Thursday, March 15, 2012

Danny Trejo Week: Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror

It's all scary in the hood!  I've been looking for a pretense to review this movie for a while...and this is it.  How could I not do this film?  It's an urban, horror anthology film- I was born to watch this crap.  I kid, I kid.  In all seriousness, I am entirely the wrong demographic for this film, which just makes it all the funnier.  That's for you to decide, I suppose, but I'm just skipping to the part where you all agree with me.  This film has three tales to it, so at least there will be some variety.  Only one of them actually features Trejo, but he does seem to actually be aware that he's in a film this time.  I'm still convinced that they just gave him a free T-Shirt and a private room with some of those ladies to get him to 'star' in On Bloody Sunday.  Will these tales be balanced or will there only be one good one?  To find out, read on...
During the opening Credits, we find out that Snoop Dogg is a guy who makes a deal with the Devil to save hi sister.  In exchange, he gets gold hair- why not?- and has to tell us tales about the titular Hood.  Fair enough.
In the first tale, a girl is upset about bad people in the Hood, since her dad pulled 'a Benoit.'  She runs into this guy (Trejo) who gives her a magical tattoo covering her arm.  Gives up a whole new meaning to 'nothing up my sleeve,' huh?
Sadly, the moral of this tale is a bit confusing.  He gives her the power to kill, she kills and then, well, he punishes her for killing.  Weird.  Next tale...

In the second story, a rich guy has to live with some black Vietnam Vets for a year to get his inheritance.  His plan- be a dick and chase them out.
After months of hell and one of them dying, the group kills them all.  If you ever wanted to see a lady's stomach blow up, this is the movie for you!

Between stories, Snoop Dogg shows up and blows up a dog with a handgun.  Random, but okay.
In the final tale, a Rapper hits it big, but he has some secrets about the incident that got him the most notoriety...
...but before that, here's a random cameo by Seinfeld's Jason Alexander.  He plays a record executive...who's British.  Weird.
As it turns out, the guy had his bodyguard- DDP...the hell?!?- kill his partner, just for the publicity.  Thanks to, um, magic, the dead guy kills DDP aka Jersey and frames the rapper, who goes down in a blaze of bullets.  The lesson- don't kill people, I guess.  The End.
The Hood is alive with the sound of murder!  This movie is full of death, destruction and uneven storytelling.  There are good moments here and there are bad moments.  Good moments include Trejo's freaky make-up, some creative kills and the general atmosphere.  The bad moments include vague morals, awkward pacing and some silly kills.  In the first tale, our heroine/villain(?!?) kills people by writing an 'X' through their signature of graffiti.  How they die, however, is completely random and up to fight to decide apparently.  I was kind of expecting some rhyme or reason to this, but whatever.  In the second story, a young lady is killed by the bad couple, but they cover up the murder.  Later on, the Vets mention that they are doing the punishment for her (among others).  Huh?  Do I even need to go into the vague logic of who the people punishing the evil Rapper in the third tale are or how the zombie/ghost is invisible to DDP?  Is it like how Hogan could see Warrior in the mirror, but Eric Bischoff couldn't?!?  Ultimately, this film is a mixed-bag.  Some good moments in the tales and some bad.  Of course, that's usually the case with every horror anthology, so there's no surprise.  Take us away, silliest kill of the movie...
Next up, the unofficial end of Danny Trejo Week involves vampires.  As long as leeches don't come out of your boobs, all is well.  Stay tuned...

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