Starring: Snoop Dogg, Pam Grier, Michael T. Weiss, Clifton Powell, Ricky Harris, Bianca Lawson, Katharine Isabelle

Directed by: Ernest R. Dickerson    Written By: Adam Simon & Tim Metcalfe

The Story: Its hard to be an amateur b-movie reviewer nowadays. I say that because its real easy to just go online and read about movies that work their way to the Inferno before I even plop the DVD or VHS tape into my machines. I try not to do that because I want my opinion to be MY opinion. But with this movie I'll admit, I read some comments about it first on the IMDb. It looked 50/50 to me. some people hated it, some people took it with a grain of salt, and some people liked it. I think I fall into the latter, but that's probably because I don't expect much from some flicks. I just want to entertained.

Jimmy Bones was an icon in the city back in the 70's. He was a protector of his neighborhood, kind of shady, but in the end he wasn't evil. He might have been into some criminal activities like running numbers, but he wasn't a drug dealer....and that's why he was killed. His old friend Jeremiah (J-Bird) arranges a meeting with a corrupt cop, Lupovich and Eddie Mack. They want to start selling crack in the neighborhood, guaranteeing big money for themselves, but Bones is dead set against it. He was warned by his girlfriend and resident psychic, Pearl, not to go to the meeting, but Jimmy bones isn't afraid of any man. When Bones says no to the deal, Lupovich forces him at gunpoint to smoke crack. Pearl happens to walk in on the meeting and Bones pulls out his signature weapon....a butterfly knife to defend himself. Lupovich kills him and then forces J-Bird, Pearl, Shotgun (Bone's right hand man) to stab him with the knife while he dies. He does this so the others will be culpable in the murder....Eddie Mack doesn't need any urging. He does it because he wants Jimmy Bones out of the way.

Speed up to the present. the old neighborhood is now a ghetto slum. Bones once grand brownstone is now a desolate wreck. No one goes near the place if they can help it. Two knucklehead college students end up hiding in there after a drug buy goes bad and something nasty gets them. But the old place isn't going to abandoned too long. J-Bird is now a successful businessman and unbeknownst to him, his son Patrick has bought the place. With his half sister, Tia (Katharine Isabelle), brother Bill and friend Maurice they plan on turning the place into a nightclub. When they begin working on the place, Tia finds a dog hiding in the building. I don't know why the dog was there, since its some kind of black shuck out of European folklore (basically, a devil dog). Tia adopts the mangy animal, even though Shotgun warns them of the supernatural  happenings in the house and so does Pearl. Well, no one listens to Pearl since she comes off as a crazy woman, but Patrick definitely listens to her daughter, Cynthia because she's a babe.

Word gets to Eddie Mack, now a neighborhood crime lord and Lupovich, still a corrupt cop, that the old place was sold. They're upset because they've buried Jimmy Bones in the basement in Pearl's old dress! Lupovich confronts J-Bird at his home about it, but neither of them knows that Patrick has the building at that time. One thing this movie did do was bother me with Eddie Mack and J-Bird. J-Bird has become affluent and lives in an expensive area. He's a dick. He says people in his old neighborhood are losers and use drugs as an excuse for their own failure...and he has a white wife. (and daughter...Tia) Eddie Mack is now the big man in the neighborhood...and he has a blonde bimbo, Snowflake (groan) as his concubine. Much like Alien Warrior pounded this message into my head, is this flick trying to say that black men seek white women as a status symbol or something? I don't know, perhaps I'm reading into it too much. But I did feel that way while watching the movie.

Patrick and his friends are almost ready for their great opening, but the dog Tia adopted (named "Bones" after Jimmy Bones, who is kind of a legend in the neighborhood) digs up Jimmy's body in the basement. Its a horror movie so we can be assured that the characters aren't going to do the smart thing and call the police. They do the dumb thing, like decide to not say anything because they want to open the club that weekend without police interference. Maurice is especially ghoulish as he removes Bones ring from the skeletal hand to keep for himself. (Oh, he is so dead.) I guess this is why Maurice becomes Bones first real victim. The club opens and there's a crowd having fun.....and a mysterious woman lures the idiotic Maurice upstairs for some ....well, you know....but when they're alone she turns into the devil dog and rips him to pieces. When Patrick investigates he finds the dog chewin' up on Maurice's body and talking(!), albeit with a double negative. ("The gangsta of love don't eat no fried  chicken, heehee") The devil dog then vomits a butt load of maggots on Patrick as the body of Jimmy Bones comes to life in the basement.

Maggots fall out of the ceiling on the partying crowd forcing them to flee. Then Bones arrives....he sets the house on fire and chases the people out to the street. Bones is back and boy is he pissed! The first target of his rage is Shotgun, who was too stupid to move from across the street in the past thirty years. Shotgun pleads with the angry ghost that he only did what he did because Lupovich held a gun on him, but to no real good. Bones kills him and sings "Swing low Sweet chariot" to him as he dies. Then Bones goes after Eddie Mack, who hasn't figured out that shooting a dead guy is really kind of stupid. But the one Bones really wants revenge on is Lupovich which he gets. Bones carries the still talking heads of Lupovich and Eddie Mack with him, telling them he uses their decapitated heads to hold their souls. He then goes after J-Bird, spiriting him away even as Pearl and Cynthia explain to Patrick what Bones is all about. Pearl tells him that the blood on her old dress....that the killers used to wrap the body in...is what allows Bones to walk on the Earth. They go to the house to try and save J-Bird, but while they're en route, Bones tosses Lupovich and Eddie Mack's heads into hell. Then he tortures J-Bird for awhile, accusing him of betrayal, even though he was a trusted old friend. J-Bird begs for his life but Bones ain't havin' none of it. He throws J-Bird into the abyss. When our heroes arrive Bones separates them from Pearl, who he tries to woo into staying with him in the realm of the undead. Maurice makes a ghostly appearance, but its basically just so we can see Bill get killed. Patrick also gets to see his father, J-Bird, in hell. When he and Cynthia arrive to Bones lair Pearl, who is now dressed in her old dress by the evil power of Bones, realizes the only way to defeat the crazed spirit. The dress must be burned! Somehow the blood on it from Bones murder is his link to this world. (I didn't write the thing, I just watched it.) And because Pam Grier refused to be seen in her undies, Pearl sets herself afire instead of simply ripping the dress off first and lighting it up. (oh, and by the way, earlier, Pearl revealed to Cynthia that Jimmy Bones was her father....even though he died thirty years ago and Cynthia doesn't look a day older than perhaps 25....at the most!)

His link to this world severed, Bones and the supernatural world around him, crumble. Patrick and Cynthia escape but just barely. The sun rises....and we're left with one of those endings that leaves a chance of a sequel open, when Cynthia speaks in Bones voice and vomits maggots! Dog eat Dog, Boy!

Bones wasn't a bad movie, per se, but it was pretty hokey. Kind of like Candyman, only not as well written. I don't know much about Snoop Dogg, but while he ain't no Denzel Washington, he did okay as bones. If there's a sequel to this flick I just hope they don't make it so stupid as to kill what could be a decent little b-movie franchise. (Lets face it...if this movie gets any money it'll spawn a direct to video sequel. might as well hope its watchable!)

Best Lines:  “What makes a mutha f***er take his real teeth and put....I don't understand that sh*t! ” -Eddie Mack is confused why someone would have gold teeth.

 “Gee, Patrick don't you think its a little strange that he would stab himself in the chest and then bury himself?"- Tia proves she's smarter than Patrick by painting an obvious picture for him upon finding the remains of Jimmy Bones.

 “Me and mine...we cool as a mutha f***ing icicle in the freezer.” - Jimmy Bones.

Are you kidding me?

1.) Jimmy Bone's old house doesn't look big enough to be a club to me. Look at it from the outside....does it look big enough to really be a popular nightclub? You need a lot of room if you want to make the place a big time night spot. Maybe its like the TARDIS and is dimensionally transcendental.

2.) Once again we have a movie where someone sees something clearly not of this world and yet doesn't hie themselves to the nearest church. Bill hears the ghost of Jimmy Bones telling him to get out and is suitably perturbed....then he sees the face of the ghost and hears him say "Go, Boy!" and he still doesn't burn rubber. Lemme tell ya,  droogies, if a face appeared in a window in my bedroom telling me to get out I'd be buying a ticket to the Vatican so fast your head would spin. I might add that Cynthia sees the ghost of Bones also, via her "second sight" (or is it sixth sense....funk it, she sees dead people!) and she doesn't say anything about it.

3.) Hey, are there any police officers or legal experts out there? Someone explain this to me....Lupovich has J-Bird, Shotgun and Pearl stab the dying Jimmy Bones with his own knife to make it look like they helped kill him. This is supposedly so they won't call the police and tell the truth....that Lupovich and Eddie Mack really killed Jimmy bones. But they only complied because Lupovich literally held a gun to their heads. Isn't that enough to clear them? They actually had no choice in the matter or Lupovich would have whacked them on the spot! Since there are three of them wouldn't their word on the situation hold some weight against Lupovich even though he is a cop?

4.) Speaking of the circumstances of Jimmy Bones murder, that makes ol' Bones a pretty mean guy as a ghost. He goes after the guys that killed him, and hey, who can blame him. If a buncha dickwads killed me I'd be a pretty pissed off ghost. But J-Bird really didn't want to stab Jimmy.....Shotgun really didn't want to kill Jimmy. Bones could at least consider the fact that they were his friends and were forced to do what they did at gunpoint. As Bones ghost tells Shotgun when he comes, "You could have died with me!". Well, Jimmy, it just don't work like that. Its not like Shotgun thought  "Man, if I do what Lupovich says Jimmy will come back as a vengeful bad ass spirit and f**k my sh*t up someday!". He probably thought "Jimmy's gonna die anyway....no reason for me to get smoked too.". Which is actually what most of us would have thought at that moment.

5.) Are you trying to tell me that none of those people in the club noticed all of those maggots until the last minute?

6.) Bones was right when he said that Eddie Mack had sh*t for brains. When Bones makes his ghostly visit to Eddie, Eddie even says "We killed you and buried you in nothin' but your bitches rags!". Then he tries to shoot Bones. Uh, Eddie....if you know that you killed this guy thirty years ago, then its pretty safe to assume that bullets ain't gonna do much damage to him. A cross or some holy water maybe, but shooting a dude that's already dead is kind of pointless....know what I mean?

Nudity and Sex: Snowflake is seen partially nude. Cynthia is seen in her undies.

Huh?:

Patrick is pretty dumb. The gang finds the corpse of Jimmy Bones in the basement and they're all against going to the police. (except for Tia, but she could just freaking call the cops despite what the others think.) Now, I realize Patrick doesn't want to postpone the grand opening of his club, but lets be honest....there's the body of an obviously murdered man in the basement! Sooner or later it'll have to be dealt with so why not get it over with? At this point the only problems the gang would have is postponing the grand opening! Its not like they killed the guy! But not reporting a crime....even a thirty year old one....is not only wrong, its a crime also! One way or the other the cops are gonna shut the place the club down for awhile.

Can Bones or the devil dog manifest himself in other forms? Because I don't know where the spirit woman that lured Maurice to his doom came from.

Bones would be more sympathetic as a vengeful apparition if he didn't try and kill people that had nothing to do with his murder. He kills Maurice who has absolutely nothing to do with his death....well, Maurice did take the ring from his corpse but he could have just scared Maurice into giving it back. The two thugs probably needed a really good butt kicking but he didn't have to kill them either. And Snowflake! what was the point in killing her? She was completely innocent! Her only crime was being a stupid bimbo!

As mentioned in the synopsis...Cynthia is Bones daughter. But dammit she doesn't look more than maybe 22....and Bones has been dead for thirty YEARS! How the hell can she be his daughter!? The really irksome thing is they could have just said Bones died in the mid eighties and not change anything else about the story!

Its never explained where the dog came from. Earlier I called it a Black Shuck, but IIRC, a black shuck is from European....English, I believe, folklore. I don't think that fits in with Bones urban American roots. Is the dog just another ghostly form of Bones? Even if so, Bones seems to work against himself. It looks like the dog needed to kill someone (Maurice) in order to free Bones from the netherworld. Then why does Bones tell Bill "Go, Boy!" earlier? If he needs victims or someone to find his body scaring or killing anyone that comes into the house doesn't make any sense. If Bones didn't actually need any help in manifesting himself then why did he wait thirty years to come back for revenge!?

I wonder about this....why...HOW...does Bones get the opportunity to come back from the dead with all kinds of gnarly powers to exact his revenge? Its not like he's the only murder victim in the world. Usually in cheap movies the ghost has some kind of explanation like they made a pact with the Devil or a voodoo spell somehow grants them access to the land of the living. Bones returns from the world of the dead "just 'cuz'".

The Final Judgment: Well, we need new monsters, my droogs. Freddy and Jason are getting old. So I welcome Bones. No one will remember him in a year or so, probably, but the movie was fun enough to watch to wish it wasn't so. We need more ghost movies anyway. The Infernal Judgment is to give bones four devils. May he rest in peace!