Friday, October 26, 2012 Z is for Zombies: Z is for Zombies of Sugar Hill

Z is for Zombies of Sugar Hill
USA, 1974

The Zombies: Voodoo zombies.

The Source: Voodoo, dumbass.

The Result: Foxy Brown with zombies.

Despite all his supernatural power, Baron Samedi still had a weakness for blondes.

When her man is killed by gangsters, fashion photographer Sugar Hill enlists the aid of Baron Samedi and his army of zombies in her quest for vengeance.

Zombies of Sugar Hill follows the same formula AIP used for its other blaxplotiation films with female leads.  The protagonist is an independent career woman who loses a loved one to criminal elements the law can't touch, so she uses guile and her sex appeal to lure those responsible to their doom.  The only difference here is that Sugar's preferred weapon is voodoo instead of shotguns or razor blades hidden in her hair.

This movie makes it look really easy to summon Baron Samedi.  Like, so easy that a Gilligan / Curly Howard tag team couldn't mess it up.  If Catholic saints were that easy to conjure, I might have gone through with my Confirmation.

Maybe my expectations have finally hit rock bottom, but the zombies are actually kind of neat when they first turn up.  In daylight shots, however, the tiny L'Eggs Sheer Energy shells they wear over their eyes look goofy.  Do you guys remember L'Eggs in the plastic containers?  Nah, you're probably too young.  Google it sometime.

It's notable that every time Sugar gets her zombified revenge on, her hairstyle changes from a straightened Vanessa-Williams-meets-Farrah 'do to a big, beautiful afro.  Either the movie is implying that voodoo is reconnecting Sugar to her true identity as a black woman, or it's really bad at continuity.

The film's portrayal of Baron Samedi is obviously inspired by Live and Let Die, but Don Pedro Colley is no Geoffrey Holder.  Which is a shame, because Marki Bey is no Pam Grier and this sort of film lives or dies (ha!) on the strength of its leads.  Neither Bey nor Coffey have enough presence to keep things lively between the kill scenes, which are rather perfunctory themselves.  Although the homicidal chicken leg is a hoot.

Oh no!  Not the chicken foot!

Still, if "Coffy with zombies and an animated rooster foot" sounds appealing, you owe it to yourself to check out Sugar Hill.  

2.5 Ghouls