By Dan Kinem



According to many, the “urban horror" sub-genre dates back to the 70s with Blaxploitation classics like Blacula and Sugar Hill. However, it is often debated what the term “urban horror” really means or refers to. Some people group anything that takes place in an urban setting with this label, for example Candyman, while others only refer to movies made by all African American or Hispanic cast/crew, like Black Devil Doll from Hell. In my eyes, to make it simple, I see the genre as any horror film (made by a person of any race) that attempts to exploit a minority audience by sprinkling the film with an all-black or all-Hispanic cast (except for one or two white dudes who are made to look like fools) and littering it with racial stereotypes and likely an all hip hop soundtrack. Using that definition pretty much clears up any confusion. Movies like Killjoy, Leprechaun in the Hood, and Axe ‘em all fall under this category. However, the movie I’m here to review today doesn’t quite know what genre it wants to be. It was released twice under the names Neighbor Hoodz and Devil Snow. The latter of the two makes it out to be a serious drug-related crime drama, never mentioning the gore or monster-elements; the former doesn’t even really embrace the urban horror genre, either. Yeah, there are some effects pictures on it and the plot makes it sound somewhat like a horror movie, but it could have been so much more. The cover is god-awful and makes no sense. Is that a sword, skull, and durag? They should have just used the girl’s monster face on the front. The terrible marketing is likely why no one has any clue what this movie is today. That, and the fact it is an insanely rare and terrible piece of garbage that should have never been made.



The movie opens with a text crawl (ala The Empire Strikes Back), complete with broken English, informing us that cocaine has taken over the streets. If it wasn’t obvious enough, they cut to three junkies smoking crack in a warehouse. One of the junkies smokes and then goes crazy and kills the other two. Possible foreshadowing?



We are then treated to a classic scene of a couple black males walking through the ghetto arguing about Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan (lol obv Bruce Lee). Out of nowhere they attempt to rob two cops at knife-point unknowingly and the cops decide to let them go with a warning. These two brilliant police officers will actually play a major role in attempting to get drugs off the streets later in the movie.

The main character is a girl named Esther. She’s a boring goodie-two-shoes who eventually crumbles under the peer pressure to do drugs. She goes to a party with one of her girlfriends and meets a drug dealer named Wakeo. After a few puffs of Wakeo’s pipe from hell she begins the downward spiral. First she’s just a moody bitch to everyone. Then she disappears and leaves town. When she returns she lets Wakeo rape her for crack. No, not rape her crack. Rape her FOR crack. Finally, she wakes up one night spitting up green vomit.



Have you ever heard someone say, “He got addicted to drugs and turned into a monster?” Well, so did the filmmakers, except they took it literally. Esther’s crack smoking turns her into a literal green-faced monster killing machine. She goes on a killing spree murdering pimps, drug dealers, and even Wakeo. There’s a long stretch of pointless scenes of Esther doing drugs, passing out, and random people doing nothing to help her. The movie finally ends after her mom enlists the help of the cops from the beginning to rid the streets of drugs and save her daughter once and for all. Yawn.



I can without a doubt call this one of the worst movies I’ve ever viewed. Whether it’s advertised as a horror film or a crime drama, it fails on every conceivable level. I can’t think of one redeemable quality other than the humorous premise that drugs would turn you into an actual monster. Beyond that it is such a boring failed and fumbled mess of a movie. Of the movie’s 90+ minute runtime, I’d say about 7 of those minutes something is happening. It also doesn’t help that the video is unwatchable and the sound inaudible. The simple fact this movie has anything to do with drugs makes me want to avoid them at all costs. To quote the great Mr. Mckay, “Drugs are bad, mkay.” And so is this movie. Straight edge 4 lyfe.


Not even these amazing and credible reviews could get me to watch this movie.

The movie was actually released on VHS multiple times. Under the Neighbor Hoodz title it was put out by South Entertainment. What I have gathered is that it was actually a re-release of the film because the director (James Tucker) had no idea the movie was put out with that title. He is actually still making movies to this day and seems pretty successful despite this turd (which coincidentally isn’t even on IMDB)! The other VHS was under the Devil Snow title and was distributed by PRO Film. If their catalog number is correct this was the tenth film they released, though I have never come across anything else they put out. I think it might have even been released once more under the Devil Snow name with different artwork. That’s a total of at least three releases for this absolute trainwreck of a movie. Actually, I wish it were a trainwreck. Then I’d at least be interested. This is a train ride from Iowa to Kansas that goes over without a hitch. It’s so boring and pointless you’d wish you were dead and that’s why I proudly own two copies!

This is one of the coolest parts about running VHShitfest. I just received an email from the guy behind the Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash Bash Tour VHS I reviewed a while back. I figured I would share the information with everyone on the site (with his permission) because of how rare that video is and because very little is known about it.

Enjoy,
Dan

"Hi-
I’m the guy who made the Jay & Silent Bob Stash Bash tape you reviewed on your site. I wanted to tell you I got a laugh out of the review, and I figured perhaps I could clear up a few things.

You mention at the end of the review that it appeared self-produced and that it might be one of the rarest tapes you’ve reviewed. Well, I think calling it “produced" in any form is a stretch, but yes, it might be rare.

What happened was that my wife and I (newlyweds at the time; it was the late 90s) bought tickets for the tour, headed off to beautiful New Jersey and stayed overnight in a hotel the night before the event. They were doing 3 or 4 tours that day and we were the 7AM one (GOOD GOD), so the hotel was a must. Being that we were just starting out in adult life, lo those many years ago, this was pretty outrageous for us financially—I mean, between hotel, gas, tolls, tickets and Smith-emblazoned memorabilia, we probably shelled out $200-250, which was an insane amount to spend on something that was merely “fun" as opposed to “necessary" (inflation probably makes that something like $500 today).

Accordingly, I was dead set on wringing as much enjoyment out of it as I could, so I videotaped the whole thing so we could enjoy it in our doddering old age. I had no intention of selling it, so all the ‘me talking behind the camera’ stuff, the crummy in-camera titles and, as you charmingly put it, the “complete dad-shooting-home-videos annoying vibe" was fine, because that’s all it was ever going to be: a home video.

…Until we got home, did the math and realized that damn, we spent a lot of money. Since there was a lot of buzz online amongst Smith’s legions of fans about the tours, I put a listing on ebay for the tape, going for what I thought was a insulting amount—$20—purely on a whim. I figured if I sold 10, I’d make back my money, but really, how many people would want to see this? Surprisingly, there were a few. I didn’t get rich from it (or even less poor), but suffice it to say, I made back my money and a little bit more. There’s a few dozen floating around the world at this point, so I guess that should give you some idea of how rare the VHS is/might be.

Back then, the Stash sold bootleg videos, as did every comic shop, so I mailed them one so that they could bootleg their own tour, but I bet they never even watched it. Once, a guy from Australia emailed me to ask “who was that beautiful creature you sat next to? You are a devilishly lucky man!" (I’m not doing it justice—he went on and on). While my wife knew it was supposed to be a compliment, it was creepy enough that we were kinda glad he was on the other side of the world.

I have to disagree with some of your interpretation of the tour. Yeah, there’s some cringe-worthy material in there, but O’Halloran was having a lot of fun entertaining (mainly himself) by being as corny as possible. Most of what he was saying, particularly the blatantly ‘I’m filling time"-type stuff, was very tongue-in-cheek and camp, sort of a Gen X Hipster version of early 1980s David Letterman. Like I said, we were the first tour of the day; I’m sure by the last tour, he had his rap down to a science—and that later attendees were more awake than we were at 7AM.

As for Bill & Ted Meet Jay & Silent Bob, that was an experiment to see if I could approximate stop-motion animation using iMovie (Short answer: no). I threw it on to the tape for the hell of it; the audio came from the first B&T movie and an MTV interstitial staring Jay and Bob.

What else can I tell you about it? Um, Jason Mewes got busted for heroin less than a week after the tour (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/because-he-got-high), which should give you some idea of what he was like when we all met him in the store. Smith was preoccupied and harried but his wife was the nicest person; she and my beloved chatted about what nerds everyone else there were (respective husbands included) for a long time.

So where did you find the tape? Glad you enjoyed it.
- C.Y."