Sugar Hill
directed by Paul Maslanksy
directed by Paul Maslanksy
This was another low budget American International Pictures feature that combined horror and blaxploitation themes. Sugar Hill wasn't a great movie but it had a few good scenes. Some of the story is illogical but that's normal for the genre.
American International Pictures also created or distributed similar films such as Blacula, Count Yorga, Black Caesar, and Coffy . Some actors from those films appear in Sugar Hill. Sugar Hill's director would later produce the Police Academy movies. Sugar Hill's most direct antecedent was Coffy. As in Coffy, a sexy Black woman confronts a racist power structure. Maybe Coffy's star, Pam Grier, wasn't interested in appearing in Sugar Hill?
The special effects here aren't ground breaking or even that convincing. Nevertheless, despite that, or perhaps even because of that, there are some honestly creepy moments.
Diana "Sugar" Hill (Marki Bey) is a fashion photographer and the girlfriend of a Houston area club owner named Langston (Larry D. Johnson). Langston won't pay extortion or sell the club to the local Mafia chieftain Morgan (Robert Quarry). The racist Morgan doesn't like "uppity n*****s". So Morgan sends his men, led by self-hating Black gangster Fabulous (Charles P. Robinson) to beat and murder Langston, which they do.
So now Sugar owns the club. She had better sell. If Sugar will give Morgan the obvious she will get a better price, much to the irritation of Morgan's equally racist girlfriend Celeste (Betty Ann Rees). But time is short. Morgan's not a patient man, even if he enjoys leering at Sugar and verbally sparring with her. Because he has a crew of thugs while Sugar doesn't, Morgan figures that Sugar's surrender and submission is a foregone conclusion.
Sugar has no crew of killers. But Sugar knows Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully-Mother Jefferson from The Jeffersons), a voodoo Queen. At Sugar's desperate urging Mama Maitresse summons Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley), the god(loa) of the dead.
Lecherous, sarcastic, cool, and possessed of an offbeat sense of humor, the top hat wearing sepulchral voiced Baron Samedi will temporarily lend Sugar some of his magic and his army of zombies so that she can take revenge upon Morgan. That is, Baron Samedi will do so for a price.
Sugar's former boyfriend is police lieutenant Valentine (Richard Lawson). Valentine investigates the sudden murders and disappearances of Morgan's men. This was a Saturday afternoon type of movie. Don Pedro Colley almost steals the show. Colley and Hill had good chemistry together. Colley's Samedi is a very happy God of Death.
