"BONES": It's-A-Rainin' Maggots, Hallelujah (reviewed by AX)

This is the story of Jimmy Bones, he's been known to hold his own like Ice Cream Jones...yeah, Ax can rap like a sum-bitch. This movie is pretty cool, but not super-awesome. I liked it though. Lots of maggots in the movie. It stars Snoop Dogg as Jimmy Bones, a big-time neighborhood drug dealer who's livin large with his fine-ass girlfriend (played by the immortal Pam Grier) in 1979. But trouble comes a-knockin when Jimmy's pals discover this new thing called "crack" and want to start selling it in the hood ("why would I want to kill my own people?", Jimmy asks. Indeed, that would be fuckin stupid). Jimmy tries the crack, says fuck yall, and his friends murder him (assholes!). Right away we as an audience have learned a valuable lesson: drugs are bad.

So after a violent bloody stabbing and shooting, Jimmy's so-called pals bury him in the cellar of his building and go about their crack business. They all get rich and go about their lives like nothing happened. And that's the end. You don't believe me? You're damn skippy it's not the end. You think Snoop goes out like a punk ass beee-atch? Hell to the naw. So we switch to the present day, a youngster and his buddies decide to buy Jimmy's old run down building and turn it into a night club. As you might imagine, weird shit starts happening because...you guessed it, Jimmy's restless spirit is still in the building waiting for his revenge. Pretty soon the bodies start piling up, and the maggots start a' pouring down.

Now you might be asking yourself, why did they make this stupid ass movie? Or more importantly, why did Ax go see it? Well peep this shit homies: I happen to think it's been way too long since we had a good "black" horror movie. That's right. I think Snoop Dogg has respect & admiration for movies like "BLACKULA", "ABBY", and "JD'S REVENGE", and he wanted to make his own throwback to that type of film (as evidenced by both the 70's themes and the presence of Pam Grier). I personally loved seeing Pam Grier in the afro wig, but we'll get to that later. You might remember, Snoop's got roots in motion pictures: the first time I heard him rap was on the soundtrack of the film "DEEP COVER" (he and Dre went '187 on a muthafuckin cop'). Also, "BONES" is directed by Ernest Dickerson, who directed the awesome horror flick "DEMON KNIGHT" a few years back. While "BONES" is no match for that movie, it's still pretty cool. Snoop is a decent actor, the film has a good enough plot, and it's got a lot of gross shit in it...

Which brings me to the maggots! Although I'm not big into Italian horror movies (although Dickerson told Fangoria Magazine that he IS), I immediately noticed the heavy use of maggots in "BONES" that reminded me of Lucio Fulci's "THE BEYOND". If you freak out when you see maggots, do not see "BONES", they are all over the place! A ghostly dog barfs up maggots all over a guy's face, they SPRAY everywhere for at least a good 30 seconds. Then later, it literally RAINS maggots inside the night club, all the poor patrons are drenched in these cute lil white worms. So Dickerson's imagery a lot of times is reminiscent of those spaghetti horror films. Also, the scene where the dead body of Jimmy Bones awakens in the cellar of the club is almost exactly like the scene in the beginning of "NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4" (where Freddy's bones grow skin and come to life). I'm a huge Freddy fan so I thought that was fuckin wonderful. "BONES" isn't terrifying, but it is well-made and the scares work.

Now let me tell you what I liked best about this movie: PAM GRIER!!!! My god, she is incredible. In the scenes that take place in 1979, she looks like she has not aged a single day since the 70's. It's astounding. All I can say is holy shit, she looks good after all these years (and she's older than my mom). If I have one big problem with "BONES", it's that they didn't show her naked. And trust me, there were 2 scenes where they had plenty of opportunity to do this and it would've been appropriate to the plot. I think either Pam doesn't get naked anymore because she's old, or the studios think nobody wants to see Pam naked anymore (THEY ARE WRONG AS FUCK). So I don't feel ashamed to tell you I was disappointed. Pam, there's a lot of people in this world who think you are the most beautiful actress that ever lived. But I'm sure you know. You still got it.

My final judgement of "BONES" is 3.5 stars out of 5. I wasn't looking for the next "SIXTH SENSE" when I saw it, I just wanted a cool little throwback to the 70's black film explosion (and perhaps some Pam Grier cleavage shots). So I expected a bit more from the director of "DEMON KNIGHT", but all in all it was still a good movie to check out if you like cheesy stuff and you actually have fun watching movies. But if you're looking to get really scared or to see some innovation, you will hate "BONES". But be warned, if I hear that you are talking smack about Snoop's movie, I'll have my homies twist your cap back. Mark ass trick.

(11.10.01)