REVIEW: 'Tales From The Hood 3'

                              

Cast: Tony Todd,  London Brown,  Cooper Huckabee,  Lynne Whitfield, Savannah Balsey, Patrick Abellard and Sage Arrindell

Director: Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott 

Date of Release:  6th October 2020 

Plot:  Four paranormal tales are told while an old man and a little girl are hiding from an unseen evil. 

Yes... Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott have brought yet another sequel of the 1995 horror anthology, no doubt hoping to make fans forget about the disastrous mess of 2018, which was really terrible.  But you have to admire their insistence in taking their story out there, despite the previous sequel's negative reviews and once again it has Spike Lee as its Executive Producer. 

Instead of Mr Simms (Clarence Williams III, Keith David), we have a nameless character played by horror veteran Tony Todd  taking a little girl  across a  cemetery,  strange-looking masked figures behind them, reminiscent  of Jason Voorhees.  They find shelter and we brace ourselves for the new batch of stories about to be told as they while away the time. But to our surprise, the storyteller is not Todd's character, but the little girl instead. 

    

 Tale 1- Ruby Gates-   a greedy/heartless landlord (London Brown)  faces the consequences after he causes the death of a family resisting eviction, one of them being a boy battling with leukaemia.

 Tale 2- The Bunker- a white supremacist (Copper Huckabee) rants cringeworthy racist propaganda on a CB radio, while keeping the undesirables (Blacks, Jews etc) away from his property but not all is what it seems.

                             

Tale 3-  Operatic- a young aspiring singer takes a job caring for a rich elderly woman (Lynn Whitfield).  Chela and her manager Park plan her murder and it ends in a startling twist. 

The 4th and final tale- Dope Kicks- a  violent mugger is punished after he makes the mistake of mugging an old woman and a young man.  

When I first heard rumours of a second sequel last year, I honestly didn't think it would actually happen. What actually drew me to this new installment was Tony Todd. With several drama (Platoon), science-fiction (Star Trek: The Next Generation)  and horror (Candyman, Night of the Living Dead, The Crow, Final Destination) credits under his belt, especially as the mysterious coroner, William Bludworth in the Final Destination films, not to mention his deep, resonant voice- I anticipated watching him as the new narrator. To my dismay, he turned out to be someone else I DID NOT see coming! The child, played by Sage Arrindell, was wonderful as his young companion Brooklyn, her warm innocent air in contrast to the eerie tales she told, as well as Todd's character's morose demeanour, at one point he sheds tears and we wonder why... as well as his and little Brooklyn's back story. 

The movie itself... it's not as good as the original BUT better than Tales From the Hood 2. At least the opening setting- the Cemetary- was sombre and creepy, one of the gravestones having an image of a leering skull, oddly enough. After getting over the change in the storyteller, one would wonder why an innocent 6 year old would tell such stories and why on earth her mother, who she claimed told them to her, wouldn't' worry of traumatising her. Each tale was of course paranormal but had a social message. However, not all of them I would give a high grade to.

'Ruby Gates' was a bit predictable but it will always pop up in my head whenever I hear a basketball bounce.  'The Bunker' was cringy and very painful watch- a disgusting man performing a disgusting act with a black blow-up doll, yet still made my mouth hang open on discovering the truth about his surroundings. Hopefully, such a place will never manifest in the future. Of all the stories, I  hated this one. 

In 'Operatic', it was a delight seeing another veteran,  Lynn Whitfield (The Josephine Baker Story)  and I feel the young lady who played Chela (Basley), is destined for great things.  But the tale's plot turned out to be similar to another horror film, yet still presented the ugly reality of racism.  Lynn's character- Ms Beniot, bitterly recounting the theatre audiences' outrage at seeing her play the coveted lead role in  Carmen, heralding the end of her career. And I hate how this tale insinuated a lot of R&B songs are sexualised, the song Chela was singing as a backup singer was really gross and offensive, more like the theme music for a porno!  

The final one, 'Dope Kicks', one would immediately hate the central character, Percy (Patrick Abellard), the unrepentant, unsympathetic bastard who doesn't care who he hurts as long as he gets what he wants from his victims. Initially,  the beginning of the strange occurrences he experiences is comical but once he discovers the truth, there's definitely hell to pay. He is another version of Crazy K from the original film and no way out for him after he mugs an old woman (BIG mistake) and steals a pair of gold sneakers.   

The epilogue... well, I'm not saying anything about that, except brace yourselves for the climax. 

As this is is a better effort than Part 2, I give this  6 over 10.

Quotes 

Nameless old man: Evil has a way of looking really nice and shiny on the outside... on the surface when it has to. 

Brooklyn:  Can I tell you a story? 

See the trailer