“THE HOOD HAS EYEZ” (2007

Starring: Cyd Schulte, Jesselynn Desmond, Jamielyn Kane, Antonio Royuela, Carlos Javier Castillo, Tom Curitore, Anne Stinnett & Terrence Williams
Written & Directed by Terrence Williams
Cinema Threat Productions
Sub Rosa Studios

PollyStaffle Rating: **

Filmmaker Terrence Williams wants to shock you. He wants to repulse you. He wants you disgusted and adverting your eyes to what is on display in his films. Well, I certainly hope that’s what he wants. That’s at least how it comes across watching his horror-exploitation piece “The Hood Has Eyez.”

Williams doesn’t just push the envelope; he rips the envelope apart, sets it on fire and then shoves it down the throat of a dead corpse crawling with maggots. From the film’s title you can tell Williams is a fan of the master of horror and that may peak the interest of some, but be warned; “The Hood Has Eyez” is sicker than any early Wes Craven films, including “Last House on the Left.”

Things start off slightly familiar in this shocking little indie. Good girl Kimmy (Cyd Schulte) showers and gets dressed for catholic school at St. Francis Xavier in Burbank, Calif., where evidently there is no such thing as a skirt being too short. Kimmy is a daddy’s girl that helps out with pop’s lawn business. They live in “always up to no good” Inglewood.

Though today starts off as usual, things get ugly in a hurry when Kimmie is persuaded by her gal pals, cutie Rachel (Jamielyn Kane) and sexually promiscuous Susan (Jesselynn Desmond), to ditch school and travel with Jerry (Tom Curitore) to East L.A. for a party. If you’ve seen many movies, you know they never make it there. Obviously, making a wrong turn down an alley way, the party monsters on wheels hit a female that is covered in blood and wearing nothing but her bra and panties.

Thinking the woman, who we later come to know as the gang banger Shy Girl (Anne Stinnett), is dead, Kimmie and company ponder what to do with the body as to not get in trouble. Before the film turns into “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” Shy Girl jumps up and the party crew runs screaming from the car, only to bump into the loco eses Joker (Carlos Javier Castillo) and Psycho (Antonio Royuela).

At gunpoint, the gangsters lead Kimmie, Rachel, Susan and Jerry to a desolate spot surrounded by woods to robe them, humiliate them, torture them, rape them and kill them. I won’t go into explicit details of what takes place, but let’s just say once Psycho finds out Susan is on her period, Williams takes the “piss your pants” scene in “Last House on the Left” to an entirely different level of obscene and then things get really twisted.

And if Williams has yet to offend his viewers with any of his antics up to this point, he ups the ante when Kimmie goes on the warpath in the second of the half of the film. She doesn’t just become a revenge seeker like Jennifer Hills in Meir Zarchi’s “I Spit on Your Grave;” she turns into a psychotic killing machine with an unquenchable blood lust. Nobody, including an unborn baby and a friend going for help, is safe in her way. Kimmie gets off on the killing and becomes progressively more and more sadistic as the film makes its way to its gruesome finale. This isn’t an empowering tale of vengeance. This has nothing to do with retribution. There’s no moral to the story. “The Hood Has Eyez” is simply shock for shock’s sake.

Now, with all that being said, rating and reviewing this film, or discharge as Williams calls it, is actually quite hard. It’s not a bad movie per say and I’m sure there are and will continue to be fans of it. “The Hood Has Eyez” has not only played the New Beverly Cinema in L.A., it also made its way into the Cincinnati Horror Film Festival and the Big Bear Lake Horror Film Festival and is now on DVD via Sub Rosa Studios. Not to mention, the film is fairly well made, the music is effective, the acting is decent and the actresses are attractive and show plenty of flesh. Most of all, Williams, who shot, wrote, co-produced, edited, directed and appeared in the film, delivers skin-crawling scenes of depravity and decadence. It’s just not my cup of tea. Simply put, he goes a bit too far.

On his Cinema Threat website, Williams calls his movies “the punk rock of cinema” stating that they are “independent, sleazy, anti-establishment, but a great deal of fun.” I completely agree with him, except the part about them being fun. Though I have yet to see his films “Curse of La Llorona,” “Llorona Gone Wild,” “The River: Legend of La Llorona” or “Transit,” I can say “The Hood Has Eyez” was far from being fun for me, despite its few attempts at humor, gore aplenty and nudity.

According to an interview Cyd Schulte did with ScreamTV.net, Williams wrote the role of Kimmie especially for her to try and showcase her acting skills. Asked if she had any reservations about the project, Schulte acknowledged that she did. “Some pretty big ones, because the themes of the film are very controversial,” Schulte said. “As you probably know, Terrence set out with the intention to offend everyone. Well, this is not my style at all. I understand shock value, but I don’t necessarily agree with it. I just wasn’t into some of the actions of my character and of some of the other characters. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be responsible for such senseless violence being put out in the universe. But in the end, I decided that Kimmy was an awesome role and that it was a story worth telling, even if I didn’t agree with the execution of it.”

Schulte, who reminds me of Rachel Minor, is solid in the role and like I said Williams, who appeared in the films “South Central” and “Mo’ Better Blues” as an actor, also shows he has talent. I just wish they had used those skills on something a little more worthy.

- CCF, August 2008