REVIEW: 'Tales From The Hood 2'

Cast: Keith David, Bryan Batt, Alexandra DeBerry and  Kedrick Brown.

Director: Rusty Cundieff

Plot: Mr Simms has a fresh batch of eerie paranormal tales to tell; touching on politics, lust, greed and racial injustice.


Date of Release: 2nd October 2018




The unexpected sequel of Rusty Cundieff's brilliant 1995  horror anthology movie; an urban and brutally honest version of Tales From The Crypt, Night Gallery, Creepshow and a homage to the controversial movie, A Clockwork Orange. Tales From the Hood was a thought-provoking film, each tale sending out a social message and a huge twist at the end of the movie.

This sequel did not.

Tales From The Hood 2 was bad... very, very bad... and a disappointing follow up of the previous movie. This one had a more diverse cast but the movie's objective seemed to be generating racism,   'white guilt' and presenting ALL white people as racists and hate mongers.  And considering Spike Lee- the serial nitpicker- was the executive producer of this garbage, I should have expected it. And to emphasise my disappointment, I'm relaxing my 'no spoilers' rule today... speaking on two out of the four tales.

The first tale was 'Good Golly'. An African American girl,  her Caucasian friend and brother go to a 'Museum of Negrosity' (I kid you not), which displayed racist propaganda- posters, books and dolls...including the controversial golliwog doll, who according to the museum's owner was brought vividly to life by an English woman. A direct attack and shaming of celebrated children author, Enid Blyton, who had gollies in the early editions of her 'toy  stories'  and penned the book 'The Three Golliwogs'.
Granted, some of her works are guilty of some racial undertones and I mean some; hence why those said stories have been thoroughly reviewed and changed in the modern editions. But the tale also made it look like Ms Blyton was the one who actually created the doll, a doll hundreds of children played with and had in their toy cupboards back in the thirties and upwards and the obvious message that the golly doll was deeply offensive and still is. The tale seemed to simply talk more about the bad legacy and the injustices the black race endured than its achievements and dismissing the close friendship of the two girls as insincere and not a sign that America has moved forward.  Who the hell would visit a museum like that in real life? Plus, the eerie slave doll from the tale ' KKK Comeuppance' in  Tales From The Hood was there, a very irrelevant cameo.

The other tale is 'The Sacrifice'. Frankly, of all the tales, this one disgusted me most of all. Rusty Cundieff pretty much screamed it out in this one, he does not approve of interracial marriage. How can racial divide be extinct if diverse races are not united? It's easy to point out white racists, but what about the black ones who don't seem to want to move forward? Here, the pregnant Caucasian wife is tormented by the ghost of Emmet Till, who was... let me not elaborate because I weep whenever I think of his tragic story. Anyway, Emmet feels she does not deserve the child she is carrying and wants to take it away from her and claiming he died for nothing as he didn't like what he is seeing in the future. Seriously???

 Meanwhile, her African American husband- Henry- is promoting a controversial candidate (who was inexplicably dressed like Colonel Sanders/Mark Twain)  against advice from his wife and mum, who is anxious about her daughter-in-law's wellbeing. WHY did Henry have to die, rather than do what he should really have done- take his mother's advice?  

The part where the Klan showed up at Emily's urging was VERY confusing; was Emily possessed when she lied against Henry, only to forget everything after she saw Henry beaten to death? Are we to understand that Henry had to be a martyr, like

Emmet, like the Mississipi activists, Dr King, Medgar Evers and the victims of the 1963 16th Street Baptist church bombing - whose ghosts appeared to him- repeating 'respect the sacrifice' ... for Henry and Emily's unborn child to live??? 

Keith David was a great replacement for Clarence Williams III as the sinister Mr Simms but his maniacal reaction when he heard the ' S' word was baffling, considering it was not in keeping with the present situation, unlike the first movie.  And don't get me started with the name Rusty gave to the character Mr Simms meets at the beginning... 'Dumas Beach'???! 


Rusty Cundieff should have reviewed each tale in the script before shooting it. I'm very disappointed in the movie and very disappointed in him, it' s  definitely a poor following of the first one and he simply made himself come off as a hater, moving back instead of moving forward, this badly written sequel sending such negative messages. 

I give it a big  fat zero rating and do not recommend it. Take my advice,  watch the first movie.