Well, it’s October and, as you may have sussed out from my previous posts and my tenure as co-host of DREAD MEDIA, I have a fondness for horror films. I know there are people out there who watch 31 films for the 31 days of Halloween, but I learned a while ago never to make a promise I can’t keep (Seriously, if you look around the internet you will find a blog called
Singalong Scriptures, which is a permanent document of how I failed to do daily essays on songs I played at random from my MP3 Player). But I am planning on watching a bunch of horror movies--some for the two podcasts I’m involved in, one to help out my friend Patrick at Scream Queenz with his Halloween Marathon (go
here for more info; each year's Marathon is a blast, and it's for a good cause), and some just for the fun of it. So I figure I might as well share my ventures into cinematic ghoulishness with you.
Today I’ve been feeling a little upset for personal reason so I decided I wanted to start out with something kinda silly. I almost went with
Blackenstein, which is, not surprisingly, about a Black Frankenstein Monster and is available for free on the online public library screening service
Kanopy, but a sudden impulse prompted me to seek out the blaxploitation thriller/zombie mash-up
Sugar Hill.
Now I had very hazy memories of seeing part of this on CBS late at night, and I remembered it being rather silly and goofy. That was what I was in the mood for. Imagine my surprise to find that it’s...well, it’s actually kinda awesome in its way.
Sugar Hill was made by Paul Maslansky, who is perhaps best known for producing the Police Academy movies and TV series. This was the only film he directed, and it’s a shame because this is a well-paced, professional-looking little picture. It’s obviously low budget--it was made for about $350,000--but Maslansky paces the film well, and knows when to cover up the filler with a healthy dollop of atmosphere. The story doesn’t waste time kicking into gear, and given the relative lack of gore and the way it narratively flows, there’s this sense that this is some sort of Universal monster movie from an alternate dimension.
The zombies, which we learn are slaves who died of fever, are cool designs; they’re a sort of uniform grey, with oddly bulging black eyes and shrouds of cobwebs. However, the greatest special effects in this picture are the duo act of Marki Bey and Don Pedro Calley, as the titular Diana ‘Sugar’ Hill and her macabre patron, Baron Samedi. One of these days I’m going to start a series here in the Domicile about the legion of actresses who show up out of nowhere, give a few distinctive performances, then disappear into oblivion. Bey, besides being very beautiful, is very charismatic and carries the film, allowing us to sympathize with her even as she does some pretty horrible things. I particularly like the fact that Bey has this weird super-hero-esque alter-ego, strutting about in a tight white jumpsuit, whenever it’s time to hunt down her prey.
And Calley, who is working to this day God Bless Him, has a dark sense of humor about him and acts as a great counterpoint to Bey. Robert Quarry plays the villain and is...well, Robert Quarry.
I was very pleasantly surprised in watching
Sugar Hill. I’m not going to make an argument for it being a forgotten classic, but it’s a solid mash-up of classic blaxploitation and horror tropes. If you’re in the mood for something different, you need to check this out.
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