One thing you can say about this movie, besides the fact that EVERYONE is good-looking (even the prince of darkness, Baron Samedi, is hot in a gold-toothed, evil, soulless kind of way) -- is that you always know who the bad guys are. They're the white ones.
Oh,there are a couple of black bad guys too, portrayed as jive-talking stereotypical 1970's Uncle Toms, but if you see a white person in this film you can just sit back and wait for the N-Word to fly. Which, okay, it's a blaxploitation flick and it was the 1970's and I get that. The problem is that it's not a bad movie, and could have been a pretty good one without all the heavy-handedly racist scenery chewing by every white person in a six-mile radius.
Diana "Sugar" Hill (Marti Bey, one the sexiest women of color to hit the screen since Lena Horne), a photographer of either high fashion or porn, I couldn't figure out quite which (one photoshoot of women tossing a beach ball looks suspiciously fetishy)is in love with Langston (Larry Johnson), the owner of a bar called Club Haiti. Club Haiti is coveted by a local gangster, Morgan (Robert Quarry, looking like a refugee from The Godfather), and Morgan doesn't really care whether Langston sells him the club legally, or gets beaten to death by thugs. Turns out to be the latter, and after Langston is confronted by several gangsters dressed like Huggy Bear and beaten to death in the alley, Sugar vows revenge.
How does a beautiful, intelligent, determined black woman get revenge in a 70's movie? Why, she goes to the swamp and asks the local voodoo queen, Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully) to summon the power of EVIL.
Mama Maitresse obliges by conjuring Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley) and that's when things get very weird indeed. Colley plays Samedi with appropriately unholy glee, bellowing operatically at everyone, flashing his gold teeth, and casting flirtatiously evil glances at anything female who happens to cross his path. "He is a great lover," cackles Mama Maitresse as Sugar gazes at Samedi in astonishment...and maybe a tad bit of lust.
With Samedi's army of Zombie slave corpses at her disposal, Sugar dispatches each of Morgan's men in ways both amusing and unpleasant. One is slashed to pieces by zombies in a warehouse; another is eaten by pigs in a cornfield ("You know," purrs Sugar, just before pushing the hapless gangster into the pigpen, "these poor piggies have gone almost a WEEK without any garbage? They're righteously hungry, I'd say.") She picks up another man in a pool hall by pretending she thinks he's hot; when he gropes her and leers "You n****r chicks just can't keep away from the white stuff, can you?" she rolls her eyes and murmurs "Something like that, yes." By 'something like that', she means "I'm going to put you under a voodoo spell and make you stab yourself in the chest with a dagger, you scumsicking pig, and then I'm going to laugh." And she does.
My personal favorite death is meted out to Fabulous, played by Charles Watson, A.K.A. Mac from Night Court. Watson plays Morgan's chief enforcer as a dedicated wearer of plaid shirts and outrageous hats. Sugar takes him down by paying off the proprietors of his favorite massage parlor and, when he is naked and facedown on the table, she unleashes a squad of hideous zombie girls to, uh, massage him to death.
As the bodies begin to pile up, Sugar is visited by Valentine (Richard Lawson, the black paranormal investigator from "Poltergeist"), a detective with whom she apparently has had more than a casual friendship in the past. Valentine wants to know why the murderers of Sugar's boyfriend are dying so creatively; Sugar wants Valentine to STFU and maybe give her a little tumble for old time's sake. At one point, Valentine seeks out Mama Maitresse, who puts her hands on his head, scrutinizes him, and spits "This man is NOT A BELIEVER!" before she stomps off, followed by a deeply amused Baron Samedi.
Morgan's girlfriend Celeste is played (with icy venom) by Betty Ann Rees as a cool blond with limited intelligence, great legs, and a very bad racial consciousness. When Sugar visits Morgan to discuss the Club Haiti and Morgan asks Celeste to get Sugar a cup of coffee, Celeste rolls her eyes and snaps "I ain't waiting on no ni--" before Morgan cuts her off. She spends most of the movie making nasty remarks about black people, once getting beaten to a pulp by Sugar for her troubles; at the end of the fight she shrieks "I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS, YOU BLACK BITCH!" as the bartender calmly wipes counters and picks up broken glass behind her.
Celeste is, in fact, such a thoroughgoing nasty bitch that you actually cheer at the end when she gets her comeuppance: after Morgan is dispatched by zombies in the old mansion, Baron Samedi shows up to collect his fee -- and Sugar pays her debt by handing Celeste over to a fate worse than death. When last seen, Celeste is being carried, shrieking, into the swamp by a wildly cackling Samedi, who no doubt is trying to figure out how he can sexually humiliate Celeste with her mouth taped shut.
The movie is surprisingly good. The performances are smooth; even the most overblown characters, like Celeste and Samedi, manage to take their portrayals right to the edge of parody before turning back without breaking character. The problem is that everyone is so over-the-top, scenery-gnawing evil or good that Sugar, who really stands somewhere in the middle, never finds her feet.
Also I think I wanted her to end up with Samedi. Their kids would have been gorgeous.
Oh,there are a couple of black bad guys too, portrayed as jive-talking stereotypical 1970's Uncle Toms, but if you see a white person in this film you can just sit back and wait for the N-Word to fly. Which, okay, it's a blaxploitation flick and it was the 1970's and I get that. The problem is that it's not a bad movie, and could have been a pretty good one without all the heavy-handedly racist scenery chewing by every white person in a six-mile radius.
Diana "Sugar" Hill (Marti Bey, one the sexiest women of color to hit the screen since Lena Horne), a photographer of either high fashion or porn, I couldn't figure out quite which (one photoshoot of women tossing a beach ball looks suspiciously fetishy)is in love with Langston (Larry Johnson), the owner of a bar called Club Haiti. Club Haiti is coveted by a local gangster, Morgan (Robert Quarry, looking like a refugee from The Godfather), and Morgan doesn't really care whether Langston sells him the club legally, or gets beaten to death by thugs. Turns out to be the latter, and after Langston is confronted by several gangsters dressed like Huggy Bear and beaten to death in the alley, Sugar vows revenge.
How does a beautiful, intelligent, determined black woman get revenge in a 70's movie? Why, she goes to the swamp and asks the local voodoo queen, Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully) to summon the power of EVIL.
Mama Maitresse obliges by conjuring Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley) and that's when things get very weird indeed. Colley plays Samedi with appropriately unholy glee, bellowing operatically at everyone, flashing his gold teeth, and casting flirtatiously evil glances at anything female who happens to cross his path. "He is a great lover," cackles Mama Maitresse as Sugar gazes at Samedi in astonishment...and maybe a tad bit of lust.
With Samedi's army of Zombie slave corpses at her disposal, Sugar dispatches each of Morgan's men in ways both amusing and unpleasant. One is slashed to pieces by zombies in a warehouse; another is eaten by pigs in a cornfield ("You know," purrs Sugar, just before pushing the hapless gangster into the pigpen, "these poor piggies have gone almost a WEEK without any garbage? They're righteously hungry, I'd say.") She picks up another man in a pool hall by pretending she thinks he's hot; when he gropes her and leers "You n****r chicks just can't keep away from the white stuff, can you?" she rolls her eyes and murmurs "Something like that, yes." By 'something like that', she means "I'm going to put you under a voodoo spell and make you stab yourself in the chest with a dagger, you scumsicking pig, and then I'm going to laugh." And she does.
My personal favorite death is meted out to Fabulous, played by Charles Watson, A.K.A. Mac from Night Court. Watson plays Morgan's chief enforcer as a dedicated wearer of plaid shirts and outrageous hats. Sugar takes him down by paying off the proprietors of his favorite massage parlor and, when he is naked and facedown on the table, she unleashes a squad of hideous zombie girls to, uh, massage him to death.
As the bodies begin to pile up, Sugar is visited by Valentine (Richard Lawson, the black paranormal investigator from "Poltergeist"), a detective with whom she apparently has had more than a casual friendship in the past. Valentine wants to know why the murderers of Sugar's boyfriend are dying so creatively; Sugar wants Valentine to STFU and maybe give her a little tumble for old time's sake. At one point, Valentine seeks out Mama Maitresse, who puts her hands on his head, scrutinizes him, and spits "This man is NOT A BELIEVER!" before she stomps off, followed by a deeply amused Baron Samedi.
Morgan's girlfriend Celeste is played (with icy venom) by Betty Ann Rees as a cool blond with limited intelligence, great legs, and a very bad racial consciousness. When Sugar visits Morgan to discuss the Club Haiti and Morgan asks Celeste to get Sugar a cup of coffee, Celeste rolls her eyes and snaps "I ain't waiting on no ni--" before Morgan cuts her off. She spends most of the movie making nasty remarks about black people, once getting beaten to a pulp by Sugar for her troubles; at the end of the fight she shrieks "I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS, YOU BLACK BITCH!" as the bartender calmly wipes counters and picks up broken glass behind her.
Celeste is, in fact, such a thoroughgoing nasty bitch that you actually cheer at the end when she gets her comeuppance: after Morgan is dispatched by zombies in the old mansion, Baron Samedi shows up to collect his fee -- and Sugar pays her debt by handing Celeste over to a fate worse than death. When last seen, Celeste is being carried, shrieking, into the swamp by a wildly cackling Samedi, who no doubt is trying to figure out how he can sexually humiliate Celeste with her mouth taped shut.
The movie is surprisingly good. The performances are smooth; even the most overblown characters, like Celeste and Samedi, manage to take their portrayals right to the edge of parody before turning back without breaking character. The problem is that everyone is so over-the-top, scenery-gnawing evil or good that Sugar, who really stands somewhere in the middle, never finds her feet.
Also I think I wanted her to end up with Samedi. Their kids would have been gorgeous.
