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Welcome to Hip Hop Movie Club, the show that harmonizes the rhythm of hip hop with the

magic of movies.

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today we answer this question about the 1993 action crime thriller, Judgment Night.

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Why was the soundtrack so much more important than the film itself?

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I'm Dyno Wright, filmmaker, longtime hip hop fan, and as an obsessive Living Colour fan, I

owned the soundtrack since the day it came out.

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I'm JB, 80s and 90s nostalgia junkie, long time hip hop fan.

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And after watching this film, I felt like track one of this unique soundtrack.

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Just another victim.

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Yep.

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kid.

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Oh man, alright I gotta get my composure.

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Alright, that was funny.

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Helmet and House of Pain.

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Absolutely

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And I'm Boogie, a DJ, a long time hip hop fan, and I'm fresh off of rockin' a cookout on

Saturday.

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I just picked up my payment from the person who organized it, and she had nothing but

positive feedback for your boy.

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Book book uh

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Boogie.

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Right on.

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Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.

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Alright, so Judgment Night is a 1993 thriller about four buddies whose guys' night out

goes horribly wrong when they witness a murder and end up being chased through the city by

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Denis Leary and his gang of killers.

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The movie itself, pretty forgettable B-movie stuff with Emilio Estevez and Cuba Gooding

Jr.

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running around just looking terrified for about 90 minutes.

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But here's the thing, while the film was about as exciting as stale popcorn, the

soundtrack was absolutely revolutionary.

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So sometimes we do these five key takeaways with film, but I was like, nah, really, nah,

nah, not this time.

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This is one of the ones where you're shaking your head and you're like, can I have that

hour and 50 minutes back?

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Because what did I just watch?

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What did I just watch?

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There's some good actors in this one.

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A really good cast that was kind of wasted.

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Yeah.

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can use my five takeaways that I said earlier.

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Take it away, take it away, take it away, take it away, take it away.

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Oh man.

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Oh man.

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just about sums it up.

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about like four years after, you know, Boyz N the Hood and you had Cuba Gooding Jr.

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who was excellent in that, you know, and you had Emilio Estevez who, you know, as a

youngster was in Breakfast Club and all these other movies and like Jeremy Piven who went

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on eventually to Entourage and many other things and these are good actors.

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Denis Leary's had his moments, but yeah, yeah. Stephen Dorff’s had his moments.

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And just like...

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What was this mess?

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I never felt connected to any of the characters or the storyline.

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The backstory was very haphazard and just kind of matter of fact.

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like, we see Emilio Estevez has a wife and an infant child and bye honey, I'm going on a

guys night out.

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And then you don't know anything about all the other guys and this random RV that's all

decked out that Jeremy Piven's character just borrows from a dealership.

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They're like betting on boxing, they're heading to a boxing match and then they take a

detour and chaos ensues, but just like.

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hard to follow.

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literally fell asleep watching it a couple of times, but then I tend to watch some of

these movies late, but it was just some of these chase scenes just kept dragging and

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dragging.

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It's like, you know, they're running, running.

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now, you know, now we're stuck in the van and alleyway and then, oh, now we're in the

sewer.

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just like, same thing after the same thing.

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Denis Leary is just out there just like cursing them out.

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And I didn't even know his motive or what he's trying to get at.

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I mean, yeah, he's a bad dude and he's chasing them, but why?

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I don't

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The first bad decision they made was going to a boxing match in an RV.

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That was the whole part.

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You couldn't go anywhere with the thing.

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You ended up making a detour off of the highway into the shady exit ramp and you got

pinned in between the alleyway because it was in a big old RV.

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Had you had regular cars?

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Come on bro.

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I never had the desire to tailgate at a boxing match.

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Come on.

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you

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You're in Chicago traffic.

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It's probably like a weekend evening and you know, like how are going to maneuver this big

RV?

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Yeah.

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And it's funny, even like the cinematography is like, it was a little bit.

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like play you know cliched or like trite it was kind of like the windy city you see all

the wind and stuff blowing all over the place i was like i get it it's the windy city like

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there's a lot of wind going on like this is the effect that they're going for i was like

oh yeah there's chicago and let me drop a line about the chicago bears or like unless like

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this is just it's not it it's not working it's so amateurish and uh yeah i just

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Very repetitive, like a big game of hide and seek with Denis Leary and those guys and the

crew.

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That’s exactly what it was, an adult game of hide and seek.

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Yeah, boring game of hide and seek.

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I mean, when people think of this movie, the very first thing they think about is the

soundtrack.

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So there's such a stark disparity between the lack of creativity of the film itself and

the ingenuity of the soundtrack.

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which, yeah, this amazing soundtrack because it pitted top hip hop acts of the time with

top metal and or alternative acts and it worked really well.

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So, but I feel like having that element was awesome, but it was so underutilized.

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Like my favorite part of this movie was the opening scene with the song Fallen by De La

Soul and Teenage Fanclub.

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And then they play that again at the end.

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And I'm like, this is awesome.

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Like I love the song, but like.

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Any of the other songs were just very muted and they didn't really add.

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Yeah, it didn't really add to the action, which was again, there you go.

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Yeah.

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strangely conceived.

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And I think as much as I like the song as well, it's a strange choice for it to be the

theme for this supposed action movie that's a thriller.

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And this song is very down tempo, almost melancholy.

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It reminded me of WKRP in Cincinnati.

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Remember that show?

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The theme song is actually not a rock song.

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It's more of like a love ballad.

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huh.

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um You had, know, Teenage Fanclub's not like your typical metal band or, you they had a

very specific sound, but it wasn't gritty.

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Like you could have used some of any other songs in this soundtrack.

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m

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got a song called Disorder by Slayer and Ice-T.

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You got just another victim that I mentioned.

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That would have been perfect.

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Helmet House of Pain.

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I remember when that one came out.

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That was catchy, but also hard.

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Yeah, there you go.

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Another body murdered.

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Like, pick one.

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You chose the most, like I said, the most mellow one out of them to, to, it's just like,

who, thought of that one?

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You chose the most, like I said, the most mellow one out of them to, to, it's just like,

who, thought of that one?

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Mm-hmm.

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sonic youth one is pretty down-tempo as well, but still, what are you gonna do?

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So the soundtrack comes about because Erik Schrody, otherwise known as Everlast, gets cast

in the movie.

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And so his manager, Happy Walters, thinks, oh.

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There's been this growing fusion of rap and rock.

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There's been this growing fusion of rap and rock.

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And he has the idea to put these acts together.

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And boy, does it really work.

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I mean, I was sold because of Living Colour, but they really did get some really huge acts

at the time.

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they asked other acts too.

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They approached Nirvana, they approached Metallica, but they said no.

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mean, this Happy Walters guy was 22 at the time.

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They were probably within their rights to say, ah give us a million bucks and then we'll

do it.

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Right.

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I own the soundtrack also, 93.

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That was our freshman year, ah right?

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And it was one that you just had to have.

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If you liked hip hop and if you were into a little bit of the alternative, I liked that

combination because I started getting into a little bit of um some of the alternative

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If you liked hip hop and if you were into a little bit of the alternative, I liked that

combination because I started getting into a little bit of um some of the alternative

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sounds at the time.

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Pearl Jam specifically I liked.

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So Pearl Jam has a song with Cypress Hill called Real Thing.

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I liked Living Colour.

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I know I like some of these guys.

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I wasn't into the metal, like I wasn't a big Biohazard or Slayer fan.

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Faith No More, you I liked their vibe.

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So some of these songs, really, you know, like they did a great job.

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It's kind of like.

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chemists, you know, put these things together and it worked.

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So we had seen the crossover.

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We talked about on prior episodes when we saw the Run DMC documentaries, it broke the mold

with when they had Aerosmith and Run DMC walk this way, how that works so well.

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And we had seen how Anthrax and Public Enemy, their version of Bring the Noise, that's one

of my favorite tracks.

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I love that, that works so well.

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Yes.

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is a great formula.

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It's like try to join it when it worked.

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And it's very unique, especially for the time, 93, there wasn't a lot of this

collaboration.

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was, you know, there was a thirst for something like this and they knocked out of the

park.

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It was great.

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Yeah, no one had done this at this scale, a full length album.

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So we've had a song and we've had, at this point, Rage Against the Machine had just come

out.

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They've been around for about 11, 10 months.

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But they didn't really hit it big until a little later after their album come out in

November of 92.

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So there was a movement and this really capitalized on it and it really did push the

envelope on this.

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So there was a movement and this really capitalized on it and it really did push the

envelope on this.

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For better or for worse, gave us nu metal.

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Yeah.

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I was lukewarm on it, it really did change the game.

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Yeah, because you see acts like Limp Bizkit, Korn, um Linkin Park, where you have elements

of both and they did great.

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Yeah, exactly.

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I mean, they did great on the

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Billboard charts and the amount of records they sold and going platinum.

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And so people had this, again, thirst or this this want for.

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this crossover material.

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it was genius at the time.

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Yeah.

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And it wasn't, no one could really predict how well it would work.

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um A lot of people, lot of rock people were not into hip hop or rap at all.

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And um they used to fight about, oh, rap songs only use rock songs in there to make the

beats.

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Rock Box comes out and like, whoa, this sounds different, but it's the same.

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It's rock sounds.

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but in the hip hop context.

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And so there was some trepidation, but uh can't argue with the results.

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Nope, not at all.

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Still stands.

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Still stands.

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It's a great body of work.

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I still put this record on, um especially the Faith No More, Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E one.

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think outside of the Living Colour one, of course, it's my favorite one out of all these

tracks.

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They did play together in the studio and Boo-Ya T.R.I.B.E.

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plays instruments, so it's not like this was foreign to them.

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And so they really found some good resonance together.

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Yeah, even to this day, you see Chuck D who we had the honor of meeting working with Tom

Morello in Prophets of Rage.

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So you have Rage Against the Machine and Public Enemy, the major components of those

groups, still making music.

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If you look them up right now, they're just still touring and putting out great music that

combines the genres perfectly.

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They mesh so well.

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If you go onto Spotify, look at Prophets of Rage, you were like, wow, I like this.

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You get the booming voice, you get the guitar, you get...

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He just posted a pic of him.

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um Was it Saturday?

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Saturday or Sunday?

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He just posted something, pic of him.

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Yeah, he was posting a bunch.

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Yeah, and he posted one with them.

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was, yeah.

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He was going down the line.

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I was like, okay, Chuck, got some time today.

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Yeah, he did.

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He did.

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You know, Morello is a Harvard grad, I believe.

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I knew you would know that as a big Rage fan back in the day.

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his intelligence and Chuck D's intelligence, you have these brilliant minds and booming

voices and the musical talent.

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I mean, that's just a marriage made in heaven.

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So I would would implore you to take a listen to the Prophets of Rage.

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B-Real said that without having done this Judgment Night soundtrack, he wasn't sure that

Prophets of Rage would have worked.

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So that gave him lot of confidence.

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Think of that guy, he need any confidence, but he cited the Judgment Night experience as

ah being a foundation for Prophets of Rage.

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The best concert I’ve been to in the last 10 years maybe was seeing Rage Against the Machine at Madison Square Garden.

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Phenomenal show.

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Unbelievable.

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Yeah.

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I can imagine.

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Yeah.

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That's the most redeeming quality of this film because there's not much to talk about with

the movie itself.

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But if you look at the collaborations on this one, I'll read them off quickly.

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Helmet and House of Pain, we mentioned Teenage Fanclub with De La Soul, Dyno Wright's

Living Colour and Run DMC, Biohazard with Onyx, Slayer and Ice-T, Faith No More and

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Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. you mentioned, Sonic Youth was with Cypress Hill, Mudhoney and Sir Mix-A-Lot,

Dinosaur Jr.

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and Del the Funky Homo Sapien.

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have Therapy?

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and FATAL and Pearl Jam and Cypress Hill.

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So Cypress Hill, two tracks.

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on this one, but it is great pairings.

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What you can do, you can put the movie on mute and then play the soundtrack in the back just listen to the soundtrack

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idea.

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Much better idea.

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a brilliant idea.

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They should do that on one of these TV channels.

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That would be an interesting concept, especially a movie that you want to mute, where it's

not giving you lot of redeeming quality for the content and the plot and the dialogue.

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Just play the thing and just loop it a couple of times because I like that.

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You're onto something there, boogie.

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You're onto something.

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eh

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our solid recommendation.

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There you go.

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You know what's funny is like you pair these groups together.

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I'm sure with AI these days, you could probably come up with pairings like this.

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You know how, oh you see, Oh, there I ruined it.

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Yeah, they actually do the combined.

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But I think like, what if you would say, who would go best with this one?

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Like I'm gonna throw a random name out there.

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It's like, Belinda Carlisle with.

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Robert Plant with Onyx was like, what would that sound like?

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And not that you blend them, but like, what if they did a track together with their own

parts or something and they did, it was like, whoa, that's kind of crazy.

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You know how like have a meal and it says, okay, this type of wine would go with this

meal.

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Like if you could have something seek out the types of rhythms and sounds that would sync

up nicely with another one based on the melody and the.

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the sounds and the instruments and vocals and whatever.

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I recommend the 1997 vintage of Helmet.

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Yeah, exactly.

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this?

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Yeah, you know who tried to do that?

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I was just talking about this with somebody the other day.

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It was that collision course, Jay-Z and Linkin Park collab-o.

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Yeah, because there were some of the songs where he's spitting his regular lyrics over

their beats and vice versa.

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Yeah.

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The Numb Encore is just perfect.

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That is a great collaboration.

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I love that combination with Linkin Park and Jay-Z.

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But if you like Q-Tip and Fleetwood Mac or something like that.

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Listen, one of my favorite vocalists of all time is Sting from The Police and he's got a

lot of

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He's got a lot of like reggae feel to his sound.

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So if you find like, what if he collaborated with like...

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Michael Franti or somebody like that, or like a Jack Johnson vibe where it's like really

chill.

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I'm like, oh, that would be a pretty good pairing.

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Like, what if we get those guys together or something?

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That would kind of be interesting to hear.

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Like, who would you like to see collab from the two different genres?

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That would be interesting concept.

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Put it in the comments.

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Drop a comment of who would you like to see collaboration?

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See if you can make it happen.

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As we said, the redeeming quality of this film is the soundtrack.

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If you haven't heard it, find out in your streaming service and check out some of this

collabs.

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look at that!

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I'm holding it up.

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Still have the CD.

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oh

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Yeah, I gotta I gotta I gotta go digging again because I know I I got somewhere in my

museum of wax.

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have a few of the single

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Museum of Wax.

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I love it.

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Oh man.

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gotta go crate diving in my own room.

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There you go.

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Shop your own closet.

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Seriously.

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oh Judgement night.

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Hehehehehe oh

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I did a letterbox review on this one.

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It wasn't good.

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Half a star for the film itself.

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But the soundtrack actually hit number 17 on the Billboard 100.

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um So it was all the rage, all the buzz back then, 93.

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Biohazard and Onyx are on tour currently.

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I'm thinking about going.

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So maybe I will actually go.

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Let's see.

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Yeah, that'd be cool.

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Nice.

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I gotta give a quick shout out to my man Michael DeLorenzo who played Teddy.

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He was the first victim but he was on my show New York Undercover and I was like that was

my man right there.

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Yeah, that's my man right there.

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So he went on and went on to not be a victim.

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: 00:19:14

Actually he did become a towards the end of the season when he blew him up.

304

: 00:19:19

But that's besides the point but he lasted quite a few seasons.

305

: 00:19:24

Mm-hmm.

306

: 00:19:25

For uh those of you who remember, one of the henchmen, Sykes, is played by Peter Green,

who was Zed in Pulp Fiction.

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: 00:19:34

And so after he dies in the movie, was like, Zed's dead, baby.

308

: 00:19:39

Zed's dead.

309

: 00:19:40

I love that line.

310

: 00:19:43

Oh wow

311

: 00:19:45

Yeah, I don't think we need to go around the room and do the rating.

312

: 00:19:48

think it's unanimous with the leave the film in the vault, but leave that soundtrack out

and prominently displayed as Dyno Wright did and play it uh for those collabs.

313

: 00:20:01

Yeah, play it loud.

314

: 00:20:03

For sure.

315

: 00:20:05

It's got lasting power.

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: 00:20:13

Thanks for tuning in to the Hip Hop Movie Club show.

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: 00:20:15

If you enjoyed this episode, please tell a friend about it.

318

: 00:20:18

Join us on Saturday, October 4th at the Frank Banco Alehouse Cinemas at Steel Stacks in

Bethlehem, PA as the Hip Hop Movie Club teams up with the First Saturday Horror series and

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: 00:20:28

the hosts of the How Could You podcast for a special screening of Tales from the Hood.

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: 00:20:33

You will not want to miss this spooktacular event.

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: 00:20:36

Check out our full live event schedule and lots more on our website, hiphopmovieclub.com.

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: 00:20:43

And remember, don't hate, ventilate.

323

: 00:20:47

Hey, it's Windows Open Time, almost fall.

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: 00:20:53

Get that air.

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: 00:20:55

Right on.