SUGAR HILL (AND HER ZOMBIE HIT MEN) (1971)
The plot: The trailer says it best; The mob took Sugar's man away, now she's gonna make them pay. Refer to title for method of payment.
The poop: Pure junk movie comfort food, and one
of the few movies I can watch on a weekly basis. This is a heavy sentimental
favorite of mine. I first saw it on Night Owl Double-Chiller Theater during my
formative years and I didn't catch it again until the early-00's, where I
caught a midnight showing at the Cinema Wasteland convention outside Cleveland.
Both venues accentuate the unique charm of 'Sugar Hill,' so I highly recommend
duplicating these viewing conditions as much as possible; i.e. late at night
with the lights off, booze optional.
Deal-breakers: Not an easy movie to find. I
lucked out and taped it uncut off of Movie-Plex a few years ago. To the best of
my knowledge, this has never been given a legitimate home-video release in
America (hell, anywhere for that matter). MGM currently owns the rights, and
has a made-on-demand copy available, if you don't mind what is basically a
burned DVD. It was on Netflix for a while, but was part of their great purge a
few months back. Shout Factory has been digging pretty hard at the MGM catalog, so there's a chance this beauty will have a legit DVD or
Blu-Ray.
Watch out for
those N-bombs. They flew pretty heavily in 70's blaxploitation, and 'Sugar
Hill' is no exception.
The up-side:
Hasn't dated as badly as other blaxploitation offerings.
Marki Bay makes a
charming and likable Sugar Hill, though she doesn't even wait for her man's
body to get cold before she starts flirting with an old flame. But Don Pedro
Colley knocks it out of the park with his Baron Samedi, the Lord of the Cemeteries. Bug-eyed, sweaty and grinnin' ear to ear, if Colley didn't have the
time of his life making this movie, it's not for lack of trying.
'Sugar Hill' has
a great hot, humid atmosphere, and comes closer to matching the EC-comics vibe
than most anything else.
Makes a good
double-bill with: Either, or both, Blacula pictures.
Other stuff: Blaxploitation-horror is a
seriously small footnote in cinema history. How small? These are the only other
Blaxploitation-horror offerings during that 1970-1977 boom period: 'Blacula;'
'Scream, Blacula, Scream;' 'Abby;' 'Blackenstein;' 'House on Skull Mountain;'
'Lord Shango' and 'J.D.'s Revenge.'
In the early to mid-seventies, Marvel Comics published a comic magazine called "Tales of the Zombie," which was ostensibly about Simon Garth, a coffee-magnate who was turned into a zombie, but also ran unrelated back-up stories and articles about all things voodoo, including 'Sugar Hill.'
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