One from the Crypt : Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror

Film transports us. It is our magic ticket to escape the pressures, doldrums and existential crisis’ of life.  It is also a window to reflect on our humanity and at times that reflection further empowers us as we witness the plights of our favorite characters and how their struggles resonate with memories of our own hardships. It inspires us with heroes we aspire to be and villains for us to rise up against.

It is with a heavy heart then that I come to you with news that Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror falls horribly short of any of the aforementioned observations.

If there was an Olympic contest that involved a bungee cord and a catheter, it would still be less painful than digesting the cinematic shit sandwich that is Hood of Horror.

Let me elucidate my rather harsh criticisms by beginning with the fact that I am not now nor have I ever been a fan of “the hip-hop”. My Scot-irish ancestry simply has no room for it. My underwhelming middle-class upbringing does not allow me to directly empathize with those that fall pressure to the temptations of “the hood” and let’s not mince words…  my complexion falls somewhere between the shades of the Winter Brothers and Gollum. Let it not be said, however, that I am one to scoff at the cultural diversity of my misunderstood urban brothers. With renewed resolve then let us grab our favorite pack of menthols and ingest the silky smooth aged majesty of that near supernatural of elixirs Old English and begin our journey into Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror.

The anthology, Hood of Horror, gives us three stories to sink our gold capped incisors into, each introduced and segued by an animated wraparound story that involves Snoop himself. Each little parable is an exercise of Twilightzoneesque come-uppance but minus Serling’s sardonic sense of humor, social rhetoric or shocking twist.

The first paint-by-numbers little ditty tells us the tale of a girl on the streets who receives a mystical tattoo from a hygiene-challenged Danny Trejo that allows her to simply cross off the scum on her shit list by quite literally crossing out their graffitied names on the surrounding neighborhood buildings. Notorious pirate turned entrepreneur Lando Calrissian tries to use the glory of the gospel to turn her wayward attitude around, but it’s too late as she begins to abuse her power and soon finds herself on the other end of Trejo’s supernatural “street justice”.

Story two drives the point home that Texas, much to the chagrin of its millions of socially malaligned homophobes, IS home to steers, queers and the disembodied mustache of Freddy Mercury. The handlebar moustached son of a celebrated Vietnam Vet decides to tarnish the memory of his father by desecrating the tenement that pop’s old plattoon buddies now reside in, attempting to take back the property and sell it for his own selfish reasons. Heading up the cast due to what I can only guess was an elaborate extortion plot involving a stadium of heroin and a trunk full of dead underage hookers are veteran actors Ossie Davis and retired ghostbuster Ernie Hudson. Davis and Hudson spearhead a plot to take revenge on the son after he repeatedly exploits their kindness and kills their friends AND they do so in gory fashion involving small dogs, cavier, elaborate hood ornaments and excessive flatulence.

Story three brings us to the door of Snoop’s stomping grounds as an aspiring rap artist trades friendship and loyalty for fame. Diamond Dallas page incredibley raises the acting bar for this one as we are treated to a tour de force of such forgettable sequences as god actually using divine intervention to coerce a street thug into becoming a recording artist. Way to go, God! Who has time to stop tsunamis when you’re busy planting the bug in Flo-Rida’s ear for his next hit single?

Unlike a lot of his contemporaries, Snoop understands the entertainment industry enough to have successfully branded himself with enough mainstream appeal that even the whitest parts of suburbia knows who he is. Like a lot of entertainers he has made the jump from music to movies several times and has lent his name to many, and I’ll break down the fourth wall here to illustrate that the next word is encapsulated in quotes, “creative” projects. I get that. I get the idea of using your influence and sway to build a little empire around yourself, fulfilling your whims and exploring new territory. BUT, it appears as though Snoop’s influence actually undermined the talent of the people associated with the production. I actually enjoyed director Stacy Tittle’s sophomore effort The Last Supper and writer Tim Sullivan has been swimming the bloody waters of horror long enough to have known better as well.

I just can’t help but think that this is what happens when a group of people get together and “yes” their benefactor all the way to making a shitty movie when far more creative decisions could have been made. There are tonal choices that destroy any sense of lingering mood and camp that is so predictable that it just completely ceases to be any fun at all. Several special effects are used to a distracting degree (case in point being the excessive use of cgi blood, and a “shimmer” effect used on a pair of vampire vixens in the beginning of the film that would make even Stephanie Meyer cringe… if she were capable of doing anything but counting money)

Hood of Horror shows flashes of genuine self awareness at times as characters meet their fates in grisly fashion (living in a low-rent section of town made me appreciate the death by malt liquor sequence) but it is too little too late and often accompanied by a less than inspired one liner or poorly delivered dose of computer generated gore.

Hood of Horror fails not because of its own insipid approach to what it thinks makes horror a simple and easy money generating genre, but because it assembled a team of creators and actors that were far better than the fair they were presented with. Hood of Horror represents itself as a collection of urban cautionary tales against the backdrop of gore and horror, but it really serves as a cautionary tale of how NOT to invest 5 million dollars into a subpar picture aimed at an audience that it relentlessly stereotypes throughout the bulk of its running time.

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Tags: Danny Trejo, Ernie Hudson, Hood of Horror, Lando, Old English, Ossie Davis, Snoop Dogg