Macabre…ish Horror Review: Tales From the Hood 2
Tales From the Hood 2, 2018/ 111 min
Robo Hell
Dumas Beach (Bill Martin Williams) the largest builder and owner of private prisons (and sexist, racist bigot), he has an idea to build Robo Patriots, a robot police force, that learns from first and second hand experience. He recruits Mr. Simms (Keith David), a great storyteller but first he needs to wow Beach with a story.
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Good Golly
Two siblings and their friend, Zoe (Jasmine Akakpo) go on vacation and stop at a museum called The Museum of Negrosity. Inside is a veritable smorgasbord of every kind and medium of racist propaganda. The place is kept and curated by Floyd (Lou Beatty Jr.), who takes his job of collecting hateful history, seriously. Audrey (Alexandria DeBerry) wants to buy a golliwog called Golly Gee, for her collection. But she is reminded this is a museum, she insists though. Floyd tells the history golliwogs and explains they are not dolls but a tool to steal and kill the spirit of the owner. It will unleash 100 years of pain on that who holds it. They leave in a huff but Audrey has a plan to return and steal it. While there they read a few golliwog books and everyone but Audrey is freaked out. After she gets blood on the doll, it becomes life size and kills Zoe’s boyfriend, Phillip (Andy Cohen) and then Zoe. Audrey welcomes a weird love affair with Golly (Kenneth Kynt Bryan), gets pregnant and has to deliver in the museum. She seals her fate as a creator of new golliwogs.
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Beach likes it but he wants to hear a tale about criminals. And so Mr. Simms obliges.
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The Medium
After a botched and violent burglary of a former pimp and current businessman, Cliff (Creighton Thomas), a group of drug dealers target a fake tv medium, John Lloyd (Brian Batt), the crooks (Brian (Martin Bats Bradford), Booze (Kedrick Brown) and Gore (Chad L. Chambers) kidnap Cliff’s girlfriend, Sandra (Sandra Gutierrez) to get into the medium’s house. They want him to channel Cliff and find out where that money is. John queries, what happens if Cliff doesn’t want to talk? He is told that they kill Cliff’s girlfriend. Then he says he isn’t a real medium. Brian (Martin Bats Bradford) tells him if that is true then they’ll rob his house so it’s not a total loss. So the medium tries to outsmart them. During the séance, he actually summons a spirit, several actually. And they all have something to say to this crew, you see, they are all former victims. When Cliff takes over he now has telekinesis and is ok with this new body and life. And he kills these 3 in interesting and terrible ways.
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Beach approves of this story and he’s ready for more just like it.
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Date Night
A tinder double date with two assumed actresses (Alexandria Ponche as Carmen and Cat Limket as Liz) and a fake casting agent and fake casting director (Alexander Biglane as Ty and Greg Tarzan Davis as Kahad), starts off well at a mansion, they’re wrong about who their dates are, they aren’t dumb actresses. The night starts off with an adult party game and ends up with the women passed out because they’ve been drugged. The guys carry them upstairs, undress them and set up the camera. They’re planning a long night of making porn but while they set up, the guys realize something weird about the women. They don’t make it out the front door and ends up, instead, in the basement with a lot of other men who got there before them. And they are starving.
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Beach explains that the robots won’t be going after rapists, because boys will be boys and mostly minorities and immigrants to the horror of Mr. Simms. Who, in that case, has one more tale to tell.
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The Sacrifice
It’s 1955 and Emmitt Till (Christopher Paul Horne) is awaked from in the night and beaten and lynched in Money, Mississippi. In present day, a pregnant lady, Emily (Jillian Batherson), keeps having nightmares about Emmitt and she fears he’s trying to take her fetus away.
Meanwhile, black Republican councilman Henry Bradley (Kendrick Cross) is fundraising for a racist candidate, William Cotton (Cotton Yancey), who is attacking voting locations. William has promised to make him mayor if he becomes governor.
Emily announces that Emmitt has chosen to live, which means her baby has to die. Henry later sees spirits, that of Emmitt, Mamie, MLK jr etc. But he refuses to be moved until he sees and experiences exactly who William Cotton really is and was and the depth of his hate. But the vote is no longer enough, for his child to live and the Civil Rights Movement to happen, he will have to sacrifice his life.
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Dumas Beach was not impressed with that story. But the AI downloaded it and was changed by it anyway. And Mr. Simms falls into gales of laughter and requests to watch the presentation of his Robo Patriots at the press conference. Beach excitedly tells everyone that in seconds these robots can scan all government law enforcement files and social media. With his patented program, they can predict future crimes and criminal behavior. It can police the streets and be judge, jury and executioner.
They test the robot and it works! And Dumbass Bitch, so called by the robot aka Dumas Beach and his team are not immune, they have also been found guilty.
Dumas runs with the robot, hot on his trail but he catches a ride with Mr. Simms. Unfortunately for Beach, it’s his last ride.
This is not a continuation of the first Tales from the Hood but it is still a horror comedy. This one is heavy on the racism, sexism and violence. The movie seems so much longer than it actually is in part because of tone and weight of some of the shorts. Expect violence, some blood and some times wacky horror. The wackiness lightens the mood of these heavy topics of social commentary. Enjoy!
Trigger warning: racism, violence, date r*pe, lynching