Tales from the Hood

Spike Lee was the executive producer of this horror anthology that attempts to comment on an aspect of the African-American experience in each of its stories - with uneven results.The first story (a rookie cop encounters brutal and bigoted colleagues) is flat and predictable, and the third story (a racist politician struck by an old slave curse) seems like a rip-off of Trilogy of Terror's Zuni fetish doll segment. Much better are the second story (a boy and the "monster" that appears in his room at night), and the instant classic Clockwork Orange-inspired fourth story (concerning the attempted reform of a gang member). An amusing Clarence Williams III plays the ghoulish mortician linking the four stories together.