Week 3 (July 5 – 11) – Maverick Entertainment Group

One of the most overlooked and consistent low-budget film companies of the 21st century, they’ve been full steam ahead in the streaming era while other indies have cratered. From the Maverick Entertainment Group website:

Founded in 1997, Maverick continues to be a leading distributor and producer of niche independent and Black Cinema content. Having released more than 1,300 films over the past 26 years, Maverick currently distributes the world’s largest library of feature-length Black Cinema.

If you’re tired of the measured, elevated pacing of modern horror, look no further than this movie. It does not ask for your patience. Instead, it spends 75 minutes messing with your head. It starts with Hondo (John Mud Pratt), a young hustler who buys an inexpensive piece of real estate that turns out to be a haunted trap house. That’s when you get five or six movies worth of batshit insanity, all at once: a slasher setup, a man with the face of a dog and hallucinations of women on leashes.

Hondo is visited by Wally (Terrence TMI Moore), who wants to buy some weed, which leads to some time distortion, as well as an older man (Shaheed Philip) who shows up and says that he’s Hondo’s long-lost father, fresh out of jail. That’s when they hire strippers, make it rain, and the dogman comes to kill everyone, all as Hondo dreams of women in cages, a call from jail informing him that his dad is dead, and Wally trying to kill Hondo.

Just as you’ve settled into this hood-horror nightmare, the rug is pulled. It turns out the first 20 minutes were just a dream sequence caused by Hondo’s untreated PTSD.

Or maybe this is a different Hondo.

The real story then kicks in, shifting the tone into an awkward, supernatural Airbnb getaway with his real estate agent girlfriend Wanda (Tina Shakiyah), her sisters Jasmine (Latotsy Jackson) and Sharice (Alana Mike) — these were the strippers before, but now Jasmine is Wanda’s sister and Sharice is a therapist helping h im — and the sisters’ boyfriend, Derek (Terrence TMI Moore), who was Wally in teh dream. They rent a house from a mysterious character named Def (Philip) who just happens to be the same guy who played Hondo’s father in the dream sequence. The rules of the house are specific: don’t flush the toilet, don’t leave after 11:11 p.m., and mind the weird gender-coded entry requirement: “Only two men can enter the house, John Black and John Brown.“

I have so many questions: Why does the killer have a dog face? Why does the singing homeless man know exactly how much cash is in Hondo’s pocket? Are the strippers real? And if not, how does one show up after the dream sequence? Is Atlanta really this wild? Whyis there so much Bava lighting?

The film doesn’t care to answer these questions.

It’s great. Fuck everyone who is obsessed with all these highbrow horror movies.

This is where it’s at.

You can watch this on Tubi.