Madacy Entertainment, 2003

starring: Julius Golden, John Sloan, Vesher Yisrael and Mark Anthony Rivera
directed by: Chad Hendricks

the plot: Playa (Golden), Swole (Yisrael), Bling (Sloan) and Carlton (Rivera) are planning a house party that will have the ’hood talking for weeks. But while they’re spreading the word about the bash, a lonely white boy named Jerome tries to get in on the action. Jerome gets his ass kicked and the four continue to plan their party. Later that night, the joint is jumping and the party’s going great—that is, until a hockey-masked killer starts dispatching the partygoers. Playa gets a nasty surprise while waiting for a rendezvous with a hottie in the hot tub, Swole gets picked off while lifting weights and Carlton, the light-skinned “nerd” of the group, gets teased mercilessly for being a white boy. As more and more bodies pile up, everyone at the party learns what happens when “white bread goes bad.”

why it’s good: There are plenty of terrible movies out there, but “Kracker Jack’d” is a special kind of terrible. An awkward attempt to combine comedy, horror and the spirit of actor and director Rudy Ray Moore’s blaxsploitation flicks of the 1970s, “Kracker Jack’d” manages to fail on all three fronts. The jokes are lame, the slasher plotline is doofy, and none of the cast has even one-tenth the manic charisma that Moore let loose in “Dolemite.” Although it has a running time of just 80 minutes, “Kracker Jack’d” feels twice as long, a result of many poorly executed jokes (a number of which are about menstruation, for whatever reason) and long stretches in which nothing actually happens. That said, “Kracker Jack’d” does have a certain goofy charm that makes it slightly bearable to watch in small doses. There are some chuckle-worthy bits: Playa and the boys ad lib a song about Kool Aid and women; later on, after being drowned, Playa is brought back to life courtesy of some magical oral sex. “Kracker Jack’d” is a pure mess from a technical standpoint—bad lighting makes the movie dark, dreary and indistinguishable, and the sub-par sound (combined with an overpowering soundtrack) makes most of the dialogue inaudible. And, of course, there’s a twist ending that (a) isn’t much of a twist and (b) tries to shoe-horn in an important “message” about tolerance.

why you should own it: “Kracker Jack’d” bills itself as “Friday” meets “Friday the 13th,” but there’s really no reason for anyone, anywhere, to own “Kracker Jack’d.” Those looking for some passable urban horror might be better off checking out “Tales from the Hood.”