The lovely leading lady playing Diane 'Sugar' Hill is Marki Bey. If you love the original '70s TV show Starsky and Hutch, then chances are you've seen her gorgeous mug making an occasional appearance on there. In this film though, she is the shit! We first see her chilling at the bar in her boyfriend, Langston's night club called Club Haiti - a Voodoo-themed bar. The title sequence is chock-full of Voodoo dancing and an opening theme song Supernatural Voodoo Woman that is totally funkadelic performed by a band called The Originals. With music this good and the promise of Voodoo, this movie grabs you right away and action doesn't take long to start.
Langston is offered to be bought out by Morgan (Robert Quarry) and the two have a heated discussion ultimately ending with a bunch of boring old white dudes jumping him outside the club. He stupidly walks out the backdoor of the joint ALONE and is beaten to death by these ol' honkies. Sugar runs out but it's too late. Langston is dead and now she's mad as Hell. With her "fuck the law" attitude, Sugar seeks help from Mama Maitresse - a Voodoo Mamba who has the power to summon forth Baron Samedi.Who is Baron Samedi, you ask? Well, you're asking the right person considering I wrote a full concept album on Voodoo. Baron Samedi is a character in the movie based on an actual Haitian Vodoun Loa (Lord) of the Dead of the same name. Basically, if you give him gifts until he is appeased, he will summon forth a zombie horde to help you get the revenge you seek. And that is just what happens in this flick. Remember when I mentioned earlier that there are zombies coming out of the cobwebbed ground and rising up from the dead? Yep! I love how the zombies look in this movie, too. Not sure what makeup effects were used, but it looks like giant silver ping pong balls split in half and placed over the eyes. Whatever! From afar, it looks as if their eyes are glowing and it amplifies the cool factor of their appearance. They are the bodies of slaves brought to America from Guinea, thus the Voodoo theme.
Don Pedro Colley is AMAZING as Baron Samedi. He is exactly what a Vodoun Loa should be; intense eyes, boisterous voice, and a deep, maniacal laugh that shakes the pillars of Hell. Oh, and I should mention that Mama Maitress is played by the precious Zara Cully aka Mother Jefferson from The Jeffersons - aka one of the best shows ever. But I digress. These two help Sugar out in the best way anyone could ask for in the way of revenge. We usually see an ambiguous Baron Samedi in practical, every day situations and this is when we know shit's about to go down. He shows up as a taxi driver, a bartender, etc., but the end is always how we expect with Sugar showing up with her zombie horde to kill the whities! Let me remind you this is a blaxploitation film, meaning all PC terminology is thrown out of the window. This movie has all the cliches of the '70s black culture including the use of the word "dynamite", fast bongos in action sequences, and racial slurs galore with lines like, "No accusations, honk! I'm passing sentence!" and as the zombies dump one of the guys in a pig pen, Sugar says, "I hope they're into white trash". 
"Poor little piggies. You know, they've almost gone a week without any garbage?"
Some killings involve the typical Voodoo doll ritual, but at least they're unique and follow the traditional meaning behind their use. In one scene she uses the doll as a means for the man to use a knife on himself and commit suicide. In another instance, she cuts the doll herself and we see the man bleeding from his neck. But, I'm partial to the killing that you see mentioned above; the zombies feeding the pigs some white trash, ha! My personal favorite is when Baron Samedi makes his appearance at the bar as a bartender and offers the man who is about to meet his demise a drink. A zombie to be exact. Damn, those are delicious. It's his line though that makes the scene: "Perhaps a drink on the house, sir. My particular special, a drink that I'm famous for - the zombie." I died when I first saw this movie. I mean, it was already too goddamn awesome, but that sealed the deal.
As the deaths go on, Valentine discovers that there are dead skin cells left at the scene of the crimes. Meaning that he suspects Voodoo almost immediately and he beings to research Voodoo and expresses his thoughts to Sugar; this is putting a damper on Sugar's plans on finishing off the rest of the white trash, so instead of killing him, she orders Baron Samedi to injure him, leaving him rendered at the hospital. Now she can continue on with her bidding. One thing though, and this is just because I'm a stickler on Voodoo though I don't expect that it will be or should be 100% accurate, the scenes where she bosses Baron Samedi seemed a bit too much for the Loa. The Gods aren't that easy to deal with, you know! And at the end, when everything is over, I was about to really think the relationship between Sugar and Samedi was atrocious until she offers the white woman to Samedi as payment for his help. That redeemed the stretch of her aggressiveness toward the Lord of the Dead.
The film was shot in Texas, giving opportunity to create an array of great atmospheres including city shots, murky swamps, swanky nightclubs and swingin' condos. The pacing of the movie is excellent, and atmosphere definitely gets another nod for this factor because there was a lot of switching up going on in the way of ambiance. The acting is great, the music is great, the story is great, the makeup effects are great...everything is great! It's too bad that there isn't as big of a following for this movie as there should be, and it's also too bad that there hasn't really been a proper release but hopefully, in time, there will be. 
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