The storyline that frames the shorts follows three drug dealers attempting to acquire drugs from a funeral director. As they make their way through the mortuary, the funeral director tells stories explaining the dead in the caskets. Each story reflects the morality of these three drug dealers.
In the first story, a Black police officer is haunted by the guilt he feels from being deliberately complicit in a murder. His fellow (white) police officers kill a Black activist in front of him, and he fails to do everything he could to protect the innocent man. A year later, he lures the officers to the activist’s grave, where the activist rises from the dead and kills them one by one. The undead activist confronts the Black police officer but leaves him alive to be framed for the murder of his colleagues.
This short highlights police corruption and violence, but the wider conversation is about the complicity of some Black people, especially Black cops. There is a feeling of betrayal when a Black person joins the ranks of an institution that has historically terrorized the Black community. Because the institution itself is corrupt, a well-meaning individual officer cannot effectively stop the violence embedded in the system. This short exemplifies that in a manner that’s accessible but also fun.
In the second story, a concerned teacher notices that his student, Walter, frequently comes to school with bruises. When asked, Walter claims he was attacked by a "monster," which the teacher assumes refers to a school bully. Walter explains that he can get rid of things he doesn’t like by destroying a drawing of them. While the teacher isn't looking, Walter crumples up a picture of his bully, and the bully immediately suffers mysterious, spontaneous injuries. That evening, the teacher visits Walter’s home to speak with his mother, only to realize that her abusive boyfriend is the true "monster" harming Walter. When the boyfriend attacks, Walter crumples his drawing of him, causing the man’s body to painfully contort. Finally, Walter burns the paper, making the boyfriend disappear.
The story explores the impact of domestic abuse on children. It is suggested that the boyfriend may also be sexually abusing the boy, hinted at through a shot of Walter cowering in his bed at night. While the film doesn’t engage with this topic as effectively as it does others in the anthology, it still serves as a powerful conversation starter.
In the third story, a racist senator and Ku Klux Klan member running for governor has recently moved into an old slave plantation that belonged to his ancestors. Upon hearing that slavery would soon be abolished, the ancestor flew into a rage and massacred all the enslaved people on his property. The building is still haunted by dolls that hold the souls of the people he murdered. The dolls leap from a painting and come to life to attack the senator. He wraps himself in an American flag as he is swarmed by the dolls.
This short effectively explores the generational trauma of slavery, as reflected in both the people protesting outside the building and the senator’s racist rants.
The three drug dealers recognize someone in the mortuary, and the final story begins. Jerome is a ruthless gangster who takes pleasure in murder. After gunning down a boy named Lil’ Deke, Jerome is shot in retaliation by Deke’s friends. The police arrive, and Jerome is sentenced to life in prison without parole. After years behind bars, he is transferred to a new facility for an experimental treatment. There, he encounters a white supremacist serial killer who rants about killing Black people and then pointedly asks Jerome the race of his own victims. Jerome is forced to confront the uncomfortable truth that, in the end, they are engaging in the same violence.
As part of the experiment, Jerome is subjected to harrowing imagery of gang violence, lynching victims, the KKK, and his own brutal actions. He is then placed in a sensory deprivation chamber, where the ghosts of his victims—including a young girl—confront him. Unwilling to atone, Jerome suddenly finds himself back in the moment before Deke’s friends shoot him. It was all a near-death experience, but this time, the bullets land, and Jerome is killed.
This is the most powerful story in Tales from the Hood, functioning as a direct intervention from the filmmakers to viewers who may be involved in gangs. It starkly illustrates how gang violence serves as a tool to keep the Black community down. It is a direct consequence of white supremacy and something white supremacists would encourage. The film forces potential gang members to consider who their actions truly harm and who ultimately benefits. It’s a beautifully executed sequence.
In the film’s final twist, it is revealed that the three drug dealers in the mortuary are the very ones who killed Jerome. The mortuary is not what it seems—it is Hell, and the mortician is the Devil playing with them. The walls collapse, revealing a blazing inferno where the three souls scream as they burn.
Tales from the Hood was marketed as a spoof film, so it didn’t do well upon release, but it has since been heralded as a cult classic and an important film in Black horror history.
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