AllMovie

Bones, despite its half-assed social conscience and its heartfelt homage to classic horror and blaxploitation, is a sloppy attempt to cash in on the waning popularity of rapper Snoop Dogg. Jimmy Bones, the slow-drawling ghost played by Snoop, doesn't have enough personality or screen presence to become the urban Freddy Krueger the filmmakers are seemingly shooting for. Ernest Dickerson's sloppily made horror film never adequately establishes Jimmy's character as a living person, and, as played by Snoop, Jimmy's all style and no substance. Snoop has been a reasonably effective actor in smaller roles, like the wheelchair-bound drug dealer in Training Day. Here, he fails to put across Jimmy's love for Pearl (Pam Grier, the only actor with any real presence in the film), and his anger at those who betrayed and murdered him. His Krueger-esque quips lack wit, and some ("Dog eat dog") don't even make any sense within the context of the film. The plot, dialogue, and most of the performances are on the level of bad TV (Friday the 13th: The Series comes to mind) and Bones doesn't fully explore its theme of urban decay. It doesn't have the satirical potency of Rusty Cundieff's equally cheesy (but far more lively) Tales From the Hood. It isn't even as good as Dickerson's enjoyably campy Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight. Bones references Italian horror masters like Mario Bava and Dario Argento with its fake, too-red blood, its haphazard plotting, and its queasy mix of sex and gore. There are a few creepy moments -- a close-up of a red-eyed dog gobbling ground meat; a shot of the haunted Cynthia (Bianca Lawson) writhing in a bed sheet drenched in blood -- but the amateurish acting and lame dialogue prevent Dickerson from building a genuinely scary film.