Somewhere wedged firmly between a ‘Channel Awesome’ sketch and the works of Tim Heidecker we find ourselves in the bleak cavernous regions that house ‘Evil Bong 666’ a film that…well…it doesnt exactly make itself clear.

Y’see, this is because an annoying staple of ‘Full Moon’ films is to make their franchises wildly incestuous. Indeed ‘Evil Bong’ as a franchise has been cross pollinating with other Full Moon films such as ‘Trancers’ and…*sigh*…’Ooga Booga’ since the very beginning.

But a lot of these cross overs have kind of been inconsiquential, little cameos here and there that enhance the viewing experience if you’ve seen those movies…but dont take away from the film you’re watching if you havent.

‘Evil Bong 666’ breaks from that tradition in arguably one of the worst ways. Because, bearing in mind that the last film ended with our entire cast being sent to hell. This film picks up an undisclosed period of time later with some major changes having happened in this movies continuity, but those events having taken place in OTHER ‘Full Moon’ movies.

Theres at least 1, possibly 2 movies sandwhiched between the last one and this one, one of which is a ‘Killjoy’ movie. Though helpfully, they dont clarify which one, nor do they add any solid context to why a ‘Killjoy’ movie suddenly decided to resolve a cliffhanger from the ‘Evil Bong’ movies…That being said, at this point in time, the ‘Evil Bong’ movies are basically ‘Gingerdead Man’ sequels that just so happen to feature Ebee…so I shouldnt be too surprised.

Anyway! basically, Something happened in one or two of the ‘Killjoy movies’ which meant that Sarah Leigh and Rabbit escaped from Hell, theres also a clown girl with a babyish attitude who has been teleported away from ‘Killjoy’ and needs to get back. It transpires that in Rabbits Absence, one of his employees who ran his bowling ally business has taken over the weed shop and is running it with expressly evil intent.

That is until Ebee shows up and forms an allience with her, as she wants to meet the Devil and Ebee says she can oblige. Oh…and Larnells completely missing from this one. they say he’s on a ‘spiritual journey’…I assume something happened to him in another ‘Full Moon’ film.

In either case, this leads to the gang being teleported to ‘Sexy Hell’ where the ‘Sexy Devil’ is open to an alliance in order to bring the orgy’s of sexy hell to earth. Leading Rabbit and Ebee to form an unsteady alliance as they aim to create a weed powered monster to take the Devil down…Oh and Gingerdead Mans in this…he doesnt do much. They tease a new Gingerdead Man movie at the end of this thing…it never happens.

Basically, watching this movie without knowing whatever happened in those ‘Killjoy’ films feels a bit like walking into a movie about halfway into the 2nd act. I spent most of the first half wondering what on earth was going on, and most of the second half realising it didnt really matter because it’s just an ‘Evil Bong’ movie.

Like all the scripts to come before it, ‘Evil Bong 666’ in some regards has stepped forward, and in others has fallen back. The wins for this movie? Well…the characters are much less annoying (though much more cringy) the dialogue is actually kinda sorta better than the last 3 entries, and it HAS managed to hold on to some semblence of a plot.

However; what plot IS here is VERY messy and pretty incoherent. The first act in particular feels like a massive clusterfudge as they dont really know how to bring the audience up to speed. Honestly they’d have been better off just putting a caption card up saying ‘go watch these movies before this one’ because the supercut of footage from other movies used in the open for this one to try and fastrack people was just a hot mess.

From the 2nd act onwards, this thing does finally get itself in gear, albeit while still being pretty messy and strangely paced. Its incredibly one note too, with ‘Sexy Hell’ basically here translating to ‘The scriptwriter was OBSCENELY horny and channeled his lusty rage into 40 minutes of the script’ because thats all the second half of this film is really, guys and gals writhing around saying ‘orgy’ and ‘sexy hell’ over and over again looking increasingly ‘up for it.’

As with the previous films too, we once again find the director having to choose between furnished sets with *some* greenscreen, or basic sets, with a couple of outdoor shots and TONS of greenscreen. and here they’ve chosen the latter. theres one ‘on location’ scene. half the action takes place in a single shop set that I assume ‘Full Moon’ have set up for general shooting on most occasions, and the other half of the movie is shot entirely on a green screen set, with some of the WORST CG animations i’ve ever personally seen. they look like mid 90s windows screensavers for the most part and feel like something that would have been broadcast in the early hours on MTV2 in the early 2000’s.

Again; I cant fault HOW its been shot, theres clearly been clean communication with the teams involved and the output IS a semi-professional looking product that meets the needs of a film like this. But thats ALL it does and once again im just sat here wondering why they’re making movies like this if they want to put so little into them.

On the cine front its also a split room. the on set work is the first one in a good while to really properly try and use lighting and creative camera work as a means to achieve a style for the film. Which I absolutely applause. it looks decent, and with only minor colour grading and CG tweaking to complete the look, this is probably the nicest looking ‘Evil Bong’ film from a set perspective.

However; the CG/Greenscreen segments look atrocious. I mentioned ‘Channel Awesome’ at the top of this review, and honestly? THEY were doing better CG stuff around the time that this film was released, and I personally consider their stuff to be the stuff I show to people on how NOT to do CG scenes. its THAT horrendous.

That being said, ropey CG aside, sequences are reletively tight, they actually have some decent coverage to work with and after 4 movies, they’ve finally kinda sorta nailed the ‘Clutch Cargo’ effect they’ve been trialing for the puppets now…Technically, I give it a pass. BARELY. but there has been decent improvements on how these films look over the last 4 entries. and its increasingly clear to see here.

Performances are also a mixed bag, im so glad they’ve toned Rabbits character down in this entry as he was beginning to really wear out his welcome for me personally. However; as if to almost try and rebalance the ‘Totally unbearable characters’ scales. the clown girl in this at times went BEYOND my tolerance for irritating. she had some fun moments…but jesus christ. I have my limits.

[Mild Spoilers here] but the introduction of ‘The Gingerweed Man’ was well handled and I think the performance given for him was actually quite refreshing. they’ll inevitably dumb him down or screw it up in some way. But at least for now? he’s probably my favourite character in this series.

Even the soundtrack didnt quite bother me too much this time around. they’ve kind of split it 60/40 Richard Band to Old ‘Evil Bong’ scoring, and I think that kind of works okay enough.

All in all? While its been one of the least aggressively irritating entries in the series up to now, it’s also been one of the more incoherent entries AND one of the least entertaining. I dont know what possessed the team behind this franchise to think that people want to come to see an ‘Evil Bong’ movie where the titular ‘Evil Bong’ does nothing, kills noone, manipulates noone, and is barely even in the damn thing. But Its bleakly hilarious to think we’re now 7 entries total into this franchise and it’s slowly morphed into anything and everything BUT an ‘Evil Bong’ movie…If I didnt know any better, i’d think the crew were scared to make a ‘Bong’ movie where the ‘Bong’ actually has a meaningful antagonistic purpose in the film. Its SUCH a bizarre franchise.

Another one I cant recommend, but one of the better entries in this series. If you’ve managed to watch the 10 films that link directly into this series to get a basic understanding of what the hell is going on, you might experience non specific feelings. enjoy?

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/evil-bong-666/