Sugar Hill | |
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Directed by | Paul Maslansky |
Written by | Tim Kelly |
Produced by | Elliot Schick |
Starring |
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Cinematography | Robert Jessup |
Edited by | Carl Kress |
Music by | Nick Zesses Dino Fekaris |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | American International Productions |
Release date |
|
Running time | 91 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $350,000 |
Sugar Hill is a 1974 American blaxploitation horror film, directed by Paul Maslansky and starring Marki Bey as the title character who uses voodoo to get revenge on the people responsible for her boyfriend's death. It was released by American International Pictures. According to the film, the zombies are the preserved bodies of slaves brought to the United States from Guinea. [1] AIP had previously combined the horror and blaxploitation genres with Blacula (1972) and its sequel Scream Blacula Scream (1973).
The story centers on Diana "Sugar" Hill (Bey), a photographer in Houston whose boyfriend, nightclub owner Langston (Larry D. Johnson), has been killed by mob boss Morgan (Robert Quarry) and his men when he refused to sell the club to Morgan. Sugar seeks the help of a former voodoo queen named Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully) to take revenge on Morgan and his thugs. Mama summons the voodoo lord of the dead, Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley), who enlists his army of zombies to destroy the men who killed Langston and now want the club. Investigating the killings is Sugar's former boyfriend, police Lt. Valentine (Richard Lawson).
The film, budgeted at $350,000, [3] was shot on location in Houston at such locations as the Heights branch of the Houston Public Library (a historical landmark), used in the film as a "Voodoo Institute". Sugar Hill was the last film Quarry did for AIP, after a run that included the Count Yorga films. Also appearing in the film was Cully, who played Mama Jefferson on the TV show The Jeffersons . Charles P. Robinson, known for his role as Mac Robinson on NBC's Night Court , portrayed the character of Fabulous. Hank Edds created the makeup effects for the zombies in the film. [1]
The film was released theatrically in the United States by American International Pictures in February 1974. [4] It was cut to 83 minutes for television and retitled The Zombies of Sugar Hill. [5]
The film was broadcast on Tele 5 as part of the programme format SchleFaZ in season 2. The film was released on VHS by Orion Home Video in 1996, [6] and on DVD in October 2011 as part of MGM's Limited Edition series. [7]
Writing in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia, academic Peter Dendle called it "a humorously dated blaxploitation feature" whose zombies "represent a throwback to the classic zombie conceptualization of the '30s and '40s". [8] Adam Tyner of DVD Talk rated it 4 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Creepy, sexy, sleazy, and a borderline-surreal amount of fun, Sugar Hill is a perfect movie for a Halloween marathon and probably my single favorite blaxploitation flick, period". [7] The "unique blend of exploitation film and Southern gothic horror" in Sugar Hill was described by Bloody Disgusting in 2020 as an "underseen outlier" in zombie films following in the wake of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). [9]
Rapper MF Doom sampled several audio clips from the film under his alias King Geedorah on the album Take Me to Your Leader (2003). A poster for the film appeared on a primary character's bedroom wall during a pivotal scene in 'Salem's Lot (2024) to establish the film's 1970s period setting. [10]
Baron Samedi, also written Baron Samdi, Bawon Samedi or Bawon Sanmdi, is one of the lwa of Haitian Vodou. He is a lwa of the dead, along with Baron's numerous other incarnations Baron Cimetière, Baron La Croix and Baron Criminel.
My Boyfriend's Back is a 1993 American zombie horror comedy film directed by Bob Balaban which tells the story of Johnny Dingle, a teenage boy who returns from the dead as a zombie to meet Missy McCloud, the girl he's in love with, for a date. The film received negative reviews.
Sugar Hill may refer to:
Sidney Eddie Mosesian, known professionally as Sid Haig, was an American actor. He was known for his appearances in horror films, most notably his role as Captain Spaulding in the Rob Zombie films House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects and 3 from Hell. Haig's Captain Spaulding, and Haig himself, have been called icons of horror cinema. Haig had a leading role on the television series Jason of Star Command as the villain Dragos. He appeared in many television programs, including The Untouchables, Batman, Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Star Trek, Get Smart, The Rockford Files, Charlie's Angels, Fantasy Island, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Dukes of Hazzard, The A-Team, MacGyver, and Emergency!. Haig also had roles in several of Jack Hill's blaxploitation films from the 1970s.
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Scream Blacula Scream is a 1973 American blaxploitation horror film. It is a sequel to the 1972 film Blacula, focusing on the resurrection of the vampire Mamuwalde. The film was produced by American International Pictures (AIP) and Power Productions. This was the acting debut of Richard Lawson.
Robert Walter Quarry was an American actor, known for several prominent horror film roles.
Don Pedro Colley was an American actor. Some of his better known roles include Gideon on Daniel Boone, Ongaro in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, SRT in George Lucas' THX 1138, Joshua in The Legend of Nigger Charley, and Sheriff Ed Little in the 1980s TV series The Dukes of Hazzard.
The Midnight Hour is a 1985 American made-for-television comedy horror film directed by Jack Bender and starring Shari Belafonte-Harper, LeVar Burton, Peter DeLuise, and Dedee Pfeiffer. Its plot focuses on a small New England town that becomes overrun with zombies, witches, vampires, and all the other demons of hell after a group of teenagers unlocks a centuries-old curse on Halloween.
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Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s, when the combined momentum of the civil rights movement, the black power movement, and the Black Panthers spurred African-American artists to reclaim the power of depiction of their ethnicity, and institutions like UCLA to provide financial assistance for African-American students to study filmmaking. This combined with Hollywood adopting a less restrictive rating system in 1968. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president of the Beverly Hills–Hollywood NAACP branch. He claimed the genre was "proliferating offenses" to the black community in its perpetuation of stereotypes often involved in crime. After the race films of the 1940s and 1960s, the genre emerged as one of the first in which black characters and communities were protagonists, rather than sidekicks, supportive characters, or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s.
Snake People a.k.a. Isle of the Snake People, is a 1971 Mexican horror film directed by Juan Ibáñez and starring Boris Karloff and Julissa. It was filmed in May 1968, but was only released theatrically in 1971, 2 years after Karloff had died.
Blaxploitation horror films are a genre of horror films involving mostly black actors. In 1972, William Crain directed what is considered to be the first blaxploitation horror film, Blacula.
The Dead Don't Die is a 1975 American made-for-television neo-noir horror thriller film set in the 1930s, directed by Curtis Harrington from a teleplay by Robert Bloch, based upon his own story of the same title that first appeared in Fantastic Adventures, July 1951. The film originally premiered on NBC on January 14, 1975. The film uses the traditional Haitian concept of zombies as resurrected slaves of the living.
The House of Seven Corpses is a 1973 American horror film directed by Paul Harrison and starring John Ireland, Faith Domergue and John Carradine.
Marki Bey is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Diana "Sugar" Hill in the 1974 horror blaxploitation zombie film Sugar Hill.
Beneath the Surface is a 2007 American horror comedy film written and directed by Blake Reigle. It stars Kyle Stanley as a high school student who uses voodoo to resurrect his crush, played by Dominique Geisendorff, when she dies.