nigga we seen around hardcore convert is the story of gang violence that follows crazy k a violent dude with sprayed on sideburns played by lamont bentley who was hakeem in mouisha but who sadly died in a car accident in 2005 at the age of 31. crazy k drives up to lil d a guy he's got beef with and kills him in the street by shooting him a whole bunch damn k really gonna rob us of some ricky harris screen time like that some epic music by composer christopher young begins [Music] as deke's associates come out of a house and shoot crazy k to the ground as he lays dying in the street they taunt him with modulated voices shut down crazy k are you crazy fucked up while they were talking shit some apparently silent police rolled up and posted up behind them the cops open fire and shoot the other gang members to the ground preventing them from putting the kibosh on crazy k same on a motherfucking cup damn after four years behind bars two of them on the solitary confinement fitness plan jerome aka crazy k is selected for a behavioral modification trial by dr cushing played by rosalind cash of omega man fame in one of her final roles before cancer took her life at 56. jerome has driven to a spooky house on a hill where he's escorted through stone tunnels populated by backup dancers for devo he's placed inside a cramped cell next to a dude so racist he's devoted an entire peck to some hitler egg the guy talks of a biblical race war and though his rhetoric is upsetting the guy points out that jerome's already been doing his work for him those guys you killed what color were they that's the thing with tails rusty kundip and darren scott chose to not only bring light to external problems facing their community but to also criticize black people who put each other down like how rhodey was helping a racist politician get elected we harbor some umbrage towards those who hurt their own cushing tells her subject that if he adapts well to her program he'll be released from prison if not he'll die behind bars and she don't care either way because i think scummed you're wrong so don't test me if you understand he's stripped down to his skivvies and put in chains very much resembling a victim of the slave trade then strapped down to a frankensteinian slab where his head is shaved ahead of this clockwork oranging or actually maybe he's getting tested for coving oh never mind i don't think that's part of any covent test at least i hope not a metal viewfinder is placed over his eyes and with some beep bops and bim bams dr cushing begins her program fair warning this is a super intense scene with lots of racially sensitive imagery depicting historical violence as a song called born to die by spice one blairs jerome is subjected to flashes of gang violence intercut with photos of clan rallies and lynchings it's intentionally uncomfortable and lasts an excruciating two and a half minutes becoming downright nauseating near the end which is exactly what cundiff and scott wanted but the more important thing to us about that story was just commenting on black on black violence and about the fact that you know it's been three or four hundred years with being oppressed and being attacked is a good time to stop oppressing and attacking each other also i'm not counting any kills in this montage half of them are historical and for the other half well i'm not about to go frame by frame through this sequence i've got my limits okay again though the discomfort is the point cushing yells as much to jerome what's wrong you don't like seeing black people get killed but isn't that what you've been doing all your life it's some heavy shit to say the least but it was important to rusty cundiff to include he called it an effective teaching moment gang members come up to me and say that they rethought what they were doing because of the crazy k episode cushing then lowers jerome into a sensory deprivation chamber where he'll be forced to confront his ego and subconsciousness different kind of warning this time because we've got a lot of hardcore flashing lights going on for a while look away if you need to y'all in between the strobing jerome sees individuals from his past who are dead because of him how come we talked in a long time that's right you killed my ass i'm not going to count these ghosts hallucinations though since we never met them and we didn't see their actual deaths crazy k defends himself against the moral appraisement of his actions even when the ghost of a little girl says that she was an innocent victim killed in one of his drive-bys oh i believe they got no name on it you was just at the wrong place at the wrong time dr cushing appears and asks jerome if he's ready to apologize for what he's done but it sounds like crazy k is completely irredeemable i got one motherfucking responsibility in this world that's me and that's it motherfucker he attempts to threaten his way out of this situation but his obstinance is all for not because he's not actually in a sensory deprivation chamber he's still on the street coughing up blood from his bullet wounds his shooters are still standing over him and they open fire to nk's near-death experience and final chance at redemption and that's how crazy k wound up in the funeral home actually that's not the whole story behind crazy k's death turns out the three dudes who killed him were in fact bulldog ball and stack and they are tired of dead body story times let's go and get the shit oh yeah the doo-doo [Music] pop we're gonna get the shit sims takes them downstairs turns on his lights with a finger and says that the shit is in these three coffins uh i don't know guy a safe the gangsters go to get the shit only to find that the coffins hold their bodies instead mr sims explains that all three of them are dead they were shot down by crazy k's accomplices after they killed him the music swells and gets downright scary as clarence williams's unhinged performance pays off with the reveal of what's been happening this whole time yes hey now fiona neither welcome to hell what ah he got a snakey time the boys piss themselves and watch as sims becomes satan right before their eyes using more prosthetic work made by screaming mad george devil sims was meant to look cancerous which i think works great even if the four hour makeup process was a pain in the ass for clarence williams i asked clarence at the end of it he said uh clarence how did you like that he goes i did not totally worth it for this mr toad ending it is absolutely bonkers and legitimately unsettling how many people died in all these tales that we were told let's find out and get to the shit yes the doodoo the poopity pop yeah we're gonna get to the shit 13 people died in tails from the hood not counting deaths in that disturbing montage or those ghosts in that strobe light scene oh and everyone killed was a guy with a run time of 98 minutes that left us with a kill on average every 7.54 minutes i'll give the golden chainsaw for coolest kill to officer newton getting killed by dirty needles might win the award on its own but the effects as he gets turned into a mural are a lot of fun to watch dull machete for les mis kill will go to clarence since we don't even know how he died a guilt and that's it tales from the hood came out in 1995 and unfortunately was marketed as a silly spoof so it didn't get the recognition it deserves i'll look at the disappointing sequel on sunday but until then i'm james agenese this has been the kill count thanks a lot for watching this week's kill count i want to thank some patrons like trevor batson brian libram majin moon man ian eldridge danielgrimwood92 christian exum and philip win oh and also logan arnold and his cool mom melissa it's october which means a buttload of kill counts are coming your way thanks everyone be good people

Channel: Dead Meat

Views: 5,098,253

Keywords: horror, dead meat, movies, scary, films, kills, kill count, body count, james a. janisse, jaj, pine commander boogie, DMKC, tales from the hood, tales from the hood reaction, tales from the hood review, tales from the hood ending, tales from the hood trailer, best horror, horror film, horror channel, dead meat tales from the hood, tales from the hood kill count, tales from the, spike lee, spike lee horror movie, spike lee horror, tales from the hood 2, scary movies, tales, from, hood

Id: q1RnjJd2c88

Length: 28min 0sec (1680 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/jjnunn118]

Tales From The Hood genuinely rules and has some truly insightful messaging!

The sequel uh... the sequel sucks

[u/acidfalconarrow]

Scary ass Morehouse: Welcome to my world

James as freddy: bitch

cracking up at that

edit: why did somebody downvote every comment in the thread??? i literally upvoted every single comment just to balance it out

[u/ShiftyBea]

I watched this movie for the first time last night before watching the KC and I liked it. However, I am not a fan of movies using real life footage for shock value. I just don't like it, doesn't matter the movie, the genre or what the footage is.

Also, there's an odd story telling choice in the KKK segment where Duke walks into the room and we see one or two of the dolls on the wall have gone. He goes into the hall but isn't attacked by them, instead, the original doll goes for him. I think it gives away the other puppets leaving the painting far too early. He could have heard a noise, went into the hall, got attacked then ran back into his office. As it is, we know what's going to happen because we have already seen that a couple other dolls have left, so that big reveal that they've all left didn't hit me as it should have. Ah well, I've never made a movie, so, what do I know? :)

[u/Mancy98]

Not gonna lie, probably my favorite horror anthology. Yes, even more than your beloved Creepshow & Trick r Treat.

[u/FriskeyVsWorld]

Man, I remember the poster for this scaring the hell out of me back in the day.

Also, the man mentioned Creepshow, which means get ready for all of those requests. XD