Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror (2006)

Hood of Horror is a gangsta horror anthology (gangthology?) comprising of three ghetto-flavoured tales, loosely tied together by an animated wraparound story. Whilst the stylish cartoon section is confusing and ultimately forgettable stuff, the bulk of the film is far more successful, being well written (much of it by 2001 Maniac's Tim Sullivan), very gory (albeit in a strictly tongue in cheek style), and confidently directed by Stacy Title.Hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg 'MC's the whole shebizzle (as he might say), introducing each story in his inimitable OG style, and what fun they are: first up is 'Crossed Out', which sees graffiti artist Posie (Daniella Alonso) being given the power to kill her enemies simply by crossing out their 'tags'; tale number two is 'The Scumlord', which stars Anson Mount as a racist, sexist Texan loudmouth who is set to inherit a tenement in the ghetto, but on one condition—that he spends a year in the building with the current occupants, his father's army buddies, the all black Fighting 88; the last story is 'Rapsody Askew' which follows ambitious rap artist Sod (Pooch Hall) as he does whatever it takes to achieve fame and fortune.A lot of people seem to dislike this film, calling it cheap and amateurish, but I had a great time with it even though I'm not a massive fan of the hip-hop scene: there are several familiar faces in the cast (Danny Trejo, Ernie Hudson and Lin Shaye) who lend proceedings a certain air of class. the splatter is very enthusiastic, the women are bootylicious, and I'm almost certain that the tunes are phat.

Porn, pimping and … promoting horror movies? Snoop Dogg appears to be living quite the ideal life of luxury! In fact, if it weren't for the crappy hip-hop music he produces, I'd even be jealous at him. Anyways, with "Hood of Horror" the Dogg emphasizes his already notorious reputation of cool 'gangsta-rapper'. You may expect a whole lot of macho gibberish, gangster slang, and rap song with explicit lyrics. As the Hound of Hell, Snoop Dogg introduces three little horror segments in crypt keeper narration style and lends his voice to the animated wraparound story revolving on how Devon ended up working for the devil himself. Strangely enough … I really didn't hate the film. I prepared to see an overload of nonsense and verbal ghetto showdowns that would push the horror to the background, but "Hood of Horror" actually offers an impressive amount of carnage and ferocity, and the separate tales are surprisingly engaging. The animated opening and interludes between the segments are slightly overlong, but interesting and roughly violent enough to please fans of horror and grim comic book adaptations. It's very reminiscent in style to the "Sin City" comics, for example. The first segment is the most textbook one to feature in a ghetto-anthology, I think, with an orphaned girl from the hood receiving special powers to eliminate the graffiti thugs in her neighborhood. Naturally, she gets over-enthusiast and the powers turn against her soon. This isn't the most original story of the three, but the deadly "accidents" are sublime (bottle-through-the-face, anyone?) and there's a neat guest appearance for Danny Trejo as the uncanny sorcerer. My personal favorite segment is the second one, revolving on a spoiled white brat and his trashy girlfriend moving in with his departed father's old Vietnam buddies, because the testament states so. The young couple continuously torment, blackmail and humiliate the veterans, but when arrogance turns into rape and murder, the veterans collectively decide to fight back Vietnam-style. The atmosphere of "The Scumlord" owes more to old-fashioned 70's Blaxploitation than to nowadays horror-splatter (which is probably why this is my favorite segment), but there's still some nice bit of nastiness to enjoy. If you think the deaths of the couple are extreme, wait until you see what overcomes the Chihuahua! There are some familiar faces in this segment as well, like Ernie Hudson, Tucker Smallwood and the lovely Sydney Tamiia Poitier. The content of the third and final story, entitled Rapsody Askew" feels familiar again, but the narrative structure is original and the climax is surprising. The plot centers on two rappers with a poverty background that build up a successful career out of nothing. Now that he's acclaimed and famous, Sod subjects himself to a wild life of drugs and parties, but continues to praise his friend Quon who was recently killed in a mysterious liquor store hold-up. During one of his numerous parties, a mysterious uninvited guest faces him with the dreadful things he has done. One of creative minds behind "Hood of Horror" was Tim Sullivan, who's also the director of the hilarious "2001 Maniacs". The light-headed tone and excessive use of gory make-up effects of both films are comparable, actually. It's an unmemorable and lacking film, but certainly not a complete waste of time.

OK now I realize that Snoop Dogg is a rapper and not a film guru or anything but this movie was just plain horrible and I could have made it a hell of a lot better myself. There is just lots of brainless and unfunny humor, and the gore is completely overrated and looks so fake because there is no way that anyone could ever spew that much blood out of one place in like 2 seconds. Now that I have covered the dumb humor and the fake gore, let's talk about the 3 stories. The first one just starts off with no incentive on how it began and these gangsters just start dying for no reason and its really dumb. The second story is about a veteran's son who inherits a trashy estate after his dad dies and the tenants don't like how he acts so they decide to get even and thats stupid too. The third story is even retarded because its about 2 rappers in which one is fatally shot and comes back to haunt the other because he believes that he was involved and its just really not entertaining at all. Altogether I gave this movie a 3 out of 10 because Snoop Dogg needs to stick to rap, I gave this movie a chance because I thought that Snoop's other horror film Bones was pretty good, but this was just horrible and I don't even know how it got made because it sucked and the greatest part about it was the credits.

Bottom line: This movie is fun as hell to watch. I don't understand people who expect every movie to be an Oscar performance. This is Snoop Dogg people. I saw this movie at Horror fest with my girlfriend and we laughed our asses off. Entertainment is entertainment, and this was an undeniable good time... And yes, I would see it againThis Movie reminded me of Tales from the Hood and Creep Show. It had that similar three part layout with the different tales. Remember the Crypt Keeper on TFTC back in the day? When he'd yell "Tales from the Crypt..." in that creepy screetchy voice. I always thought that was a good intro, and I liked how they kind of morphed snoop into a crypt keeper. BTW - If you haven't seen or heard of the film The Tennants where Snoop plays a writer opposite Dylan McDermott, I highly recommend it. Snoop was amazing in it, and Dylan McDermott was unreal as a Jewish writer hell bent on finishing his script. I found it touching, but it lagged a little in the middle... anyway that's neither here nor there... back to Hood of horror...I also like the Anime intro in this movie. It was intense and visually stimulating. It definitely wasn't funny, but it trying to be, it was actually serious, and I thought it stood up on its own dramatically (as opposed to the rest of the movie which was really just a romp.) I'd actually like to see the comic book version of that sequence if anyone knows were to find it, or if they know any other work by that artist. I'm not really into Anime, but I like the hip hop angle and it moved well. If I do have any gripe about this film it's that I think there should have been more gore in the third segment. I liked the music and the flow in the third segment, but it was a little tame on the blood and guts, which I'm not trying to abdicate, but I think think it might have worked out better with a bit more gore in that one. It was more dramatic and touching, but after the first two, I really wanted more crazy scenes with outrageous random horror. But it was still cool, and that actor Aries Spiers who does the JZ rapper impersinations on youtube was actually a descent as an actor in it, which I was surprised about.Bottom line is movie was good. I can't stand everyone trying to evaluate movies in the same way. Some movies are for fun and entertainment and some are for serious artistic evaluation. This movie was a 10 on the fun scale, which is all it was supposed to be (unless I'm wrong and they were actually trying to win some festival awards), so that being said, me and my girl give it two thumbs up.