Tag: anthologies
Tales from the Hood was woke before woke was woke, addressing issues that are still central to the social justice conversation today, from police brutality to institutional racism to the socio-economic conditions of the inner city. As “hood cinema” fell out of favor by the turn of the century,...
Aside from being a reliable source of quality holiday horror entertainment over the past year and a half, Hulu’s feature film anthology series Into the Dark has low-key become an inclusive showcase for women of color, who have starred in at least one-third of the episodes so far, including...
Party Day Massacre Stories is a movie in the same way that I would be a surgeon if I were to sneak into a hospital, steal some scrubs and haphazardly dig around a patient's chest cavity with a can opener. Yes, I'm technically performing an operation, but no one...
The original Tales from the Hood arrived in the midst of the "urban" cinema movement of the '90s, providing a genre spin on the racial and social consciousness of trailblazers like Spike Lee, John Singleton and Julie Dash. More than two decades later, as social consciousness has evolved into...
Propelled by the likes of Trick 'r Treat and the V/H/S and ABCs of Death series, horror anthology movies made a comeback in the early 21st century -- with varying results. One of the more under-the-radar efforts was Scary or Die, a low-budget but high-quality portmanteau that takes a...
Ah, Chester Novell Turner. Not since John Wayne Gacy have three words instilled such terror in the heart of Man. Contrary to popular belief, the person who brought you Black Devil Doll From Hell was not immediately thrown into a padded cell with no ventilation. Instead, he remained free...
Voo-did it again. Like fellow Amicus studio production Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, this British anthology features a tale of voodoo revenge -- although by the time Vault of Horror came out eight years later, the roles of black folk in horror movies had evolved beyond this dated formula....
Urban Evil is a sneaky re-packaging of three Full Moon titles -- The Horrible Dr. Bones, Ragdoll and The Vault -- presented as a Tales From the Crypt-like anthology, without so much as a character to introduce and tie them together. It's a testament to how thin these movies are...
Although the horror elements in the Twilight Zone movie don't coincide with the racial elements, the racial portions are horrific in their own right. In the first tale, pissed-off racist Bill Connor (Vic Morrow) -- a reference to notorious Birmingham, Alabama segregationist Eugene "Bull" Connor perhaps? -- loses out...
The creators of this long-awaited sequel certainly knew where their bread was buttered, as they chose to feature the ol' Zuni fetish doll on the video artwork with no regard whatsoever to the human stars. As with the original Trilogy of Terror, the first two stories, fine as they...
