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There isn’t another movie I have watched that is as weird and boring as “Evil Bong (Rango is close).” The Bong’s premise depicts a life within its essence four roommates buy a demon-styled bong from a burnt-out hippie. The bong ends up charming and slaying each one of them, one by one, reminiscent of Jay and Silent Bob in “A Nightmare on Elm Street”.
The best part is that this suspicion disappears completely upon looking at the script and budget. Best known for producing poor-quality horror movies for several decades, director Charles Band and his Full Moon Pictures studio sink even lower on the charts with Evil Bong. I don’t know if the budget restrictions meant they had to cut large parts of August White’s screenplay, but this was intended to be a laugh track devoid of stoner sitcom featuring just two locations. Either way, the film moves forward at an incredibly slow pace.
This does not give me chills down my spine, so to speak. Rather, it is about how much a single screenwriter can manage the importance of archetypes in a set. A nerd Alistair (David Weidoff), resides with three other potheads Brett (Brian Lloyd), the athlete Bachman (Mitch Eakins), the super stoner and Larnell (John Patrick Jordan), who is basically a Vince Vaughn with 98% more “bro’s” in his vocabulary. Alistair, a complete square with slicked-back hair, dorky glasses and pens tucked into his pockets, talks like Mr Spock with self-esteem issues. There’s Brett and his randy girlfriend Luann (Robin Sydney), who also has a best friend Janet (Kristyn Green), who is hot and smart, but really Bishy. These Bizarro Saved By the Bell Kids throw parties, get stoned, and loaf around, which is only terrifying thinking of how long 84 minutes can stretch.
A vintage bong that was advertised in a trending magazine turns Alistair’s share of the rent money into a cash cow. It comes complete with a haunting, and sure, days after the gang takes their first hit, the bong comes alive and sucks Bachman’s soul inside a marijuana dream world. Larnell
Do not get your hopes up too much as Bachman’s imagination is a sleazy little strip club with lifeless plastic figurines that twist and grind on poles while providing sensual lap dances. While he does that, a girl with a bra made of two rubber skulls appears. Devouring him in the process and trapping his soul inside the bong. The rest of Evil Bong is like “Ten Little Indians” set in molasses as Brett and Larnell succumb to the bong’s powers too. But it is quite disappointing to learn that the total of the bong’s imagination rests at that pathetic strip club, and the means of attack are tape-wrapped strippers with gigantic puffy shark heads for bras, or cartoon lips for necks.
Alistair has no choice but to deviate away from his clean living ways and go into the bong to help save Janet from meeting the same fate as his friends. The original owner, Jimbo (played by Tommy Chong), comes to the guy’s apartment to pick up the bong that his wife sold without his permission. So I could feel the fate of mankind hanging in the balance as the tension between Jimbo and EeBee (did I fail to mention that the bong has gained the ability to speak, and its voice is of a sassy black woman? was truly epic. Or maybe that feeling of anxiousness was just my patience wearing thin.
As I stated previously, Evil Bong was rich with opportunity. However, Band and White seemed caught up in making a decision between a comedy or a horror film, neither of which they managed to deliver well. The so-called comedy implies more than it delivers, it relies too heavily on geek, valley girl and whore stereotypes, and the only people who are bound to enjoy this mess, other than those who are high when they watch the film, are Full Moon mummies. The band tries to spice up the strip club scenes by bringing in the icons of Gingerdead Man, Trancers, etc, and lets viewers watch a voodoo doll awkwardly performing solo acts, but at the end of the day, how much “creativity” is really on display here?
With regard to the “horror” elements in this movie, Band attacks his audience with CGI Suspenders and blood because it is easier to spray them in the face instead of creating actual shock or suspense. I wish I could say his effects work was creative, in my opinion, this genre of “horror” is laughable. It’s staggering, and I would very much like to cut the director some slack with regard to the lack of special effects work because surely nobody could be that morbidly incompetent.
This brings us to the primary issue of Evil Bong. It seems that the creators believe that grabbing the essence of pot culture is sufficient to have an audience subscribe to it. This might be the case for a stereotype whose neurons are dying off faster than respectful movie seat occupants, but for those in search of enticing, humorous, or at the very least fun-filled mind-numbing entertainment, simply plastering Tommy Chong’s bewildered head on a poster is not adequate.
The one thing I will give Evil Bong credit for is showing me something I had never seen in a movie before: The phrase “End Credits” starts at the end and appears on top of the word, “Cast”. This is probably, and for the sake of bolstering my argument, too smart to be associated with anything that has taken place in the previous 83 minutes.
A short while after the credits began rolling, I noticed something else astonishing a trailer for Evil Bong 2 It did not appear in the usual manner where some credits are shown at the edge of the screen like you might have seen while watching other films where they showcase some engaging bloopers, instead, a black box popped up at the top of the end credits and displayed the trailer for the sequel. I guess I will regret saying this, but that film appears to be better than the first one.
Turns out I am not insane! While watching the film, there was something that David Weidoff’s face struck me as a younger version of John Malkovich and I could not shake off that feeling. It was satisfying to know that he had received an award for school acting as Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses which I read on his IMDB page, but it was also disappointing because it meant that the claim in my head was only half true. I felt somewhat validated. Same as Malkovich in the 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons, he played Valmont.
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