Anyway, this movie concerns Diana "Sugar" Hill and her club owning boyfriend Langston. Langston owns Club Haiti and Mr, Morgan, the unscrupulous bad guy wants it. He sends his thugs to beat Langston up to give up the club. Langston dies, and Sugar swears revenge. She goes to visit Mama Maitresse, the old witch who lives in the swamps. Mama Maitresse summons Baron Samedi and his zombie hordes and from that moment on, Mr. Morgan and his goons are doomed.
The most interesting thing about this movie is seeing the design of the character of Baron Samedi, the ghostly voodoo man played by the awesome Don Pedro Colley, and knowing deep down that someone at Disney was a big fan of this movie. Don't believe me? Check this out...
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| Zombie Controlling Demon of the Swamps |
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| Adorable Disney Voodoo Man |
Another fun thing about this movie is spotting a few people who went on to higher profile films and TV after this movie. First up is Lieutenant Valentine. He's Sugar's ex-boyfriend. He's just an honest cop trying to solve the recent string of voodoo themed murders. He's also the same actor who played "Ryan", a member of the paranormal research team called in to investigate the Freeling house in Poltergeist a few years later. Since Sugar Hill is a blaxploitation movie, it should come as no surprise that "Ryan" in Poltergeist was the...um...black team member and not the guy who ripped his face off in the mirror. What ever happened to that guy? Oh well....
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| "After this I gotta put up with 8 years of Harry Anderson? I'm gettin' a massage!" |
The other guy who went on to fame, fortune, and a regular weekly paycheck was Charles Thompson, better known as "Mac" on Night Court. In Sugar Hill, he's Mr. Morgan's enforcer, Fabulous. His interests include kicking ass and going to the massage parlor every Thursday night.
There's one other famous person involved with this movie, I guess. That would be the director, Paul Maslansky. This is his one and only movie. So how is he famous? He's the guy that has produced all of the Police Academy movies, TV shows, cartoons, breakfast cereals, adult toys, etc. So there's that.
I almost forgot to mention the zombie design. It's great. When you think of zombies, you've been trained to think of rotting, shambling shoot-em-in-the-head zombies. But these are voodoo zombies. They shamble,yeah, but you can't kill them/ They're not rotting either. They're bodies of dead slaves that were buried in the surrounding swamps. They have the shackles and everything. They're covered in dust and cobwebs and they have what seem to be gold coins over their eyes. Check it out...
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| Coolest Zombies Ever |
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