Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror

Ahhh, the Snizzoop Doggy Dizzogg. Everyone’s favorite pimp rapper delivers a horror anthology called Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror. This film premiered as part of the 8 Films To Die For After Dark Horrorfest that played in theatres last November. I just watched it on DVD. Do you want to see some true, ghetto sickness? Are you ready for some muthafuckin’ urban mayhem, nephew? Then read on, beeeyatch.

Hood of Horror (directed by someone named Stacy Title) is comprised of three short films held together by some animated sequences (cartoons). The muthafuckin’ Snizzle (fo shizzle) plays the part of narrator. The opening cartoon explains that Snoop was a gang banger who got his little sister killed. He makes a deal with the devil so that she can live again. His trade-off is that he has to go to hell and become “The Crib Keeper”. His job is to see that the evildoers in the hood receive their proper comeuppance. The producers and writers (including Tim Sullivan) of this anthology admit that they were going for an urban take on the old EC Comics stories (including Tales From The Crypt). So, this movie is not a rip-off; it’s a re-imagining with a hip-hop twist.

The first episode tells the story of an artist named Posie (Daniella Alonso) who lives in a really shitty part of town. She witnesses a couple of punks spray-painting over one of her graffiti tags. She yells at the wannabees, but they run her off. Later, she meets a creepy derelict played by Danny Trejo. He gives her a sweet arm tattoo that has magical powers. She learns that if she paints over the tags of other taggers, they will die grisly deaths. One of these deaths is one of the funniest kills I have ever seen in a horror movie. Spoiler: A dude trips while running with a 40 ounce malt liquor in his hand. He ends up falling face first on the bottle. The bottle doesn’t break. It goes through his face and ends up with the top sticking out the back of his head. Priceless.

The second episode is the longest and the best of the three. It’s about this redneck asshole named Tex Jr. (Anson Mount) who has to live in a building occupied by his dead father’s old Vietnam war buddies. Junior is required to do this in order to receive his inheritance. This was his late father’s last effort to straighten out his son. You see, Tex Jr. is a racist prick and the veterans are all African American men. Tex Jr. moves into the building with his hot wife Tiffany (Brande Roderick) and her annoying little rat-dog. They kick one of the vets out of his upper-floor bedroom and convert it into a suite. They proceed to offend and take advantage of the vets. Things get ugly. The vets get revenge. A stomach explodes. This episode is hilarious. Anson Mount is a genius.

The third episode is the weakest of the three. It’s about an up-and-coming rapper and his DJ. When they meet, their aspirations and intentions are pure. They get famous and the rapper turns into a spoiled, self-centered prick. The DJ gets murdered. Pretty soon, the rapper is seeing ghosts and learning lessons and whatnot. There is one good gore sequence where Diamond Dallas Page gets his eyes poked out. Watch this episode to see a cameo by Jason Alexander as a record company executive with a terrible British accent.

I have one last thing to mention. In the behind the scenes featurette, Daniella Alonso discusses her reasons for accepting the role of Posie in this movie. She said that she loved the character because Posie was so layered, so interesting, so deep. Give me a break. This is a fucking low-budget horror film. Just say you accepted the role because you needed work and Snizzle’s name was attached to the picture. Chuch.