Tales from the Hood

In South Central Los Angeles, a trio of drug dealers, Stack (Joe Torry), Ball (De'Aundre Bonds), and Bulldog (Samuel Monroe Jr.), arrive at Simms' Funeral Home to purchase some drugs from Mr. Simms (Clarence Williams III), the mortuary's eccentric owner. Mr. Simms claims that he found the drugs in an alley, and has safely stored them in the mortuary. He asks the dealers to help him get the drugs, and as the four make their way through the building, relates stories about some of the dead bodies in the funeral home. The first casket contains the body of Clarence Smith, a man who was rumored to have heard voices of the dead calling his name.

During his first night on the job, young black police officer Clarence Smith (Anthony Griffith) is taken by his new partner, Newton (Michael Massee), to the scene of what initially appears to be a routine traffic stop of a well-dressed black man. When Smith runs the car's license plates, he learns that the man is in fact Martin Moorehouse (Tom Wright), a city councilman and black rights activist who has recently been on a crusade to eliminate police corruption in the city. Smith watches in horror as Newton, along with fellow officers, Billy (Duane Whitaker) and Strom (Wings Hauser), brutally beat Moorehouse with their nightsticks and vandalize his car. When Smith insists that Moorehouse should be taken to a hospital, the officers appear to agree. Smith tells Newton that Billy and Strom should be reported for what they did, but Newton tells Smith that officers are not to break "the code" and rat each other out. Strom and Billy drive Moorehouse's car to the docks. Strom shoots the battered Moorehouse up with some of the heroin he, Newton, and Billy have been dealing, plants some in his car, then pushes it into the water with Moorehouse still inside. Moorehouse is posthumously and falsely labeled a hypocrite.

One year later, Smith has left the police force and is now a guilt-consumed drunk. On a walk in his neighborhood, he sees a mural of Moorehouse. Smith then has a vision of a crucified Moorehouse haunting him with the words "Bring them to me!" In response, Smith convinces the three police officers involved in the death to meet him at Moorehouse's grave. Once there, the officers begin to insult Moorehouse, with Strom urinating on Moorehouse's grave and then ordering Billy to do the same thing. As Newton and Strom prepare to kill Smith, a zombified Moorehouse bursts from the grave to drag Billy beneath the ground by his genitals. Moorehouse's coffin bursts from the ground, opening to reveal Billy's mutilated corpse, with Moorehouse standing above the grave, clutching Billy's still-beating heart.

Strom and Newton open fire on Moorehouse, but the bullets have no effect, prompting them to flee in horror. A lengthy chase ensues, with the two cops fleeing by patrol car. As Newton is driving the vehicle, Moorehouse jumps on top of the vehicle and decapitates Strom with his bare hands. Terrified, Newton exits his vehicle and shoots its gas tank, though the ensuing explosion doesn't put down Moorehouse. Moorehouse then chases Newton into an alley, where he telekinetically throws used hypodermic needles into the cop's body, pinning him to Moorehouse's wall mural. After Newton is killed, his body melts into the mural, becoming a painting of himself crucified.

His vengeance nearly complete, Moorehouse accosts Smith, asking him why he did not help him when he was being beaten. The story ends with Smith in a mental hospital. Two orderlies outside his cell mention that he killed the officers and that he used to be an officer himself. Moorehouse is never mentioned.

Stack, Ball, and Bulldog think Mr. Simms is crazy after hearing the story. After looking into another casket, the contents of which are not seen, Mr. Simms tells them a story about a boy named Walter.

Walter Johnson (Brandon Hammond) is a quiet and sensitive boy who transfers to a new school one day with bruises around his cheek and eye. Walter's caring teacher, Richard Garvy (Rusty Cundieff), notices the bruises and talks to Walter. He initially thinks that the school bully, Tyrone, gave him the bruises, though Walter claims that he was attacked by a monster. A few days later, he shows up with a bruised arm. While the other children play, Walter sits inside and draws pictures of Tyrone and the monster. Walter explains to Richard that he can overcome something he doesn't like, such as the monster he keeps talking about, by destroying an image of it. After Richard leaves, Walter crumples up the drawing of Tyrone, causing the real Tyrone to suffer spontaneous injuries.

Later that night, Mr. Garvy visits Walter's home and asks Walter's mother, Sissy (Paula Jai Parker), about the monster. Sissy claims that Walter's injuries are the result of his own clumsiness; she then tells Walter not to reveal anything about the monster to anyone else. As Mr. Garvy is leaving, Sissy's boyfriend, Carl (David Alan Grier) comes home. Seen through Walter's imagination, it is revealed that Carl is, in actuality, the “monster.” Thinking that Walter is mocking him by drawing him as a monster, Carl begins to terrorize Walter and then whips Sissy with a belt when she intervenes.

Mr. Garvy turns around to check on Walter, and sees Carl beating Sissy through the window. Mr. Garvy bursts into the house and begins to fight Carl. With Carl's attention elsewhere, Walter grabs a drawing he made of the monster, and begins to fold and crumple it. Carl's body crumples and collapses in a similar fashion. Sissy stomps on the wadded-up paper to kill Carl. Finally, Mr. Garvy gives the paper to Walter, who burns it. Sissy and Walter look on, relieved as Carl's body is being burned.

Back in Simms' Funeral Home, Carl's burnt and mangled corpse is revealed to be inside the coffin. The gangsters close the casket, causing a doll to fall off a nearby shelf. For his next story, Mr. Simms shows them the doll, mentioning that he originally it found in a home in the South. Simms explains that it is not an ordinary doll, but a vessel for a lost soul.

Duke Metger (Corbin Bernsen) is an obnoxious and highly racist Southern senator and a one-time member of the Ku Klux Klan who is currently running for governor. The senator is in his office filming a campaign commercial when he sees protesters outside the office. Jewish and African-American groups have teamed up to protest against Metger for being a racist, a former Klansman, and for setting up his office at an old slave plantation previously owned by his ancestor, Nathan Wilkes. One individual, Eli (Art Evans), tells the reporter that the plantation is haunted by dolls animated by the souls of Nathan's previously tortured slaves, warning the news crews and everyone else at the scene that it is not a myth.

Meanwhile, Metger also discusses the myth of the tortured slaves with his African-American "image-maker" assistant Rhodie (Roger Guenveur Smith). Metger explains how Wilkes, upon hearing that his slaves would be freed at the end of the Civil War, flew into a murderous rage and massacred all of them. The two notice a large painting of Miss Cobbs, the hoodoo witch who transferred the slaves' souls inside a number of dolls that she created, surrounded by the dolls themselves, which Metger refers to as "Negro dolls". According to legend, the dolls are supposedly still in the house. One of the dolls is seen under the floorboard as Rhodie leaves. While Metger and Rhodie are working on Metger's media skills, Rhodie suddenly falls down the stairs to his death. At the funeral, Eli warns Metger to leave the house before he ends up like Rhodie. In the limo after Rhodie's funeral, Metger notices the doll and orders his African-American driver to pull over, so he can throw the doll out the window and into the street.

Later, he re-watches Rhodie's footage and realized that he died because he tripped over the doll. After noticing a blank spot on the painting, Metger comes in contact with the doll itself, now animated, and has a fight with it. Metger is injured, but he manages to stop the doll by beating it with an American Flag. He also damages the painting, which starts to bleed. Metger takes the doll outside to his porch and ties it to a dart board. He then blasts the doll with his shotgun, and goes back inside to rant at the painting.

In the midst of his latest racist rant, Metger realizes more doll images in the painting have faded to white. Metger finds the previously blasted doll in the hallway, which attacks again and chases Metger into his office. Metger manages to lock the doll outside but sees that the painting has all the doll images faded to white. Terrified, Metger turns around to see an army of dolls, led by the same doll he blasted. He covers himself in the American flag as the dolls converge and devour him. Miss Cobbs (portrayed by Christina Cundieff, director Rusty Cundieff's mother) then disappears from the painting and manifests herself in the room, holding the first doll in her arms, satisfied at the carnage taking place before them.

Meanwhile, the dealers have grown impatient and ready for the drugs, not wanting to listen to any more of Mr. Simms's strange stories. Ball notices a corpse in another room, and alerts the others to come and see it. When Simms asks them if they knew the man inside the casket, Bulldog says that he was just someone they had seen around their neighborhood. Mr. Simms proceeds to explain the final moments of the man known as Crazy K.

Jerome "Crazy K" Johns (Lamont Bentley) is a hardened gangster and homicidal psychopath who has killed many people mercilessly. He is driving down the streets of Los Angeles when he encounters his rival, Lil' Deke (Ricky Harris), whom he pursues and guns down. In retaliation, Lil' Deke's associates shoot at Crazy K. Before they can finish him off, the police arrive at the scene and gun down the attackers. Crazy K, badly injured but still alive, is arrested and sent to prison, serving a life sentence without parole.

Four years later, Dr. Cushing (Rosalind Cash) arrives at Crazy K's prison cell and transfers him to her facility for an experimental trial, mentioning that he'll be released from prison if he agrees to it and completes it. Crazy K meets an inmate (Rick Dean) who happens to be a homicidal white supremacist that raves about killing black people and the end of days for blacks. This angers Crazy K and causes him to punch him in the face. The man then asks Crazy K the race of the victims he killed, silencing Crazy K. The man grows fond of him and he tells him that there will be a few black people who will be spared as long as they think like him. Crazy K is told by Dr. Cushing that she purposely put him there to meet someone who is just like him. She then tells him that she has been hired by the government to administer a rehabilitation process on Crazy K, in hopes that he will change his ways. If he fails to redeem himself, he is told that he will rot in solitary confinement for the rest of his life.

Crazy K is put through a process of torture to make him learn the consequences of his actions. First, his hair (with a "K" cut into the front) is shaved off. He is then loaded onto a gyroscopic modulator, forced to visualize images involving KKK members and actual photographs of lynching victims, interspersed with grisly, stylized footage of gang violence and his own actions. Dr. Cushing goes into the fact that Crazy K killed many innocent black people without remorse or second thought.

For the next part of the trial, Crazy K is put into a sensory deprivation chamber, where he is confronted by the souls of the people he has killed, intentionally or otherwise, including his friends and an innocent little girl. Despite hinting at his own personal abuse in his childhood, Crazy K refuses to accept any responsibility for his crimes, and Dr. Cushing tearfully warns him that he won't get another chance for forgiveness. Having refused the opportunity to redeem himself, Crazy K is transported back to the moment when he originally was shot. He is finished off by the three gunmen, who leave his corpse abandoned in the street.

Crazy K's killers are revealed to be Stack, Ball, and Bulldog. Unnerved by the revelation, they threaten Simms, telling him he'll be killed unless he reveals how he knows this, and gives them their drugs. Simms leads them deeper into the funeral home and tells them their "reward" is in three closed caskets. Each drug dealer finds that the casket he opens contains their own corpse, revealing that they were dead all this time.

After disarming them, Simms explains that after the murder of Crazy K, they were killed by Crazy K's associates as retaliation. Bulldog asks Simms how they can be dead when they are all seemingly alive, together in the same funeral home. Simms tells them that the funeral home really is Hell and transforms into Satan. The drug dealers scream in horror at this sight, as the walls of the funeral home shatter to reveal an inferno that consumes them. They are left to burn with all the tortured souls while Satan laughs.