{[['
']]}
']]}
Okay, take the blaxploitation genre, add zombies, and put Samuel Z. Arkoff in charge of the whole mess. What do you get?
Pure. Cinematic. Gold. I kid you not. Sugar Hill is about as silly as it gets, and as a result holds up better than most of its more dated contemporaries. The plot: Sugar Hill (The Landlord's Marki Bey) and her boyfriend Langston (Larry D. Johnson, who never appeared in another movie) run a club that the local mob is trying to shake down. After they refuse to pay protection money, Langston is brutally beaten and left for dead outside the club. Sugar appeals to the underworld for revenge, entreating her grandmother to summon Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley, recently seen in Roger Corman's Piranha remake), the voodoo god of the dead, to raise an army of zombies which she can use to strike back at the mob. Lieutenant Valentine (Guess Who's Richard Lawson), investigating Langston's death, finds himself drawn to Sugar, but can't help thinking she's behind the string of murders and disappearances plaguing the mobsters...
Don't get me wrong-- this is a bad movie. The script (penned by High Chaparral staff writer Tim Kelly) is stiff, and the acting follows suit. The direction is inept (Maslansky is a producer, and since this attempt behind the camera, has remained a producer). The lighting often looks as if it was provided by a couple of car headlights and a bonfire. But come on, now, you're watching a blaxploitation zombie movie, are you expecting The Godfather? The cheese factor is high on this one, and that's part of what makes it so enjoyable. There have been a lot of voodoo-based horror movies over the years, and most of them are better than this by any empirical measure-- but it's this one that's going to stay with you years after you've seen it. ***
Post a Comment