“Put them to EVIL use! It’s all they know. Or want.”
My experience of blaxploitation films remains spotty. I’ve seen some of the classics (Shaft, Superfly) and some of the horror-adjacent films (Blacula and Scream, Blacula, Scream), but that’s pretty much it. I have a list culled from a site Wastoid zak1 recommended – Black Horror Movies – that’s pretty extensive. I need to make it a priority. Especially if more of them are as fun as Sugar Hill.
Sugar Hill was recommended to me when I was doing 31 Days, 31 Horror Movies over at another site. I went into it almost blind, having seen nothing more than a poster or two in a zombie movie book. I have to admit I wasn’t expecting much – those shiny-eyed zombies looked bad – and with the main character wearing a white jumpsuit it looked like a kung-fu/zombie mashup. Something that didn’t inspire confidence. (At the time, that is – I kinda need to dig into the admittedly small kung-fu zombie genre now.)
I had a blast. Maybe it was just low expectations, or maybe Sugar Hill is just that much fun. I mean seriously, I hadn’t enjoyed a film like that in a long time. It’s a low budget blaxploitation flick, but damn if it isn’t a great ride.
I’m not going to address any of the elements that would be problematic in a modern context. It’s a voodoo themed blaxploitation flick from the 1970’s – you should know what you’re going to get.
The Medium
I have (finally) the 2015 Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. It looks fine – certainly better than my previous viewings – but there’s room for improvement. It does come with a commentary track and some cast/director interviews. I don’t think there’s anything planned for a 50 year anniversary release, but I’d love to be surprised. For streaming, Sugar Hill is free for subs on Amazon Prime and AMC+ and free with ads on PlutoTV. You can rent or buy it from Fandango At Home and Vudu.
The Movie
Sugar Hill opens with a voodoo ritual dance number, and it’s cheesy enough for you to think “oh, man, this movie is going to be all kinds of problematic” – so when it turns out to be an actual dance number being put on at Club Haiti, a bar, it’s kind of a relief. We’re then quickly introduced to Diana “Sugar” Hill (Marki Bey) and her boyfriend, club owner Langston (Larry D. Johnson). Don’t get attached to Langston, he won’t be around long. Mob boss Morgan (Robert Quarry) and his gang, led by the absolutely fabulous Fabulous (Charles P. Robinson) first threaten Langston about selling his club, and then – when that doesn’t work – engage in a lethal beat down in the parking lot.
Sugar, devastated, swears revenge.
So far, so good. It’s great seeing some familiar faces – Quarry was an AIP staple, and I remember him from films like Dr. Phibes Rises Again and Count Yorga, Vampire. Charles Robinson has been in a ton of stuff, but an 80s kid like me remembers him the most as Mac on Night Court. Marki Bey did mostly TV appearances in the 70s and then retired from acting, sadly.
Sugar turns to Mama Maitresse (Zara Culley – who I also remember as Mother Jefferson on The Jeffersons), a voodoo “queen” who agrees to help Sugar after she gives the old woman a puppy-dog look. Mama takes Sugar into the swamps where she raises Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley) to help Sugar in her quest for revenge. He agrees, for a price to be determined later, and raises a small army of zombies from the graves of slaves buried in the swamp.
This is where the movie really gets cranking for me. First – the zombies are surprisingly effective. Yes, their eyes are basically half a ping-pong ball painted silver, and they look like they got dusted with flour and had cotton candy wrapped around them. Somehow this works, and when they crowd around the camera or lurk in the background, chains clanking and machetes upraised, they have a definite eerie vibe. I also love the occasional flash of personality they display, as when two of them rise from the ground and then smile at each other.
Second, the Baron is magnificent. When he first appeared and started in with his gold teeth and over-the-top delivery, I was unsure. It was too much. And then it was just what the movie needed. Don Pedro Colley is hilarious in the role and gets all the best lines.
“I’d like you to meet Baron Samedi. And what he’s going to do to you won’t cost you a cent.”
“It’s on the house.”
Sugar Hill herself is an awesome protagonist – beautiful, tough, classy and kinda scary. Marki Bey does a great job with the character.
Sugar and her crew of zombies get to work, hunting down the gang that killed her man. Despite being an exploitation flick, Sugar Hill doesn’t have much in the way of gore or nudity. The deaths are all off-screen or fairly tame – we don’t see a man decapitated, but we’ll see his bloodless head on a pile of sawdust. We see a coffin full of snakes but don’t see the bad guy covered in them. That’s really my only complaint about the film, it should be much more over the top than it is. Ah well, I guess that’s what the Baron is for.
I do like all the deaths, as they’re fairly varied. One in particular got me laughing out loud when an animated chicken leg attacks one of Morgan’s men. I suddenly realized the chicken was choking the guy and laughed hard enough to snort soda through my nose. I don’t know if that was intentional, but it’s hilarious.
While Sugar, the Baron and the zombies chop, cut and bury their way through the henchmen, Detective Valentine (Richard Lawson) is on the case, trying to figure out what ties all of the murders together. He’s an old flame of Sugar’s (they’re a little too friendly, given Sugar has just lost her boyfriend), and is constantly trying to figure out if she’s involved. He also has some of the best 70’s outfits in the whole film, and this includes a man named Fabulous and Sugar’s own impressive wardrobe. (I love her white jumpsuit with the red lining – but it does look like she should be putting an epic, kung-fu beat down on some “honks.”)
Morgan spends the entire movie trying to pressure Sugar into selling Langston’s club to him (and trying for a less… businesslike arrangement). By the time he finally figures out that she’s the one responsible for devastating his gang, it’s too late. He goes to confront her at her family estate near the swamp and is faced with the original zombies, as well as the re-animated corpses of his men. They chase him into the swamp, and I found myself hoping that there would be an alligator attack. Alas, he falls into quicksand instead, but I guess that’s an acceptably 70’s death.
And I didn’t even mention the super-annoying mob moll (who gets in a cat fight with Sugar) or the Australian voodoo expert. This movie is just so jam packed with weird ideas and set pieces.
The Bottom Line
All killer, no filler. There’s not a moment in Sugar Hill where I felt bored or that seemed to drag. Yes it’s cheaply made (director Paul Maslansky is probably better known as a producer of such films as the Police Academy series), but it does the best it can with the money it has. (Much of which had to be spent on those spectacular outfits.) It’s not really a horror movie – more of a revenge thriller – but those horror bits do give it that touch of bizarreness that moves it from really fun to freakin’ amazing.