Elvis did it. So did Frank and Madonna. Singers aren’t often the best actors, but their public, and sometimes their egos, demand it. Rappers may have the strongest call to the big screen. Perhaps it’s the same inner force that compels them to long for Bentleys, speedboats and vintage Miss Pac-Man games. CineSchlocker fave Ice-T makes movies as often as he changes his high-dollar drawers. Ice Cube is no slouch either and has young upstarts like Ja Rule and Pras anxious to follow suit. Are they in it for the loot? The bragging rights? That’s anybody’s guess. But Snoop Dogg just wants to be Freddy Krueger. That’s ultimately the genesis of Bones (2001, 97 minutes). In it, rap’s favorite son, The Doggfather, a towering, lanky dude whose stage experience dates back to church pageants as a youngster, cuts a ferocious silhouette as horror’s latest and most promising boogeyman. A vengeful spirit sworn to righteously and brutally right them who done him and his wrong, wrong, wrong.
The movie: In the ’70s, Jimmy Bones (Mr. Dogg) is the beloved sultan of his squeaky-clean urban kingdom. He’s driven down its streets, where he occasionally stops to slip candy buyin’ cash into hands of adoring children, or to tenderly squeeze luscious melons at a street-side grocery with his beautiful Pearl (Pam Grier). All seems as though this burgeoning utopia is destine for increasingly brighter tomorrows. That is until the Big "C" rolls into town.
Jimmy’ll run numbers, move a little grass, but he flatly rejects a heavy-handed business proposal to allow CRACK to be sold on his corners. As a result, like Julius Caesar before him, Jimbo is brutally murdered at the hands of those he’d trusted most, even loved. Unlike that Roman fella, however, these folks make Bones take a BIG OL’ HIT off a crack pipe before pumping his chest full of lead and taking turns jabbing a switchblade into his gut until his crack-addled spirit wafts, more like, wobbles into the afterlife.
Years later, as his body lies rotting in a shallow basement grave, the scourge of drugs has reduced Jimbo’s once proud community into a hopelessly grim ghetto. Things manage to get WORSE for the big guy, though, when some hip-hopping kids wander in from the burbs with the idea of turning his haunt into one supremely "OFF THE HOOK!" dance club. That’s about the time Bonesy starts slashing hiney. First his jet-black hell hound indulges its hankering for human and before long Jimbo himself blasts out of his grave amid a wall of flame that permanently poops everyone’s party. Then he’s off to pay rather unpleasant nocturnal visits on those sorry dogs who kilt him and poisoned his peeps with crack. But as in life, Jimmy always makes time for some sweet lovin’ with his special lady.
CineSchlockers will love seeing Ms. Grier reprise her Queen of Blaxploitation look during the flashback sequences, but it’s a role that also depends on her emotional strengths as an actress, over her prowess with a sawed-off scatter gun. Khalil Kain plays the young entrepreneur who setup shop where he shouldn’t have. Some may have seen him as Tiger Woods in the Showtime biopic. Ginger Snaps sensation Katherine Isabelle is ALMOST convincing in her tinted shades and do-rag.
Notables: Two breasts. 12 corpses. Gratuitous Vincent Price reference. Seance footage. Projectile maggot puking. Maggot rain. Maggot eating. Wise-cracking severed head. Gospel singing. Writhing wall of tortured souls. Seriously dislocated jaw. Gratuitous fast-mo AND slow-mo. Badass devil dog.
Quotables: Brutus, er, Jeremiah has no desire for reparations, "Personally, I don’t need a mule. I got myself a Lexus." Jimbo turns down a stake in the sale of hard drugs in his neighborhood, "That’s beautiful, baby. Totally widescreen sci-fi forward thinking and I can dig that. But that’s for you and yours. Me and mines? We cool as a mother f@#$ing icicle in the freezer." Then politely, but firmly dismisses his would be partners, "It’s never business, it’s always pleasure." After his untimely death, children could be heard singing, "This is the story of Jimmy Bones / Black as night and hard as stone / Gold-plated deuce like the King of Siam / Got a switchblade loose and a diamond on his hand / They took his life, he never rested in peace / Now his vengeance will be unleashed."
Time codes: Something ain’t right in this crib (6:00). An ode to Bob Keen‘s juicy re-animation sequence in Hellraiser (39:50). Where this whole misfortunate series of events began (52:00). Bones instructs smart-mouthed pushers on the power of his supernatural high (1:09:34).
Final thought: A heroic killer crackhead!? Brilliant!!! Snoop’s wry, ultra-laid-back style is an inspired fit. Bring on the sequels!