Hello all,
I'm writing a piece on the voodoo horror classic, SUGAR HILL aka THE ZOMBIES OF SUGAR HILL. I'm having a heck of a time finding any sort of behind-the-scenes information on the film. I noticed a beautiful press kit on ebay last week...but, as can be expected, it got snatched up pretty quickly!

I know that Shock Cinema magazine did an interview with Don Pedro Colley which I'm hoping to pull some info from. Does anyone know any good stories about the film? Or any fun facts?

Not sure if anyone can help, but I thought it would be worth a shot to ask some of you folks. Thanks!

The Don Pedro Colley article ran in Psychotronic Video, not Shock Cinema. Brian Albright interviewed the director, Paul Maslansky, in Shock Cinema a few issues back and there was some info in that piece. Also, every Robert Quarry interview I've ever read includes his snide, superior take on the film.

Cool...thanks for the heads up. I went and ordered that back issue of Shock Cinema. I think I have that Don Pedro Psychotronic, I remember it being a pretty cool interview (all I remember is him talking about hanging out with Victor Buono on the Beneath the Planet of the Apes set). I looked all over for some Quarry interviews - what was the jist of his thoughts on Sugar Hill?

Quarry was interviewed in issue 19 of Scarlet Street as well; back issues were going for $5 a while back from the SS website and I can't imagine they're selling for any more these days. There's an interview with William Marshall in the same issue.

Quarry has talked to Fangoria, Psychotronic Video, Worldy Remains, and any other magazine that will listen to him, and he always bitches about SUGAR HILL like it's worse than the fifty-seven Fred Olen Ray movies he's done since. I don't remember the specifics, but he got into some beef with Samuel Arkoff over MADHOUSE or the second DR. PHIBES movie, and has always felt that Arkoff finished off his AIP contract by sticking him in "a black film" as punishment. I like Quarry, but he always comes off like a bigot and a dick when he talks about SUGAR HILL.

Quarry's wrong. SUGAR HILL is fabulous. I hate when I see the title come up on the programming grid of my TV, knowing full well that it will turn out to be the 93 Wesley Snipes picture of the same name. My VHS tape is getting old; DVD, please!

The UK release is pretty nice but full screen, probably open matte.

Victor

Absolutely. I've never seen SUGAR HILL, and I've tried to record it several times, but it's always the Snipes film, despite what the programming guide promises. Drat. Why am I taunted so?

It was all over the Showtime channels 6-7 years ago, which is where I finally caught up with it. Quarry's character ( and his girlfirend ) both spout racist dogma in this film, and they are extremely unlikable charaters ( although the girl's fate is somewhat amusing ). The movie itself was silly and bad though, with not enough horror mixed in. The horror that is included is mostly laughable and none of the performers come off well.
What do you get when you blend in equal parts cliched story, ultra cheesy zombie effects and PG rated Blaxploitation action?



A movie that can't possibly live up to it's poster!

And yet everything in this poster was taken directly from the movie.

SUGAR HILL (Marki Bey's, that is) has one of the best raising-of-the-dead sequences ever, with those drums. Colley and Zara Cully (THE JEFFERSONS) are terrific, too--and so is Quarry, for that matter. (Bey doesn't make as much of her part as she might.) The scares may be on the level of a KOLCHAK episode from the period, but there's nothing wrong with that. I'd seen the commercials as a kid ("SUGAR HILL...and her zombie hit men!") and the movie didn't disappoint as an adult.

And what has become of Marki Bey anyhow? She was darned pretty. I was hoping the Dark Sky folk would locate her for commentary on THE ROOMMATES, but so far to no avail.

Updated headshots of her were still appearing in the Academy Players Directory until recently, so maybe she's still in SAG. She had a website a few years back, dedicated to whatever she was pursuing at the time; my memory is failing me but it was creative and artsy-craftsy, maybe dollmaking or knitting. I can't find the site now, so maybe she got tired of SUGAR HILL fan mail and took it down.

She's very good in THE LANDLORD, a movie that's finally starting to attract the attention it deserves.

The writing, I think, lets her down. She's a nice girl in some scenes, a voodoo queen in others and the two sides never mesh. (We've all been there I'm sure:) ).If Pam Grier had played it, though, you can bet it would be better known.

Just saw that SUGAR HILL will be on Turner Classic May 23rd @ 11pm EST which will give everyone a chance to get a nice copy of the film until it hits DVD.
I'd agree Pam would have helped out considerably, mostly what hurts this for me is the toned down exploitation elements.