User reviews

Sugar Hill is that rare mixture of 70's blaxploitation and horror that started in movies like Blacula, Scream Blacula Scream, Blackenstein, and others. It is a pretty neat little film with some good horror sequences of zombies in graveyards and zombies administering revenge. The revenge is based on a woman who loses her boyfriend to thugs wanting to buy his business. He is beat to death and Marki Bey(who by the way is VERY easy to look at)seeks the help of an old voodoo woman(played by the woman that played Mrs. Jefferson on the Jeffersons)that helps her reach the spirit world. She sells her soul for the help of the zombies. The next part of the film deals with the revenge sequences for each individual in the mafia-like gang. The murders are chilling, well-executed(no pun intended), and have a pinch of humour as well. The acting is decent for this kind of film. Vampire star Robert Quarry, having to fill a contract obligation, plays the heavy with his usual charm and wit. The scenery and sets are very good too, but remember this is the 70's...the music is something and the clothes are like WoW! All in all a good zombie flick.

"Sugar Hill" has a lot of what made "Foxy Brown" so compelling, but adds an interesting plot device for a novel twist. I've seen lots of black gangster films where black heroes (and anti-heroes) get over on The Man and The Establishment, but "Sugar Hill" is the only film I've seen where horror monsters (as opposed to gun-play and car chases) are the vehicle for social justice. Of course, there could be others. I don't get out much. (And no, I don't count "Zombie Nightmare", which is a vanity project, not a movie.)

The heroine of the story loses her man to the predations of the local Mob when the Mob moves in on their nightclub. In order to exact revenge, she manages to contact a local voodoo cult (because in this film's social milieu, all black people in the South maintain contact with their pagan cult roots, don'chaknow) and convince them to aid her cause. Hilarity ensues.

On the plus side: the makeup effects for the zombies were novel and extremely effective - I've never seen any other film use 'brass eyes and cobwebs' effects and bluish "bad skin" tints like this. Someone did a wonderful job coaching the extras on how to be convincing as cold, soulless, remorseless, shambling piles of ex-humanity. And they are framed and filmed and lighted in setups out of your worst nightmares. The setups for each of the revenge scenes are well done, and there is a lot of variety in the scenarios, as well as some macabre humor - the 'death by massage therapy' scene managed to be both funny and appalling at the same time, which is a great trick.

Also on the plus side: The actress playing Sugar is very striking and carries the movie effortlessly. She's convincingly merciless and cold as she delivers judgment on each of her foes, and obviously relishes her revenge. The actor playing Samedi seems familiar; I think he shilled for "7-Up" some years ago. He's got a wonderful, deep, rich patois that resonates in the viewers' solar plexus. His sadistic glee and delight in the suffering and terror he inspires in his prey is enough to make you seriously considering defecting to the ranks of the "voodoun."

On the minus side: Once Sugar gets the voodoo revenge ball rolling, it's just too damned easy for her - there is no struggle, or suspense at all. In "Foxy Brown", the heroine suffers rape and beatings and humiliation before she turns the tide on her enemies, and it makes the story more compelling because of it. Even in a Jim Brown "Slaughter" film, Jim had to sweat some to win the day. For that matter, Bruce Lee took some serious hits in his various fights for justice and revenge. But here, the Mob guys are dumb as toast and go down before the voodoo onslaught like mice under a field mower.That turns the film from a heroic struggle to an exercise in righteous sadism against a bunch of mannequins.

And traditionally in films and literature, if the protagonist messes with "Dark Forces" to exact their revenge, they have to pay a price themselves. But Samedi just goes out and tears Sugar's foes apart like an obedient supernatural Pit Bull and it doesn't cost her a thing, at least not overtly. The protagonist's desire for revenge and/or justice is much more convincing if the story shows them paying a real price to achieve it. So again, the film is less than it could be; instead of making Sugar Hill's story a tale of revenge no matter the cost, it becomes an plodding exercise in vicarious power fantasy and butt-kicking.

But still, it's a powerful experience, if only due to the fortunate accident of the makeup and the charisma of the two lead black actors. I'm glad I managed to catch it on Showtime, and if I ever see it on DVD for a reasonable price, I'll probably pick it up for my collection.

Langston (Larry D. Johnson) is the owner of a successful nightclub and he proposes his girlfriend, the photographer Diana "Sugar" Hill (Marki Bey), to get married with him. However the kingpin Morgan (Robert Quarry) and his henchmen kill Morgan when he does not accept his offer to sell the nightclub. Sugar Hill seeks out the voodoo priestess Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully) to revenge the death of her beloved Langston. Mama summons the Lord of the Dead, Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley), who offers a horde of zombies to Sugar Hill take revenge. In return, she offers her soul to him. She lures Morgan while his gangsters are murdered one by one by the zombies. Meanwhile his former boyfriend, Detective Valentine (Richard Lawson), investigates the gruesome deaths of Morgan´s mobsters and suspects that the killer is using voodoo to kill them.

"Sugar Hill" is a funny and cult low-budget zombie film with Blaxploitation to the best. The plot is highly entertaining and the make-up is great, with creepy zombies with half- Ping-Pong ball on each eye. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Os Zumbis de Sugar Hill" ("Sugar Hill´s Zombies")

Sugar Hill is an entertaining voodoo zombie flick from 1974. A club owner in New Orleans is murdered and his wife Sugar goes to a voodoo woman to conjure up Baron Samedi the voodoo revenger. Sugar and the Baron, and the Baron's zombies, go after the mafia kingpin (same guy who played Count Yorga, Vampire) and his henchmen on a bloody trail of voodoo revenge. The Baron even poses as a taxi driver to lure an unsuspecting victim to his fate. Where did Baron Samedi learn to drive a car in the kingdom of the dead? Just wondering.

I am a huge horror movie fan. I have seen a lot of zombie movies and a lot of movies like Blacula. I liked Blacula and I liked Sugar Hill also. They are both more like comedy than horror. But that is what the film makers intended I'm sure. Over-the-top craziness. There is very little gore in his movie so the makers were not going for shock value. They did a good job creating interesting and colorful characters as the protagonists and antagonists. The zombies are well-done, unique, and very creepy-looking. This movie is just a lot of fun. Recommended.

1974's "Sugar Hill" marked the end of Robert Quarry's brief horror stardom beginning with 1970's "Count Yorga Vampire" (a total of 6 features), although he worked continuously in smaller roles in lower budgeted films. In the early 70's, AIP maintained its policy of old fashioned horror, all PG titles, even after the departure of James H. Nicholson, the ideas man, leaving Samuel Z. Arkoff, the financier and distributor, alone in charge. The 2 Count Yorga films were profitable, as were the Blaculas, and other black-themed takes on familiar subjects arrived, like this one here, plucked from obscurity (like "The House on Skull Mountain") by recent showings on Turner Classic Movies. Zombies and voodoo no longer go together in this age of flesh eating Romero copies, but provide all the intrigue in a script filled with clichéd characters and dialogue. Marki Bey stars in the title role, turning to voodoo to avenge the beating death of her fiancée by the hired goons of crime boss Morgan (Quarry), complete with Southern accent and horny moll (Betty Anne Rees, a prior victim in 1972's "Deathmaster"). Betty and Marki even engage in a catfight, ala Pam Grier, a nice touch considering neither would continue acting much longer. Richard Lawson ("Scream Blacula Scream") pads out the running time in a dead end investigation that fails to stop the bloodless carnage carried out by the walking dead, ancestral slaves still in shackles, lifeless eyes covered in creepy webs. Easily the real standout is Don Pedro Colley, a far cry from his restrained performance in 1970's "Beneath the Planet of the Apes," playing the role of Baron Samedi, leader of the dead, a part essayed one year before by Geoffrey Holder in the James Bond thriller "Live and Let Die." Among the supporting cast, the lone familiar face is top henchman Charles Robinson, who appeared in ROOTS:THE NEXT GENERATIONS, before landing a co-starring role on NIGHT COURT. Director Paul M. Maslansky was no stranger to horror, having first worked with Michael Reeves and Christopher Lee on 1964's "The Castle of the Living Dead," mostly as a producer. AIP continued to have hits for the remainder of the 70's ("The Food of the Gods," "The Amityville Horror"), but never really latched on to the genre's changes escalated by "The Exorcist," and by 1980, Sam Arkoff had sold out, the company renamed Filmways, continuing to churn out hits ("Dressed to Kill"). By that time, the blaxploitation era was already long gone, waiting to be rediscovered.

When her boyfriend is brutally murdered, after refusing to be shaken down by the local gangsters running their protection racket, Sugar Hill (Marki Bey), decides to call upon the help of aged voodoo queen Mama Maitresse; Sugar entreats her to call upon Baron Zamedi, the Lord of the Dead, for help in gaining a gruesome revenge.

Whether or not this is a blaxploitation horror film, I have no idea. There is definitely a theme of the black heroine (a poor man's Pam Grier) taking on white crooks. And the police detective has a pretty impressive fro going on. But the line between blaxploitation and a film that just happens to have black stars is a blurry one in the 1970s...

What I do know is that this is a fun picture from Sam Arkoff and AIP. Not particularly scary and never taking itself too seriously, we get about half a dozen people attacked (one at a time) by a zombie horde. And these are real zombies -- the voodoo kind -- not those flesh-eating zombies that have taken over the horror world today.

Not the best film, not the worst, but definitely one that probably gets overlooked too often and is worth a peek for those who are into the voodoo zombies and already saw the bigger name films like "White Zombie" or "Serpent and the Rainbow". I get the impression that this film was an influence on Adam Green's "Hatchet" series, though that may just be my imagination.

Interestingly, despite being made after George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead", this film finds its roots more in the racially-inspired zombies of the 1940s and 1950s. Namely "King of the Zombies" (1941), "I Walked With a Zombie" (1943) and "Zombies of Mora Tau" (1957).

"Diana 'Sugar' Hill" (Marki Bey) is in love with a man named "Langston" (Larry Don Johnson) who happens to own a nightclub in Louisiana called "Club Haiti" which the local mob boss "Morgan" (Robert Quarry) wants to buy. But Langston doesn't want to sell. So Morgan has Langston beaten to death. Seeking revenge Sugar Hill goes to the local voodoo priestess,"Mama Maitresse" (Zara Cully) who summons the evil "Lord of the Dead" named "Baron Samedi" (Don Pedro Colley). Sugar Hill offers Baron Samedi her soul if he will help her kill those responsible for the death of her boyfriend. He agrees and summons an army of zombies to do her bidding. At any rate, rather than spoil the film for those who haven't seen it, I will stop right here and go no further on the plot. I will say, however, that Marki Bey was pretty and performed quite well. Additionally, while I didn't care for the way Baron Samedi was initially presented, I began to enjoy the performance of Don Pedro Colley more as the film went on. All things considered, I thought that this was a pretty good zombie film.

My rating of 4 is less because of the entertainment value of this film and more because of the overall cheesiness of the production. Quite often, the acting and writing are quite poor. Yet, despite all its deficiencies, it's still well worth seeing because it's fun--a definite guilty pleasure.

This is a relatively famous Blaxploitation film from the early to mid 1970s, though the film isn't as racy compared to many examples in the genre. While having some themes similar to such films as COFFEY and FOXY BROWN, this one features no nudity--a relative rarity for the genre. Also, while it is violent (as would be most zombie movies), this one is probably appropriate for teens. The best way to describe the film is like a combination of COFFEY, DR. PHIBES and BLACULA--an odd combination to say the least! The film begins with Sugar and her boyfriend enjoying a night out at his nightclub. Unfortunately, some scum sent by Mr. Big has come to make the guy an offer he can't refuse. However, he does refuse and is sent to the big nightclub in the sky.

Sugar isn't exactly Pam Grier, so instead of just taking the law into her own hands and killing the muthas, she enlists the aid of an old voodoo priestess (Zara Cully--'Mama Jefferson' from THE JEFFERSONS). Using the powers of darkness, they call upon Baron Samedi (that's the word for 'Saturday' in French). Samedi is a very obliging god of the underworld and agrees to help Sugar exact revenge on the mob. Some of the deaths are pretty lame (such as the knife and pig deaths), but some are very creative and creepy--and reminiscent of the great murders in the Dr. Phibes films.

While this plot is very silly, fortunately the folks from American-International Pictures didn't take it all too seriously. The film definitely has a sense of humor and because of this the film is curiously watchable even more than 30 years later.

PS--Aside from Ms. Cully, you may also recognize Mr. Big as Robert Quarry--the same actor who played a vampire in the Count Yorga films and dozens of other films since. Also, the very prolific actor Richard Lawson was also in the film--proving that this film was not the end to either of their careers!!

PPS--Baron Samedi is a REAL character from Haitian voodoo and is an awful lot like the character in this film. I looked it up and was shocked to see that this film didn't create this character!!

Marki Bey stars as a foxy lady, named Diana "Sugar" Hill. Her handsome prince fiancé, Langston, owns a Voodoo-themed night club in the deep south. The club is so successful, that the local mobster, Mr. Morgan, wants to pressure Langston into selling the club to him. When Langston refuses, Morgan's thugs beat Langston to death, in the parking lot of the club.

Consumed with anguish and thoughts of vengeance, Sugar decides to take matters into her own hands. She seeks out an elderly Voodoo priestess, named Mama Maitresse. Sugar explains to her, that she needs Mama's help, via her Voodoo powers. Mama Maitresse conjures up the ruler of the dead, Baron Zamedi. He then summons an army of Zombies, who were all former slaves, to help Sugar dispatch Langston's killers, one-by-one.

Marki Bey can certainly compete in the looks department, with that other 70s Blaxploitation goddess, Pam Grier. Ms. Bey is completely convincing as the grief-stricken Sugar, who is determined to settle the score with Morgan and his henchmen.

Robert Quarry's performance as the suave yet vicious Morgan, is pulled-off well. But it's not Quarry's most compelling role. He was much more charismatic, in his past performances in his Vampire films. So if you're a Robert Quarry fan, be forewarned that he doesn't shine that brightly, in this film.

Betty Anne Rees plays Morgan's racist, sex-starved girlfriend, Celeste. Betty Anne has a natural talent for portraying licentious, dangerous characters, with malicious intent. Her wicked-looking, gleaming gray eyes, make your blood run cold. Celeste is a particularly vile character, and Sugar exacts exquisitely appropriate revenge on her, in this film. Viewers will be cheering at Celeste's utter comeuppance, orchestrated by Sugar and the zombies.

Don Pedro Colley as Baron Samedi, gives an over-the-top performance. Don really chews-up the scenery, emoting like mad. You can tell that he really enjoys his role, as Baron Samedi. The other actors give mostly wooden performances. Especially Richard Lawson's portrayal of Valentine, the cop who was also Sugar's former love interest.

Like virtually all the films of the Blaxploitation genre, Sugar Hill's main thrust is revenge. Only a tiny handful of 70s Blaxploitation films, worked horror into their plot-lines. Of those, Sugar Hill stands out from the rest of the bunch. For fans of 70s Blaxploitation films, Sugar Hill delivers the goods.

I guess for the 70s it was the best they could do,but, it was still pitiful! This movie had some the worst acting,and makeup I have EVER seen! It was a great comedy though it was meant to be a horror movie!

Sugar Hill stars the delectable Marki Bey as Diana 'Sugar' Hill, foxy girlfriend of Langston, owner of the successful Club Haiti. When Langston is kicked to death by a gang of thugs for refusing to sell his business to greedy gangster Morgan (Robert Quarry), Sugar enlists the help of wizened voodoo priestess Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully) to avenge her man, summoning voodoo Lord of the Dead Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley) and an army of silver-eyed zombies to terrorise and kill those responsible.

Directed by Paul Maslansky, producer of the Police Academy series, blaxploitation/zombie film Sugar Hill ain't exactly a 'classic' of either genre, lacking the grittiness to be found in many a blaxploitation movie and missing the outrageous gore of many a zombie flick. That said, the film is still plenty fun: the lovely Bey provides the eye candy, looking fab while wearing some truly funky outfits and switching her hairstyle back and forth from straightened to afro with ease; Colley is great hamming it up as Samedi, rolling his eyes and grinning malevolently in a variety of guises; there's a welcome cat fight between Sugar and trashy mob girl Celeste (Betty Anne Rees); the seventies fashions are hilarious (check out the scalloped lapels on Langston's sparkly jacket!); and who can't help but be entertained by the gloriously un-PC slurring from both sides? The dated racial insults fly thick and fast, making it unsurprising to find that a R2 release of this film has yet to happen.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for the disembodied chicken leg attack-you don't see that every day (unless you happen to watch this film every day, which is unlikely).

I did watch it and although I thought it wouldn't, it kept my attention. However, the above user and tagline are incorrect. She doesn't sell her soul if you recall where she makes the bargain with Baron. The white girl is her payment to him, for now. When she offered her soul remember he laughs and says "what do I want/need with a soul, I have something else in mind". That being said, I wonder what happened to her. She seemed like she had the looks for the time, although she wasn't even 30 yet when she filmed that yet she looked quite a bit older.

There's a certain charm here even though the make up is goofy, the pace is slow, and the story formulaic. It's nice to see the voodoo stuff played with and the killing of whitey quotient is high enough that it works for the audience. Not great, but not terrible either.

This is a movie that I heard about pretty early on into listening to podcasts. It was one that I didn't necessarily know completely what the story of the movie was, but I knew that it was pretty popular in the blaxploitation sub-genre. I'm pretty sure it also appeared on the Horror Noire documentary as well. I decided it would be a good time to watch for my Black Appreciation on Journey with a Cinephile: A Horror Movie Podcast. The synopsis here is when her boyfriend is murdered by gangsters, Sugar Hill (Marki Bey) decides to not get mad, but BAD! She enlists the aid of the voodoo Lord of the Dead to get her gruesome revenge.

Where we start this movie is seeing a ritual. It soon is revealed that this is at a club owned by Langston (Larry Don Johnson). He goes to the bar where his girlfriend of Diana 'Sugar' Hill is sitting. They get interrupted by Fabulous (Charles Robinson). He's a local gangster that works for a much bigger person named Morgan (Robert Quarry). They want him to sell the club, but he's not interested. When he declines and gets loud with them, he's attacked in the parking lot when he goes to leave and left for dead.

This upsets Sugar. He was the love of her life and she doesn't care about hers anymore. She wants revenge. She seeks out the aid of Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully) who lives out of town around the estate that Sugar grew up. She is a powerful voodoo priestess. When Sugar relays what she wants to do, she questions her and agrees to perform the ritual, calling the Lord of the Dead Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley). He agrees to help her by raising the undead. She offers him her soul, but he tells her what he wants.

The two of them go about picking off one by one the crew that was behind the death of Langston. Morgan at first doesn't realize what is happening, but the more and more his guys disappear, the higher the stakes become. He believes that Sugar will sell him the club, but he soon realizes she has something else on her mind. Things do get interesting when a former lover of hers, Valentine (Richard Lawson), who is a police detective is assigned to the case. He still has feelings for her and she seems to still care about him. He will have to suspend his disbelief of the normal world in order to solve what is going on here.

Now that is where I'm going to leave my recap of this movie. What I will state here is that this movie doesn't have the deepest story to it and that is something that does become problematic as it goes on. That isn't where I necessarily want to start as I think the positives to this movie are where I should begin.

The first thing would be I love this idea of the movie. As a zombie fan, we aren't getting the traditional re-animated corpses that everyone knows about, but we're going back to the roots of the idea with voodoo. I think the movie does something interesting here leading off with the opening sequence being that we're seeing a ritual. It sets the tone, while also throwing off new viewers thinking that we've missed something. It then gives us our main character and our villains that we will be seeing throughout as well which is well done.

I want to flesh out more on the voodoo aspect of the movie, which I'm a fan of for a couple of different reasons. The earlier one is that from the Child's Play series, the name Dambella comes up in the ritual that Chucky does to get in and out of the toy. Mama Maitresse says that name and I never realized it is the name of a voodoo god. The other aspect is the name Baron Samedi. I first learned this name from playing the video game of Goldeneye. I would go on to realize that James Bond had to deal with him as a villain. I've also seen this character pop up throughout different movies as one of the more powerful deities in voodoo as well. I do really enjoy how whimsical and playful Colley takes on this role.

Then really the last part of the story that I would go into here is I love the idea of this movie. Sugar seems to have grown up around voodoo as something she knows, but doesn't practice. She has a good life. She is a successful photographer, loves Langston and they aren't really held back by enjoying their life as black people. That isn't to say there are some things we don't see in their world and I mean listening to some of the characters talk with how racist they are it could be worse for them. I just love when this tragedy strikes, she doesn't care about how it will affect her in the end, she seeks out this voodoo deity and using these zombies he raises as hit-men. It is a different take on the revenge film that works for me.

To get back to what I was saying earlier, I do think that the story could have added some depth to it. I'm good with how things play out to start and her making the decision that she does to kill these criminals. My problem is that after that, there doesn't seem to be any stakes. Sugar never really runs into problems. She does have Valentine looking into what she does, but I think that is dealt with too easily. Morgan and his guys never really seem to have a chance to prevent Sugar from getting her revenge. We also don't really have anything at the end where I'm worried about for her. I just feel some tension is lost by not adding an element where Sugar might not get exactly what she wants for me. I know it is front loaded for tragedy for her, but as bad as it is to say, it's not enough for me.

I think next I'll go to the acting. I think Bey is not only beautiful, but I love her character. The only issue is more with the writing; we don't get to see her baseline before the tragedy. What does work though for me is that I don't think it has ruined her. Her interactions with Valentine are probably her before the events of the movie. I do love the outfit they have her in which is a white body suit that really shows off her great body. She also brings some good sass to the character. Quarry is really good as this villainous gangster. It really fits what they're going for when it comes to these blaxploitation films. I've already said that I really like how Colley plays his role. Cully is good along with Lawson. I would also say the rest of Morgan's group, which includes Betty Anne Rees, Robinson and the like also round this out for what was needed.

Next would be the effects for this movie. The major thing I need to say here is that I love the look of the voodoo zombies. They have paint on them which I'm assuming would be like for voodoo rituals. They have fake cobwebs that worked for me, despite them not looking great. What I really like is their eyes. They have these silver orbs there which make them look alien-like and it makes it creepier. I also like the aspects of the story where lab results make Valentine question things that cause him to do research into voodoo. The cinematography is also well done, but I do have a gripe here. This is rated PG so pretty much all of the deaths are done off screen. I'm okay with a few done that way, especially for rating purposes, but I need to see something for this fully work and it doesn't unfortunately.

Then really the last thing to go over briefly here would be soundtrack. For the most part it doesn't really stand out, but it did fit the scenes for what was needed. It does help to build that feel they're going for. What I really wanted to comment on would be more of the sound design. I like hearing the drums or sounds you'd get with the rituals. I also think it is effective to hear the rattling of chains that these zombies are wearing. Many were dead slaves still wearing them so I like incorporating that into the story and the movie as well.

In conclusion here, I don't think this is a great film, but I think that it does a lot of good things. It is a different take on the revenge film that involves a woman without needing her to be sexually assaulted. I love the lore this movie is using and the creature effects do look good there. The acting is pretty solid across the board along with the use of sounds and the soundtrack for the movie. I do think the story could have used a bit more to strengthen it as well as to have some of the deaths to be on screen to bring this up for me. I still found this enjoyable and would say this is an above average movie. If they would have added more of what my problems were with missing things, it would have raised the score for sure.

I wish I'd get a nickel for every horror movie I watch starting with an occult voodoo ritual during the opening credits! If that were the case, I'd be rich myself instead of spending all that precious money on purchasing obscure movies! Although, in all honesty, I have to admit that the voodoo mumbo-jumbo at the start of "Sugar Hill" is merely just a staged act, set up in a groovy establishment called Club Haiti owned by a black businessman and located in the middle of a mafia-infested city with a white guy at the top of the crime ladder. As you can derive already from this two-line synopsis intro, "Sugar Hill" is a Blaxsploitation horror effort, like the contemporary blockbusters "Blackenstein" and "Blacula", only with voodoo spells and zombies this time. The owner of Club Haiti gets killed for not giving in to the mafia's blackmail, but his left behind wife Sugar, nicknamed like this because she is – and I quote – looks as sweet as sugar tastes, plots a virulent revenge. She seeks help with a voodoo priestess and together they head out to a swamp to resurrect an army of black zombies to fight the mafia.

The summoning of Voodoo God Baron Samedi is quite a preposterous but hysterically entertaining sequence as the guy (Don Pedro Colley) turns out to be a prototypic pimp from the hood who literally screams out to all his dead servants to awake and emerge from their burial grounds. Awesome! This scene alone was enough reason to make "Sugar Hill" my brand new favorite Blaxsploitation movie of all time! Subsequently all the obnoxious white villains get what they deserved: imaginative and violent deaths inflicted by black zombies – illegally buried victims of slavery – with swollen eyeballs and covered in dirt and cobwebs. Like Baron Samedi marvelously states, they should be put to evil use because it's all they ever knew. "Sugar Hill" is a fast-paced and ultimately swinging 70's flick; guaranteed entertainment for all experienced freaks of obscure cult horror. Lead actress Marki Bey doesn't play in the same league as her fellow exploitation heroines Pam Grier or Tamara Dobson, but she's certainly a genuine foxy lady with sexual charisma to boot and far above average acting capacities. She also has a couple of cool witty one-liners to make when she gets rid of yet another opponent, like when she feeds one of the mobsters to a bunch of filthy pigs and murmurs the phrase "Talk about white trash…". The Caucasian baddies are pretty terrific too – especially Robert Quarry – and it's a joy to listen to their chauvinistic and misogynist dialogs. The make-up effects on the zombies are deliciously outrageous and the coolness-factor of the actors is simply immeasurable. The aforementioned Don Pedro Colley depicts a voodoo guru, but he plays pool like a real badass MF. The only things missing in order to make "Sugar Hill" a true masterpiece are a groovier soundtrack (the music is a bit of a letdown) and a bit of sleaze. Otherwise, the coolest Blaxploitation flick out there to discover!

Sugar Hill (1974) is a movie I recently watched on Amazon Prime and tells the tale of a woman out for revenge after a gang kills her boyfriend. Fortunately for her, her mother is part of a voodoo cult that will use their magic to bring back the dead and hunt down the gang. This movie is directed by Paul Maslansky in his directorial debut and stars Marki Bey (The Roommates), Robert Quarry (Count Yorga, Vampire), Don Pedro Colley (Beneath the Planet of the Apes), Richard Lawson (Poltergeist) and Charles Robinson (Night Court). The storyline for this picture was pretty fun to watch unfold and I adored the mother/daughter relationship and the intensity their characters displayed. The zombies were funny, especially with their bulging eyes. The sound effects were well done but the script was brutal. I will say I enjoyed the slang, attire and soundtrack from this era. The voodoo elements were entertaining; but unfortunately, the kill scenes are fairly mediocre. Overall this is a slightly above average addition to the genre that I'd score a 5.5-6/10 and recommend seeing once.

I enjoyed this movie even though I don't like voodoo flicks. It was a fun spin in a genre that came in and out in the blink of any eye.