Review – The Zombies of Sugar Hill

I don’t have a particularly good excuse for liking this movie. It doesn’t differ in any significant way from any other “blaxploitation” movie from the early 70s. The opening credit song is particularly typical (“Supernatural voodoo woman / Does her thing at night … She do voodoo on you”). On the other hand, it does feature some fun zombie stuff. I liked their weird eyes, and I thought the cobwebs all over them were also a nice touch, making them look more like dusty, reanimated corpses and less like rotting messes. Baron Samedi also puts in an appearance, complete with the great granddaddy of all “pimp sticks.” I was also fond of the relentlessness of the revenge plot. After gangsters kill Sugar Hill’s husband, she summons the powers of darkness to grant her vengeance. There’s no agonizing over the morality of massacring one’s enemies. There isn’t even a “boss level” where the bad guys briefly stand a chance. Nope, it’s just one rotten person after another paying for their misdeeds. My personal favorite was the guy the zombies fed to a sty full of pigs. Mildly amusing