Bones

Fantastic film for its time—

Weak horror film that wastes Snoop playing a vengeful ghost. Shamelessly cribs from better horror films like Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, and Evil Dead.

The city of the dead/shadow realm place is so well done with a great mix of practical and CG effects. This should’ve spawned so many sequels; it’s Snoop Dog as a Freddy Kruger/70s pimp character. It's so visually interesting; one of my favorite effects is the walls of the house turning into melting trapped souls. But the real standout is Bone’s body being re-built with some gnarly practical effect of Bone’s being reincarnated as a dog eats a man alive, and Bone's body is rebuilt with a melting body shot in reverse; it looks insane. Just all around cool as fuck and super funny too without being too goofy. Some may not like goofier moments, but I think it has enough scares/gore to offset the cheesiness of the dialogue and the characters. Anyway, if you have Tubi, watch this movie!

From the very beginning scenes I noticed this movie has aged like fine wine. Some incredible camera work and set design for a movie 23 years old now. The story is definitely interesting enough to keep you watching. If I had one gripe its that Snoop wasn't really that scary, although the end he ends up having a grotesque appearance and it really has a great wrap up to the story. Also, while talking about the ending, the city of the dead with moaning and squirming bodies all over the walls was so incredibly well done. This movie gave me Hellraiser meets Candyman vibes. Honestly a fantastic combination. The acting could have been better by some of the main characters but in the end I have very few complaints other than wishing I had watched this movie sooner! Definitely going to have to revisit it sometime in the future. If you're trying to get genuinely scared this movie probably isn't that (unless you're easy to scare). But don't let that sway you from the fact that this movie was a work of art and clearly a lot of work went into it. It takes itself very seriously which surprised me. Seeing Snoop as the main antagonist on the cover image made me question if this was going to be some evil bong meets the leprechaun type of cheese fest but it was refreshing and good. Don't let the negative reviews cause you to miss out on this one.

Snoop dog's charisma is the height of the movie, but this candyman rip off fails to amount to much except being silly and not scary.

Ignore the critics this is a fun pastiche of late 70s blaxploitation films and cheesy horror

Slow but has a few creepy moments.

This one is actually a lot more solid than I used to give it credit for. Sure it's kind of a silly blaxsploitation horror flick, and on the surface may seem like a cheap gimmick to feature Snoop as the monster. But there's more going on under the surface. A lot of care went into this production, with its classic gothic imagery, a ghostly revenge plot, some wacky humor, and even a tragic love story; it's a shame this never took off to create a franchise. Snoop was game and he even delivers a solid performance.

Obviously underrated in my opinion. People used to scare easier then. It was exquisite to be able to see so many beautiful black actors take on a horrer film without being the butt or first K.O. Snoop is one cold MF with a "killer" back story. (Take as many stabs at that as you please). Feels like we are running out of ways to scare ourselves these days. When you all get tired of burning forests and polluting our water, sit back and enjoy this for what I call a classic. Or take another lap on netflix, sure you'll find something...

A solid B-movie that kind of plods along but is entertaining enough to have playing along in the background as I paint or do my hair. I think a lot of people went into this film with higher expectations than the synopsis and genre suggest. Which is to say that if you started watching a horror film starring Snoop Dogg expecting it to not be a bit corny, low budget and strangely political then you went in underwhelmed from the get go. It has some very interesting visuals and offers a new facet to the b-movie haunted house genre. Its a bit of a mashup of callbacks and older movie references and a slow to follow plot the first time around. I think it may have been better if it hadn't ended up trying to be quite so many things at once. One one hand the concept of a ghost haunting the neighborhood he once supported and protected is fantastic and the added layer of subpolitical intrigue and commentary was important and divergent from other films of the same genre. With that being said...it also tried to play up the slasher/visceral horror of other films coming out at that time and was appropriately heavy handed and made for some deeply uninspired moments throughout. The clash - at times - makes the film hard to take seriously despite some genuinely good - or at least interesting - visuals sprinkled throughout. Overall its not as bad as people are saying it is but its also not really good. Its not all that scary unless you're a child predisposed to fear but if you started this with the take away that it was trying to be the thriller movie of the year you started watching for the wrong reasons. I also feel some reveiwers are missing some important context about both the "steryotypical" nature of the film as well as the subpolitical inflection points. Which is fine but if you understand the history of blaxplotation films and the history behind them and it makes it more interesting to take that format and subvert it into a horror film. You don't have to like it but at least admit you don't know what you're talking about before you go down that particular road. All in all this was a strange movie that tried to be too many things but is still worth watching. It was one of those VHS tapes you owned and only rewatched after you had exhausted all of your other tapes ad nauseum. But you still go back to watch it from time to time. But I enjoy a good bad movie every once in a while so what do I know?