The Zombies of Sugar Hill (1974) Review

aka Sugar Hill

Before watching The Zombies of Sugar Hill, my girlfriend asked, "HOW old is this zombie movie", to which I replied, "70s", and she settled down to watch with a heavy groan. That pretty much says it all. Most of the zombie movies from the 1970s just weren't that good. The voodoo zombie formula had gotten tired by that point, but schlock film makers kept plodding along. Still, though, I enjoy some of the ones that hit the right level of cheesy theatrics to keep my attention. The Zombies of Sugar Hill managed to do that.

I thoroughly enjoyed the flick, but I wouldn't say the same for the female viewing audience I was attached to. She didn't appreciate the ridiculous amounts of hardcore ghetto-speak nearly as much as I did. The Zombies of Sugar Hill is definitely a blaxploitation movie first, and a zombie movie second. There were tons of zombie scenes, though. One aspect of the film that won me over was the make-up job on the black voodoo zombies. They genuinely looked creepy as they loped through the screen with their machetes in hand. The most magnificent part of the zombie look had to be the eyes, all bugged out and green. Very cool.

Baron Samedi was a bad ass in Sugar Hill. He shows up in iconic top hat with glasses, cigar, suit, and cane. They did much better with his character in this movie than they did in the much-higher-budgeted Live and Let Die (the James Bond flick from 1973). The guy who played Samedi in Sugar Hill commanded the screen with his creepy facial ticks and related nonsense. I originally read about this film in an article from a reprinted issue of Tales of the Zombie (the classic comic by Marvel). I had been saving this film for a rainy day (which happens often in San Francisco) and I have to say, I was not disappointed. Partially because I knew what I was getting into...

- The Zombies of Sugar Hill on Wikipedia
- The Zombies of Sugar Hill on IMDb
- Sugar Hill (1974) on Amazon.com