Thursday, March 28, 2024

Tag: stereotypes

CrossBones horror movie poster
If you notice a rancid stench coming from your local video store, if it isn't the six-year-old Twizzlers rotting on the clearance rack, chances are it's CrossBones. This film manages the dubious achievement of being both dull and offensive at the same time. Black stereotypes abound, from the blood-thirsty...
Elliott Gould in Dead Men Don't Die movie poster
I had assumed that the classic mammy stereotype died sometime between the cancellation of Beulah in the 1950s and the re-design of Aunt Jemima's waffle mix in the '80s, but lo and behold, turns out she was alive and well as late as 1991. I should've known that Elliott...
Demons horror movie poster
One of the most energetic, entertaining and Hollywood-friendly films of the '70s/'80s Italian horror Renaissance, Demons is also one of the few to feature major black roles, in this case a pimp (Bobby Rhodes) and a hooker (the redundantly named Geretta Geretta). How refreshing! It's good to know that...
Demon Slayer horror movie poster
Five delinquent "teens" (Hollywood-speak for 30-something) are sentenced to renovate a brothel-turned-hospital in South Central LA that apparently used to host ritual sacrifices back in the day and is now a portal to the land of the dead frequented by demon ghosts of dead prostitutes. Ho-hum. These sub-par, poseur...
Bela Lugosi in Spooks Run Wild horror movie poster
The East Side Kids were a bunch of lovable street toughs (now known as a "gang") who starred in a series of films in the '40s as a spin-off of the similar (though more serious) Dead End Kids pics (They would later also spin off the Bowery Boys.). Former...
The Green Mile movie poster
Sure, The Green Mile isn't a horror movie, but it is based on a Stephen King book, and it is quite horrific in its own way. Check out my detailed analysis here.
Hack horror movie
I think that Hack! is supposed to be a horror spoof, and the fact that I say "I think" should give an indication of how successful a spoof it is. It knowingly throws in a bunch of horror cliches -- including a disparate group of college students (the jock,...
Harold Lloyd in Haunted Spooks movie poster
Haunted Spooks is perhaps best known as the film that almost cost daredevil silent-film comedy legend Harold Lloyd his life -- a not-so-proppish bomb exploded in his hand, costing him a couple of fingers -- but it's also one of the earliest movies to feature the ol' "spook" stereotype...
Chuck Norris in Hellbound movie poster
Hellbound is an '80s movie trapped in 1994, from the Miami Vice attire to the police chief outraged at her "loose cannon" cop to, well, Chuck Norris, the aforementioned loose cannon. And, of course, there's the black sidekick, doing what black sidekicks of the '80s did best (besides dying):...