Blaxploitation is a mixed bag. Almost all of the films are great. However, sometimes they're good because they're so bad. Sugar Hill is a little of both. The actual story is good, most of the acting is pretty bad and there's a lot of details that get glossed over.
Diana "Sugar" Hill is a young photographer who dates a club owner who refuses to sell Club Haiti to a racist mob boss. They beat him to death and Sugar wants revenge. She goes to see Mama Maitresse a voodoo queen, who may actually be her mom as well. She seems to know Sugar from the past but it's never stated how, and she lives at the family home. They summon Baron Samedi who promises to help in return for sex after refusing Sugar's soul. He gives Sugar an army of zombies and they hunt down those that have wronged her.
The plot is basic but it works because there doesn't need to be any extra to get it across and the characters are all wonderful and have these little quirks that make them enjoyable. Take Sugar for instance. She's a classy lady. Then you find out she's got this secret voodoo history and she's still a classy lady. She beats up a racist and it's classy. Then there's Baron Samedi who can't speak without showing all of his teeth. I do mean all his teeth too. It's hilarious. Then there's Celeste. She's the girlfriend of the mob boss Morgan. She's a blatant racist to the point where even Morgan stares at her racist remarks in confusion. It's like he's okay with saying black people are inferior but frequent usage of the word "niggers" is just too much. It's fine because Sugar really just beats her up in the club for no reason. It just happened and a white bar tender handed Sugar a weapon because he was tired of Celeste's racism. It's just so ridiculous they added this character just to be so racist that racist people were uncomfortable around her.
I just want to talk about these ugly zombies for a minute. The zombies are supposed to be slaves who died at sea and were buried in mass graves, still wearing their shackles. Then you see the zombies and you want to laugh because there's no rotting flesh. It's just dirty black people poking out there lips to look dead. I swear one of the zombies had a six pack. No lie. How? I don't know what they were doing with the silver balls over the eyes. It just cracked me up because they looked like flies for some reason. But, like I said earlier, when it comes to blaxploitation films, you take the good with the bad. I guess I have to cut them some slack because this was 1974. It's still funny.
The costumes, and fights look just terrible. Down right bad. The rest of Sugar Hill is actually really good. Don't get me wrong there's a few filler characters that could use some improvement on their skill but for what it is, it's pretty funny. At some moments it seems like they know it's a bad movie and poke fun at it. The only thing missing was a moment when they would stare into the camera and wink. It's a silly movie with a silly concept and the fact that they seem to know it, made it a lot more enjoyable when watching. I give this one 5 out of 6 zombie abs.
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