I'm gonna start this blog off right - with this monster-sized, probably too long to read, screen-heavy (for the skimmers) writeup of Snoop Doggie Dogg's best starring vehicle since Soul Plane.
It's hard to believe an anthology horror movie heavily featuring Snoop Dogg could exceed expectations, but Hood of Horror is even more spectacular than I ever dared hope. I stumbled across this gem after catching the tail end of Tales from the Hood on BET the other night, and I don't know what inspired this unrelenting block of awesome in BET's programming, but I would have been a fool to not gorge myself on so much inner-city terror.
I'm just gonna throw this out there: urban-tinged genre movies are nothing new, but there's no genre that benefits from a hood sensibility more than horror. This probably has to do with the fact that both hip hop and horror are at their absolute best when they're at their most over the top. And Hood of Horror is so over the top it's impossible not to enjoy. This is that rare film that's at its best when it's not even bothering to make sense. And even when it's at it's worst, the movie still features Snoop Doggie By God Dogg as a soul stealing demon of the ghetto, the promise of which probably got this project the green light on its own. Hell, I know I would've signed off on that pitch.
We kick off with some admittedly pretty cool animation running over the opening credits that serves as an origin story of sorts for Snoop's character. This is one of the better-looking parts of the movie, so I won't be shy with the caps (click the pics to zoom in, btw). Two cars speed through the hood in mid turf war firefight. One of the homeys is obviously some kind of demon - his Apocalypse-sized devil grin is a dead giveaway - while one of the others is obviously a more ripped anime'd-out Snoop named Devon.
Brother Devon gets the drop on the demon - or so he thinks. The bad guy - reminiscent of Ned Flanders in his turn as the devil - pulls the ol' Final Boss Second Form Transformation Trick in a flash of fire complete with apocalyptic gospel choir singing. So now he pretty much looks 100% Satan.
We get a little exposition as the devil takes us back to a not-so-pleasant episode in Devon's life. Turns out, back when he was small time, he accidentally pushed his own little sister's wig back, prompting his Momma to quip "I hate you. You're not my son. You're a devil." It's no "Get outta here. You belong in a garbage can," but that's some rough stuff. Devon goes through some pretty serious animated grief here, though I'm too busy marking out over the credits revealing the presence of Diamond Dallas Page in this movie to get down over some dead little girl. And before I can even calm myself at the prospect of Snoop a Loop and DDP in the same movie, the credits drop "With Jason Alexander" on me.
Holy shit, Hood of Horror just keeps getting better. This means there's even the slightest possibility one of the tales could feature a zombie George Costanza getting his head snapped off with a Diamond Cutter outta nowhere while Snoop screams "He got Vandelay-ed out!"
(Artist's MS Paint Interpretation)
Funnily enough, Diamond Dallas Page gets trumped in the "Best Pro Wrestling Name in the Credits" competition by Aries Spears, of MadTV nonfame.
We get more of Toon Snoop emoting, including a spectacularly mumbled "Naw man did I really shoot my lil sister man naw dat shit couldn'ta been me man I must be trippin shit's crazy" voiceover that sounds as if it was recorded in one take while Snoop still had the blunt in his mouth. Devon's response to all this demonic flashback action is to empty his gat into the devil, who just laughs and squeezes his skull a bit. The devil reveals that Devon is lucky that he can be of use, to which Snoop replies, simply, "Man, go fuck yo'self, nigga."
This is awesome because Snoop would totally tell the devil to go fuck himself, nigga, in real life.
Turns out, Devon must now become a Hound of Hell, doomed to gather the lost souls of the hood in order to increase his power. The movie acts as a glimpse into Snoop's role as a Hound of Hell, as he watches over the hood and shepherds directly to the abyss all those who refuse to walk the Samuel L.-esque path of the righteous man.
See, the Hood is full of demons of all types, all shapes and sizes - including Half Pint, Snoop's demonic puking midget minion. I like to think this character was conceived just because midgets are funny and puke is funny, so a puking midget is therefore comedy gold. As soon as we meet Pint he flips us off, then pukes all over the place, and that's really all the characterization he needs.
Another notable demon in the Hood of Horror is a legless baller - played for about 10 seconds by Tayshaun Prince - named Footloose who absolutely has to be a reference to (or ripoff of) the only Tales from the Crypt episode I can remember that prominently featured any black actors - the one where the cheap ass funeral director hacks his baller grandkid's feet off so he can hide his body in a cheaper, shorter coffin. (That is, other than the one in which James Remar uses a chess game as a means to bang Whoopi Goldberg).
Anyway, as Demon Snoop tells us, he runs things here and the only way to get redemption in the Hood of Horrors is to listen and learn from his tales of terror. So sit back while Snoop drops some knowledge on ya.
Part 1 - "Crossed Out" or "Brains Around the 40, Something Something Posie"
Snoop's first tale is about his girl Posie, a graffiti artist with a score to settle with the gangbangers in her hood. It seems her mom was a victim of gang violence, and poor little Posie had herself a William-Murderface-type origin story in which as a child she watched her mom get shot in front of her in a murder-suicide. So Posie visits her mom's grave and swears that somehow she'll send all the bangers straight to Hell in her mom's memory.
Cut to a group of Latino gangbangers (the hood kind, not the porn kind) taking their girls for a stroll down the alley when one of them - Fatcap - notices some fool spray-painted "Posie" over his tag. He gets pissed - this is his alley, after all - so he and his boys go to retag the wall only to be interrupted by an angry Posie.
She makes fun of their tags - "Streako? You mean streak-o-shit running out ya ass?" - and teases a knee to Fatcap's junk, then thinks better of it, claiming she'd need a GPS to find his "chocolate-chip" of a dick. That's supposed to be a size thing but I'm more disturbed by the idea of someone's dick actually resembling a chocolate chip in shape. Fatcap doesn't appreciate the comment, seeing as he apparently thinks enough of his own package to justify nicknaming himself "Fatcap" but concedes that Posie has jokes. He then tries out a joke of his own, which involves jamming his Glock in her throat.
After no-selling the gun - hate to shatter Fatcap's ego but it's not the first time she's had a gun pointed at her - Posie sprays him in the face with paint and books it down the alley to some hot hip-hop.
The gang gives chase, and Posie escapes to the rooftops only to be snatched by - of all the wondrous things - a grimy, bum-lookin, voodoo'd-out Danny Trejo (of Machete and Desperado fame, among a zillion other things). Rest assured, Danny Trejo playing a mystic bum is definitely an early highlight of this one. As she struggles to escape, Posie slips and bashes her head, and when she comes back around she's strapped to a chair in Trejo's candlelit voodoo lair.
Voodoo Trejo insists the streets need "a woman's touch," so he hooks Posie up with a pretty sweet skeleton hand tattoo that any Misfits fan would be jealous of.
But the ink does more than just look cool - anyone whose tag Posie crosses out will now have a nice grisly death to look forward to. Not a bad way to get your revenge on a bunch of tagbangers, but wouldn't simply spray-painting the word "sucks" next to their tags have done the trick, too?
We then join our boys Fatcap, Streako, and NIB (My name is Lucifer, please take my hand), who are chillin out enjoying a bunch of forties and watching a nameless ho strip down while "Shake That Shit" plays on the soundtrack. It might seem pretty awesome that roughly 10 minutes into this one we're getting tittays, but due to all the creative use of shadow (and apparently pasties) the "nudity" is pretty PG. Still, Fatcap grows frustrated watching Streako enjoy his lap dance and demands the other girl give him "full contact for top dollar." None of that two-hand-touch bullshit for him. She obliges.
Meanwhile, Posie stalks the alleys until she finds Fatcap's tag, which she crosses right out.
Fatcap's girl grinds on him for a bit then tries to just straight up swipe his dough mid lap dance like he wouldn't notice, so he smacks her one and goes to pull his gat out of his pants, but - those darn voodoo curses! - ends up shooting himself right in the dick, blasting chunks of his hog all over the girl's face. Fatcap bleeds to death from his mangled dong and you can take that first name off Posie's death list.
Posie's response? "It was a gift. From Satan. He gave it to me for fingerflickin my private parts during last week's sermon." That's some sass!
Enter the only black man in space - Billy Dee Williams, as Pastor Charlie - along with a grieving couple. After dismissing the mourners,
We then rejoin the remaining gang members, Streako and Nib, and in a scene right out of White Men Can't Jump, Streako sends Nib off to the basketball courts to get them in the next game while he pulls on a ski mask and robs the convenience store up the street for gambling money. Meanwhile, Posie lurks in the shadows and emerges to cross out Streako's tag. Whuh-oh.
A few distant gunshots clear the courts, and Streako runs back holding a stolen 40, his gun, and some cash from the register. Nib scolds him for the reckless behavior, but Streako puts him in his place, saying he robs because he has to look out for both of them. Nib asks if he wants to end up like Fatcap, which makes Streako emotional. He decides to pour out some of the 40 in memory of his dead homey but is interrupted by police sirens. Nib escapes and Streako tries to book it, but instead he slips on the spilled malt liquor and gets impaled mouth-first on the 40 bottle.
And that right there is probably the best part of this entire movie. We're about 20 minutes in and it's going to be hard to top that. I mean, holy shit, the old "Fallin Mouf First On a 40 After Slipping On What You Poured Out for Your Homey Death." Only the crack epidemic has claimed the lives of more inner-city youths. This film's existence is completely justified (if it even had to be) by this scene, because Hood of Horror is probably the only movie that could feature a death by 40oz impalement and not have it seem tacked on.
In the spirit of Streako's tremendous ghetto-inspired demise, here are some potential Hood of Horror deaths I'm now eagerly looking forward to:
1) Throat slit with welfare check
2) Rolled up in a blunt and smoked to death (it's been done)
3) Exploded heart due to ingestion of entire family-size portion of Popeye's Cajun Fries
4) Cock accidentally shot off in rape attempt (wait, just happened)
5) Watermelon avalanche
Posie chimes in here as Streako's brains geyser out of the bottle with a Schwarzenegger-caliber one liner - "What a waste... of a beer!" For a second - between the murder and the quick wit - she comes off as the hottest, most hip-hop possible version of Angela from Sleepaway Camp 2 and 3 and I'm loving this goddamn flick.
Of course, we follow what might be one of the best death scenes ever committed to film with one of the lamest, as Nib discovers Streako's corpse and runs to a phone booth (must be the hood - this movie's from 2006) to call an ambulance I guess? Not so sure any amount of medical attention is going to help much when your brain's been replaced by a glass bottle of Steel City Reserve. But Posie crosses out Nib, too, and the pay phone cord wraps around his throat, slitting it.
Yeah, it's definitely going to be hard to top the 40 ouncer impalement at this rate.
After this we get a montage of Posie going kill crazy and crossing out tags all over the hood interspersed with shots of Pastor Lando Calrissian comforting grieving families at the church. Eventually Posie decides to get some work in on the mural, but she's interrupted by a none-too-pleased Psycho Trejo who admonishes her, saying that she could have stopped the cycle of hood violence but instead she chose to make the wheels spin faster.
He erases her magic tattoo and summons the reanimated corpses of Fatcap, Streako, and Nib (all in D-grade zombie makeup) to take their vengeance.
The ghouls grab Posie and - continuing Hood of Horror's trend of awesome deaths featuring foreign objects crammed into peoples' skulls - spike her can of spray-paint into her cranium.
The dead bangers then paint the blank church wall with her brains. Trejo wraps this up with a fourth-wall-breaking "Now that's life imitating art!" but we'll just pretend he said "death imitating art," because come on how do you mess up that obvious joke writers of Hood of Horror?
Later on the church holds a memorial service for Posie, and both Snoop and Trejo attend. The mural is unveiled - a bright blood-red bouquet of posies - and the congregation takes comfort in the fact that Posie will live on through her art.
For his part, Snoop decides to appreciate the work up close and plucks one of Posie's eyes from the wall before wrapping things up with his most Crypt-Keeperiffic line thus far: "Well, well, well. Look at Posie now - pretty as a picture!" I guess they were saving the quality lines for Snoop. Sorry, Machete.
Part 2 - "The Scumlords" or "Tex Jr. Is a Wrestling God"
A longhorn-adorned caddy pulls into the ghetto accompanied by a song about how you should "Kiss my redneck ass" to kick off our second tale. It's morning again in the Hood of Horrors as
The two are obviously out of their element - Tex Jr.'s cowboy accessories and his girl's fur coat and decorative chihuahua that goes by the name "Pootie" make this abundantly clear. And they seem taken aback by the state of the building they just pulled up in front of, which according to the plaque outside is "Col. Tex Woods' Home of Heroes," a community home in the hood for elderly Vietnam veterans.
Cue a quick interlude with Snoop, watcher of the hood, who is none too pleased by the arrival of the "Scumlords," but advises the audience to "spark em if ya got 'em" (you heard the man) and "lock up your sheep" (what?!) because "there goes the muthafuckin neighborhood."
Looks like we've got an "Inheritance With a Catch" tale on our hands. It seems Tex Jr.'s old man owned the old folks' home up until his untimely demise, and he left it to his good-for-nothing son, but there's a bit of business to settle first if he wants to claim the property. Tex Jr. introduces the terms of the will way more effectively than I ever could: "Whoa, whoa, whoa! You mean he actually expects us to live in some ghetto rat trap with a buncha... colored folks!?" Turns out daddy found Jr. lacking a bit in the character department, and he thought a year under the same roof as a few highly-decorated vets might make him a better man. And as long as the vets are still around, it's technically their house until the conditions of the will are met.
It's worth noting that Tex Jr. has been onscreen for about 2 minutes at this point and has already shot around five separate diabolical smirks right at the camera. The man just might have an evil scheme up his sleeve.
Since I brought up Tales from the Hood at the outset of this post, I'm just gonna go ahead and say that as far as "Racist White Men Getting Their Comeuppance" tales go, this segment is infinitely better than the one in Tales from the Hood (in which Corbin Bernsen plays a racist politician who gets killed by a pack of voodoo dolls), mainly because of Tex Jr. heeling it up like Bradshaw in Germany the whole time.
So anyway, the happy couple enter their new tenement to find a group of old black men relaxing in the living room. But this is no mere group of old black men - this group features motherfucking Ernie Hudson (yes, Winston Zeddemore), Richard Gant (George Washington Duke from Rocky V), and Tucker Smallwood (I remember him best as the guy who owned the Mercedes parked in two spaces that George was going to spit on in the parking garage episode of Seinfeld - he's notable here for playing an old black man in a wheelchair wearing sunglasses holding a guitar). This all-star group plays Roscoe, Jackson, and Stevens, respectively. There's another guy there, too, but he was never a Ghostbuster or almost spit on by George Costanza.
It just occurred to me that this would therefore make Hood of Horror the second project to feature both Tucker Smallwood and Jason Alexander in starring roles. Truly, they are the new DeNiro and Pacino.
Tex Jr. introduces himself to the men as if they're a bunch of deaf foreigners, explaining (very slowly and loudly) who he is and why he's here. The vets are upset to hear of Tex Sr.'s untimely passing, as he was their commanding officer during the war and they had a ton of respect for him. "Yep," Jr. agrees as he spits tobacco into a coffee cup and mugs for the camera, "he was a got-damn saint, wudn't he?"
Cut to a hilarious flashback of Tex Jr. running his daddy the fuck over in his horn-bedecked ride. Jr. manages to pack so much greatness into this 30-second clip, from his cockeyed swig of a whiskey bottle to his "Fuck you, daddy! FUCK YOU!" (wham! horns to the chest) followed by a nonplussed "Daym!"
Tex Sr.'s cowboy hat goes flying as he's gored by two tons of American workmanship and he dies on the hood of his son's car, with a betrayed look in his eyes and a horn in his sternum.
But Jr. wants to forget all about the old man and get settled in his new digs. He asks Roscoe ("Ro-ra-raw-Rochester?" "Roscoe." "Right.") to bring his and his lady's bags to the room upstairs, where they can have the privacy a young couple sorely needs. Roscoe explains that the room in question is his, but Jr. pulls rank on him, saying even if Roscoe was the Lieutenant back in the day, his daddy was the Colonel, and the Colonel's son takes priority. Roscoe agrees "for the lady's sake," so Tex Jr. leads his lady off to their new room with about the third smack on the ass in this scene alone.
So Tex and Tiff get all moved in as Roscoe lugs his stuff out of his room. Taking advantage of the poor old vets apparently gets Tiffany horny as fuck, because as soon as they're gone she tears her top off and bends over the bed.
Tex Jr. kicks the door shut in a way that makes it clear he's an Elvis man, and Tiffany even requests to be done Elvis-style: "The Hound-Doggie Special!" while a "Viva Las Vegas" knockoff plays in the background. Tex Jr. is the goddamned man.
The vets seem a bit bothered by the banging going on overhead, but promise themselves that since Jr.'s daddy was such a great man - even having saved all of their lives during the war - they owe it to him to teach his boy some honor.
The next day, a winning move in a game of checkers gets Jackson all worked up, so he flicks on the radio and we've got an old black man dance party on our hands, complete with wheelchair moves from Stevens.
Things are interrupted momentarily by the appearance of
Anyway, Jungle Julia busts a move with Stevens in his wheelchair (bringing back fond memories of Zack Morris and Melissa Donahue at the Wheelchair Basketball Dance) and everyone's happy for the moment. That is, until Tex Jr. boogies downstairs holding a clipboard with Tiffany in tow.
I'd like to point out that Jr.'s wearing a cowboy shirt and bolo tie with a bunch of pens tucked into his shirt pocket, which - it may be just me - I find hilarious.
Tex introduces himself to Wanda (even busting out the old "lick a finger and make a sizzle noise when you touch the hot chick" move), and she informs him and a jealous Tiffany that lunch will be ready shortly.
Which brings Tex to his point. He didn't prance into the room with all his accounting tools for nothing. See, he's been crunching some numbers, and between having Nurse Wanda on call for the men and all the extra money his daddy had been pouring into the home over the years, he figures the vets have racked up a bill of $3,400.22 each, which he expects to be paid. Of course, the vets don't have that kind of money, so Jr. decides to cut back on the home's food budget and garnish the old men's pension checks until - as Jr. puts it - he is "made whole."
It's at this point that Stevens decides to break the news to Tex: "You already are whole. An asshole."
Jr. isn't amused, and suggests that Stevens either roll himself on out the door or listen to Tiffany's plan to make everything right. Turns out, the men can work off their debt by remodeling the house. Specifically, Tiffy wants to combine all the rooms upstairs - the ones the men currently occupy - into one big suite for her and Jr.
The men don't seem too keen on the idea until Tex threatens to make Miss Wanda go bye-bye, so Roscoe begrudgingly accepts the proposal. One remodeling montage later, and Tiffy and Tex have their new honeymoon suite, while the old men contemplate revenge in the cramped room they all now have to share.
The next morning Jr. steps outside to receive a package, but he finds someone peeing on the steps of his slum. After shooing the urinator away and claiming the man's forgotten hat, Tex Jr. signs for the package - another set of decorative longhorns. The man has his tastes. He lets out a good-ol'-boy hoot with the horns held high over his head, then goes back inside to ruin the veterans' Fourth of July celebration with Jungle Julia.
See, despite Tex Jr. being the embodiment of every redneck stereotype there is, he sure as shit ain't no patriot, explaining that his daddy wanted him to enlist in the Marines during the Gulf War, but he bribed his way into the Texas National Guard instead. Hilarious that even Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror felt the need to take potshots at President Dubya.
The mention of Jr.'s departed daddy prompts Roscoe to propose a toast in honor of "the best C.O. the sole survivors of Charlie Company, Second Platoon in the Fighting 88 ever had - Tex Woods," which leads to this exchange:
Tex Jr.: "Hey, believe me when I say it, Rothstein, the pleasure's all mine."
Roscoe: "I was referring to your father."
Tex Jr.: "Son, I will skullfuck you."
Before things get out of hand, Jr. excuses himself and Wanda so the two can have a discussion with Tiffany about the lack of food for the men as well as Stevens' rapidly deteriorating health (he's been coughing in the last few scenes, so I guess that means he's dying or something).
Of course, all Tex and Tiffy have in mind as far as Wanda is concerned is a threesome. After stripping down to his Confederate flag boxers and cowboy boots, Tex pins Wanda to the bed, but she threatens to tell the Department of Veterans' Affairs about the couple's mistreatment of the men.
Neither Tex nor Tiffy wants that to happen, so they forget about the threeway in favor of suffocating Jungle Julia with a leopard-print pillow.
Roscoe doesn't appreciate any of this and promises Jr. that his day will come, only to be ridiculed. He decides to break into the icebox in the basement in order to steal some food for the other men, but only finds Nurse Wanda's frozen corpse and a shit ton of caviar. He runs to tell the others, and discovers that Stevens is now also dead. Quite the one-two punch there. This can probably only lead to one thing: revenge!
So Roscoe and the others gear up for revenge. Meanwhile, Tex Jr. is pumping away at his old lady upstairs to the strains of "Cotton-Eyed Joe" and shooting the shit about how all their evil schemes will soon pay off (apparently Tex Jr. - much like Elaine Benes - is a big fan of small talk during sex).
Eventually, Roscoe, Jackson, and Vance (the one in the group I haven't mentioned yet because he played neither Brandon Lee's disgruntled cop sidekick in The Crow nor a cop unconcerned about missing Credence tapes in The Big Lebowski) burst in and put the beatdown on Jr. while he's still in his Dixie underdrawers.
After about a minute too much of a closeup on Jr.'s eyeball rolling around in its socket accompanied by squishy eye noises, Tex wakes up to find himself being waterboarded by the vets. They torture him for a while, then duct tape him to Stevens's wheelchair and march him to his new suite while singing "I don't know but it's been said/ Redneck dick's gonna end up dead." Things aren't looking great for Jr. right about now.
First thing we see when they get to the love nest is Tiffany all bloated up (with accompanying fart noises on the soundtrack) and tied to the bed with Pootie the Chihuahua's cage next to her. According to Roscoe, they've been starving the dog and stuffing ol' Tiffy here with its beloved caviar. Apparently that shit's salty, so I guess that explains the bloating (and the gasiness).
Gentleman that he is, Roscoe decides to stay true to his word and attempt to teach Jr. some honor. He gives him the choice of who leaves the room alive - Tex or Tiffany - and, of course, Tex chooses himself, explaining that Tiffany looks like she's let herself go, anyway.
So the vets reveal a little project they've been working on - some kind of pump or vacuum that they've modified to shoot caviar through a hose. They strap the hose to Tiffany's face and flip the switch, causing her to swell and burst (Roscoe: "Now that's what I call Tiffy-pop!") in a shower of gore and caviar that gets everywhere - and, according to Jr., indeed tastes quite salty.
Roscoe frees Pootie from his cage, and the dog begins lapping up the caviar from Tiffany's exploded stomach. Tex is revolted, but glad he gets to leave the room with his life. Oh wait, "the room?"
Yep. Cut to just outside the room, where the vets are about to kill the shit out of poor Tex. He pleads with them - "I'm gonna change, Remus!" - promising to turn over a new leaf. But Roscoe's had enough of his evil racist ass (not to mention the whole "getting his name wrong constantly" thing - although, haha he called him "Remus"), so the men send Jr. wheeling to the bottom of the stairs, where he is impaled neck-first on his own brand new decorative longhorns.
Ernie Hudson wraps this one up pretty well - "That's my kinda redneck!" (Dead! Get it? Well at least I hope that's the joke, and not some weak bloody neck thing). But before we move on to our final tale...
We join Roscoe, Jackson, and Vance in their newly pimped-out crib, enjoying the holidays with their new friend, Pootie. But Pootie seems bothered by something, and Roscoe remembers that the new landlord is coming for a visit and the dog doesn't like him. Enter (non-Toon) Snoop and Half Pint.
Pootie gets right up in Snoop's face, barkin, actin a fool, makin a scene, so Snoop asks if doggie wants a biscuit, then gets a little evil in the face as he pulls out his Glock and blasts Pootie to smithereens. He informs the vets that "you got to abide by our rules - absolutely no dogs allowed... present company excluded, of course." Ah, Snoop a Loop.
And as if random dog murder wasn't weird enough, Half Pint then chimes in by straight up puking right in the old men's punchbowl.
Snoop exclaims with delight: "Hell, yeah! That's what I'm talkin bout! That oughta whack you old grunts back to the psychedelic shack." And then, pointing directly to the camera, "Talk about your Apocalypse Now? Check this shit out."
I definitely have to start using "Talk about your Apocalypse Now? Check this shit out." as an all-purpose subject changer from now on. What I just described up there would be one of those instances where this flick isn't even trying to make sense and it's awesome. I'm just gonna let that scene sink in, since no wisecrack I could ever come up with is going to even touch whatever the fuck that just was.
Part 3 - "Rapsody Askew" - or "Lol RAPsody See What We Did There?!"
The shit Snoop wants us to check out is our final - and despite the awesome cameos, most disappointing - tale of the evening. Things open with a flashback, as a couple of homeys are strolling into Juan's neighborhood bodega. All of a sudden, an unmistakable voice screams out for hands to be put in the air and the register to be opened - DD Fuckin P. After waiting this whole movie for him to show up I'm pumped as hell, even if he is relegated to the role of "Masked Robber in Bodega."
So, DDP's dual wielding his pistols and pointing them at our two horrified homeboys. A montage of "aspiring rap star" images flashes before our eyes - the usual stuff: album covers, people spittin in the studio, gettin with bitches, fondling money and jewelry - before a gunshot sends us to black.
The story gets gets rewound a bit here as next we get one of the dudes from the bodega - up-and-coming rapper SOD, AKA "Succeed Or Die," not that fake carpety grass shit - chilling in church praying to his boy Jesus and explaining that he's done a lot of soul-searching and found his calling as an artist. He promises that if he becomes a big star he'll live his life like a saint. I bet he keeps that promise, you guys.
Out of nowhere, a baseball flies through a stained glass window, and it turns out the guy who just accidentally desecrated the church SOD was praying in is the other homey from the opening robbery scene. He's an aspiring rapper/producer who goes by the name of Quon (played by the aforementioned Aries Spears, who to reiterate should be tag teaming with, like, Brick Sexo or something). That baseball through the window shit musta been a sign from God! Too bad one of them will eventually get shot by DDP in a bodega.
SOD agrees to check out Quon's beats, and it turns out their partnership really must have been meant to be, since they make a big underground mark and gain a ton of momentum. We see a little bit of their rise through a rap-video-style montage accompanied by some lame spittin displayed from both our boys. They compare themselves to Dre and Snoop in rhyme, so I guess things are blowing up for SOD and Quon.
It looks like now we're going to fast forward a bit, though, and we join Snoop a Loop as he welcomes us to "Playa Magazine Urban Rap and Soul Awards," where SOD - now a solo artist, and kind of a dickish one at that - is one of the favorites to win a breakout artist of the year award.
Even MOTHERFUCKING METHOD MAN pops in for a few words with Snoop on the red carpet and to give SOD the nod as his favorite to win tonight. Now, that's an endorsement. And of course - in case there were any doubts - Method Man and Snoop onscreen together is instant gold.
SOD pulls up with his entourage (featuring Diamond Dallas Page as Jersey, the bodyguard, and if I wasn't wrong about him being the robber in the beginning then I've already figured out where this story's going), and Snoop decides to see if he can get an interview. But SOD declines, saying he'd rather postpone until after he wins tonight, then blows past Snoop and his gaggle of vampire hos and into the building.
Yeah, that's what you want to do - piss off the Hound of Hell. Snoop is not pleased and basically says SOD's done for, and he's not exactly subtle about it as he slides his extra-long coke nail through his old neck scar and flashes us his demon face. Snoop then hijacks SOD's limo, using his hos to bribe the driver (who becomes vampire chow).
But SOD's big moment is coming up, and Method Man and Lamar Odom are on hand to present the Breakthrough Artist of the Year Award. S-to-the-O-to-the-D wins to the surprise of no one, and - class act that he is - your boy SOD gives props to his old partner Quon - may he rest in peace.
Things are looking just peachy for SOD, but Snoop lets us know that this here's a cautionary tale about what it takes to make it to the top, and how hard it is to stay there. He then gathers up his freshly fed demon dames, because it's time for them to get their "raggedy asses back out on the street." Pimptacular.
So, fresh off his big win, SOD and his crew bring things back to the dressing room to get the bottles poppin and the panties droppin. En route, a heckler (best hip-hop award show heckler ever: a white dumpy hipster in a fedora, jacket and tie) lets SOD know that he only won because of sympathy and that he wishes Quon was the one winning awards and SOD was the one who got iced.
DDP holds SOD back as the other goons drag the hipster doofus off. By the way, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that DDP is looking more like fuckin Luther Reigns than Diamond Dallas Page in this movie. But then I realized that Snoop's origin story means this flick already has a guy who's had his throat slit from ear to ear, so Luther Reigns would be superfluous.
We'll just have to settle for Reigns-lookin-Page, who ushers SOD into his private quarters to blow off some steam and wallow in his own crapulence. But apparently, building security isn't too thrilled with all the smoking going on at the afterparty. So SOD tells the security guard what's what - the rules don't apply to him - and that the rent-a-cop can tell his supervisor he said so. The guard gets to steppin like he was told, and wishes SOD luck in dealing with his superior, who will be stopping by shortly.
But that thinly-veiled threat doesn't phase SOD, who wants to get the party started right. Diamond Dallas Reigns proposes a toast to the man of the hour, but SOD declines, instead offering cheers to his dearly departed dawg Quon.
He then pours his glass of champagne all over some chick's tittays, licks it off, and screams out "That's how I do thangs!" (as DDP nods his approval).
Hell, that was a close call right there - he's just lucky his face didn't slip off her rack and into a running bandsaw the way toasting to your dead homeys has been working out for people in this flick.
SOD then approaches another girl with "Yo shawty, take ya shirt off!" and she begins to comply but before we see where that's headed things get interrupted...
...by Lin Shaye (leather-skinned Magda from Theres Something About Mary, or if you prefer - Mrs.
She asks SOD if there's a problem here, and when he turns around everyone that was just in the room partying has up and disappeared. Magda - or Clara, as IMDB says she's known as here - tells SOD his guests went out the back door, and when he notices there is no back door she makes the front door melt off the wall. So yeah, SOD's going nowhere.
SOD lets Clara know he didn't sign a waiver for any Punk'd type bullshit, but she says he did indeed sign a waiver of sorts - when he made a promise to God that if he made it big, he would be a better man. She asks him to take a seat with her, and when he refuses she whacks him in the knee with what looks like some kind of retractable bludgeon, and SOD oversells the old lady strike like crazy with an "OH DAYM!" and crumbles in agony into a chair. Clara clicks a button on the remote to reveal a TV behind the wall, and it looks like this tale just took a turn into Defending Your Life territory.
But wait, what image should happen to grace the TV screen but Jason Alexander clad in gold chain and a track suit with sunglasses hanging from the neckhole laughing it up in a record studio office. And yes! George Costanza is doing the worst fucking English accent I have ever heard.
Jason Alexander as a diabolical British record producer - possibly the only thing that could rival him playing a reanimated corpse felled by the Diamond Cutter. Anyway, he's meeting with Quon and SOD, and studio executive Costanza seems to dig their work, or as he puts it: "The demos! The demos! Oy love em! Oy fuckin love em!" This movie is fucking ideal.
So it looks like SOD and Quon are about to sign with Vandelay Records, but when George asks if there's anything he can do to sweeten the deal for the boys, SOD requests a shopping spree - because he needs to have "some ice... and a Benz."
Everyone - including Quon - realizes SOD's being absurd, but he holds firm to his demands and even walks out on the deal when he's denied. SOD thinks it was his aggressive bargaining tactics that won them the deal, but - as Clara shows him on hidden God-cam - it was Quon who apologized for his ridiculous ass after he stormed out and made the deal happen for both of them even though he could have signed it for himself.
SOD isn't with the whole morality play unfolding in front of him so he tries to bribe his way out of the room with a wad of cash. That fails pretty miserably, so we get more images from SOD's past.
And this particular image is a pretty naked white bitch grinding all up on him (none of the women in this movie appear to have nipples, by the way) while he makes her call him a "big star." So SOD's got a bit of a Dirk Diggler complex, so what?
Oh, wait, turns out the girl was jailbait. Now SOD's in the news for statutory rape, which leads to this exchange between him and Quon:
SOD: "Dawg, stop sweatin it! That's the best publicity we ever had!"
Quon: "We! Statutory rape!? Yo you on your own with this one, homey! What're you fuckin nuts?"
SOD: "Dawg, she said she was 18. There was grass on the field - anybody woulda played. I tell you, family, that bitch was TIGHT! I even peed on her!
Take that R Kelly! Quon makes to beat some sense into SOD, but the melee gets broken up by DDP. Quon says he thought they were in it for the music, but SOD explains he's in this to make it big. But that's no consolation for Quon, who hates to see his best friend changing into a diva right before his eyes.
The next history lesson we get brings us back to Juan's Market on the fateful night of the shooting. In an effort to make peace and make amends for losing sight of their roots, SOD suggests he and Quon hit up the bodega they used to buy booze at before they made it big and get crunk like the old times. Quon seems apprehensive, instead wanting to put in work at the studio, but SOD insists, and - as we already knew - the place gets robbed.
The masked gunman caps Quon right in the forehead - splattering his brains all over the 2-liter bottles of Squirt - and puts a bullet in SOD's shoulder before fleeing the scene.
This episode brought SOD major sympathy - not to mention street cred for taking a bullet - and was instrumental in the launch of his solo career (seeing as his partner was killed, and all). But SOD is still refusing to take the hint and is getting all worked up over having to relive such painful memories, so he demands Clara explain what the point of all this is.
Clara gets a familiar evil yellow glow about the eyes, and then there's a knock at the door. Now who could that be?
Why, it's Zombie Quon! And I think his makeup may look even worse than the zombie taggers from the first tale - he doesn't even at least have a 40 sticking out of his skull, so yeah, I'm going with worse. But, shoddy makeup aside, Zombie Quon has another video for SOD to watch, and he brought it on VHS! Gotta love a dead guy with a fondness for dead technology.
SOD can't believe this shit anymore, bawling out "Somebody musta laced my weed!" in his most Shatneriffic overdone line reading yet. But Quon tells him, "Just wait - you'll be trippin soon enough." Clara pops the tape in and leaves the room so SOD and Quon can catch up.
It looks like Quon brought some more footage of the night of his death, and he has some issues he wants to address as far as SOD's involvement. First, it seems SOD had the foresight to be wearing his bulletproof vest that night. Now sure, it's a staple hip-hop accessory, but it does seem a bit fishy. Quon then goes on to inquire where Jersey the bodyguard was that night. Yep, saw it coming. DDP was the gunman all along, and SOD put him up to it.
Quon torments SOD a little, grossing him out by eating his own ear, until Jersey knocks on the door with two hos - SOD's "late night snack." And it's SOD's lucky day - one's even over 18!
Anyway, of course DDP can't see Zombie Quon, and he thinks SOD's freaking out or something, so the groupies get sent off while Jersey attempts to talk some sense into him. SOD keeps insisting that since they killed Quon he's come back from the dead to kill them, but Jersey isn't buying it.
So Quon gives him the old double-knives-to-the-eyes and Page has positively bit it.
Quon takes this post-murder opportunity to pontificate on award shows, saying that there's too many of the things these days, and that he "talked to God" and "He told me to tell all you guys - quit thankin Him. He doesn't give a shit." Afterlife zing!
SOD just about snaps at this point, grabs the knives out of DDP's eyes, and starts stabbing his undead homey in the gut, which has no effect other than to elicit a few zombie chuckles and a fourth-wall-breaking "How many times they gonna kill a nigga?" delivered right at the camera from Quon.
It does, however, give the floozies that came with DDP the perfect opportunity to open the door and find a wild-eyed SOD standing over Jersey's corpse with two bloody knives in his hands. Of course, they scream and run off in hysterics.
Quon's scheme is now finally apparent to SOD, and it looks his old reanimated pal is going to get his revenge because the Po-Po can't be too far away now. But Quon's got some consolation for his old buddy: "If you're lucky, you'll go platinum - on Death Row!" Rap jokez!
SOD decides he may as well go out in a blaze of glory and kill as many cops as possible so he'll always be remembered as a gangsta. He bolts from the room, Jersey's gat in hand, while Zombie Quon gives us a parting chuckle and a jovial "That nigga's dead!" as he runs headlong into a shootout.
SOD manages to cap some cops before he gets dropped Amadou Dialo style - just shot to all fuck.
He collapses in an elevator, and when he opens his eyes we're back in Toon World with the Hound of Hell and his posse of damned souls. Snoop congratulates SOD on going out "like an OG," but SOD wants to know what the Hell this is, to which Snoop replies, "exactly."
Half Pint hits a button and the elevator takes an animated plunge into a gigantic fanged demon mouth that leads right to Hell, and I can't help but think that this is all a bit too metal to be truly hip-hop. But, whatever, it looks cool.
So we wrap things up with the Hound of Hell perched on his demonic throne, flanked by his vamps and his midget demon. Snoop tells us that everything we saw is just what he does - make sure that people get to where they need to go. It must be hard work, because Half-Pint tries to quit, but Snoop denies him - they're locked in for eternity, after all. So they make up and pound it out, and the movie comes to a pretty anticlimactic end with a music video of sorts for Snoop's Hood of Horror Soundtrack smash-hit "There Goes the Neighborhood" running over the credits.
All in all, this is one HELL (get it!?) of an entertaining flick. I know I got a kick out of it, but that could just be because I can't remember a movie I've seen lately that was so directly up my alley. But I recommend seeking it out if you've never seen it and dig stupid horror flicks, even though I pretty much just ruined the whole thing for you. Oh well.
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