‘Evil Bong 420’ is such a tease of a movie, its unreal. Picking up almost immediately after the events of ‘Gingerdead Man Vs Evil Bong’ the films whole schtick seems to be ‘What is the plot of this movie going to be!?’ but not in a self aware and interesting way…In a ‘our budget is 20 cents and a band aid and we have David Decoteau available to film for half a day’ kind of way.

What the ACTUAL plot is, is as follows: We pick up a couple months after the events of ‘Gingerdead’ and Rabbit has escaped the bong world and has set up *probably* the worlds first stripper, weed fueled, bowling ally that also happens to sell a CRAP ton of ‘Full Moon’ merchendise. ‘Hilarity’ ensues. Seriously, thats the main drag of the plot here. Just Rabbit dealing with the CER-AAAAZY people who would frequent a stripper, weed fueled Bowling Ally. Including several naked women, Decoteau, Ooga Booga (AGAIN for some reason…Jesus christ) and a half pig, half man celebrity called ‘Hambo’. Not to mentiona all the ‘Comedy Stoners’

well…thats not ALL that happens here. Its an ‘Evil Bong’ movie…not that you’d know it, as the B-plot of this film consists of the Gingerdead Man (Who’s still trapped in the Bong world) getting fed up of nakedness, unending pleasure and more weed than he can handle. And decides, he wants to go and hang out with Rabbit for a bit. Ebee tries to keep Ginger in the Bong world by telling him she’ll go get Rabbit. and promptly dissapears.

Does this lead to a funny slapsticky runaround where Ebee tries to find Rabbit and Gingerdead gets bored and starts slashing? NO SILLY! these bits are all shot on a greenscreen! Instead it just means that Ebee just dissapears from the film for a large chunk of the 53 MINUTE RUNTIME. only turning up to continue to reassure Gingerdead that she’s working on getting Rabbit. and she turns up on an actual set at the very VERY end of the movie, and I dont think it’s spoilers to say that she turns up 10 seconds off the end of the film. says a single line and the film just stops mid flow. thats it.

Neither of these plots interact with each other till the closing 5 minutes. and when I mentioned earlier that this films theme seems to be ‘Whats the plot?’ I wasnt kidding. Decoteau turns up at the very beginning and offers to pay Rabbit $50 to shoot a haunted bowling ball movie in his ally (dropping a ‘slimeball bowl-a-rama’ reference in for good measure) So we as an audience then think: “Ahh! okay! thats the movie! Ebee and Gingerdead stoning and slashing up a movie shoot in the bowling ally! nice!

NO! Because Decoteau? is never seen again past that opening scene. Then Larnell turns up with Sarah Leigh, and we think ‘Ahh! okay they going to have a final showdown with Ebee and Gingerdead’ NO! doesnt happen. Then its revealed that Larnell and Sarah Lee are sort of dating, but that Larnell is still seeing his old girlfriend and you think ‘Ahh! its going to be a love triangle thing’ NOT REALLY! because while that plot point DOES get picked up. It doesnt get addressed till about 10 minutes off the end of the movie.

Hambo mentions to Rabbit that he needs some capital to get his career relaunch underway, and you think ‘This has GOT to be it surely!?’ NOPE! mentioned once and then forgotten. Rabbit himself has WAY more Full Moon merch to hock through this thing and you think ‘Decoteau and Full Moon merch!? AND Charles Band is directing!?…okay maybe this is gonna be a rags to ritches thing’ NOPE. non of that has ANY impact on the plot apart from an invention Rabbit unveils called the ‘Weed Blower’ which just blows a weed ploom into someones face to chill them out…and in the most aggregious scene in the movie. The asian tourists from ‘Gingerdead v Evil Bong’ turn up again…and Rabbit proudly unveils a HORRENDOUSLY racist statue of the male tourist, saying he got ‘Inspired’…The statues called ‘The Gook.’…Jesus Christ.

I guess what im saying is that this film is completely and totally aimless as a written work. its 50 minutes of people acting INCREDIBLY stupid, saying really stupid things and like most people under the influence…not a whole lot is actually achieved by the end of the session.

I do however have to question the moral ethics of making a film thats predominantly going to be viewed by people stoned off their mind or otherwise mentally incapcitated, where the only thing that IS clealry pushed across the full runtime is the message that you need to buy as much ‘Evil Bong’ and ‘Full Moon’ merch as possible because they’re SO amazing!

Like…the whole film is best described as ‘Hey boobs! (buy our merch) isnt weed amazing!? (buy our merch) WOW that kill (one of 2 in the movie) WAS SO GORY AND AWESOME!!! (Buy our merch). Its positive reinforcement strategy across the films runtime was unnerving to me honestly. Being blunt (heh) this might as well be a 50 minute advert wrapped in the marketing of a movie.

The scripts largely directionless, pacing is to the wall, the tones all over the place, the characters are crude and offensive stereotypes, it feels like some kind of ‘MK Ultra’ experiment to see how much hold a film company can have over stoners.

The cast are all dialled up to 11, are delivering lines seemingly however the hell they want, theres no consistency, seemingly no cast direction. its a mess. Thats not to mention the HEAVILY recycled soundtrack or the CGI here which is BEYOND atrocious…This is a studio production. and for 2015 NORMAL PEOPLE could recreate some of these effects in there own homes…

Hell, they dont even seemingly have the budget for an outdoor shoot this time. Everything takes place in a single set and on a greenscreen stage…and thatss it. its SUCH a cheap movie…its unreal.

In fact, if it wasnt for the fact that this film from a direction standpoint looks *margianlly* better than the previous entry in terms of more creative lighting choices, and clear communication between Band and the Crew. The cine is sharper, with more B-roll to help support the sequences and a better emphasis on shot composition (largely to make the merch look nicer). And the fact its mercifully short at 53 minutes (including titles and credits) This would probably be the worst of the bunch to date.

A super cheap, rambling, messy toy commercial of a picture. Theres something genuinely quite unpleasent about this one. and Im STILL hung up on the fact that the ‘Evil Bong’ franchise is now 5 entries in, and the titular ‘Evil Bong’ is the LEAST prominent character and does almost NOTHING in this movies…Its astounding… I absolutely wont recommend it. despite its technical improvements. This things a stink bomb make no mistake.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/evil-bong-420/

Well…this was a trial to be sure…’Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong’ is arguably the 2nd worst ‘Gingerdead Man’ movie, and the worst ‘Evil Bong’ movie up to this point in my opinion. Neither of the titular villains get NEARLY enough screen time to do much of anything in this…what can ONLY be described as ‘Cash in’ event of the decade.

Seriously, the films an hour and 23 minutes long and 25 minutes of that consists of titles, credits and reshowing the best bits of ‘The Gingerdead Man’ and ‘Evil Bong'(s) 1-3. With at least 40 minutes of the remaining hour being utilised SOLELY for one of 3 things:

*Boobs
*Trying to sell you Evil Bong and Gingerdead Man Merch
*or cramming in as many references and cameos from the Gingerdead man and Evil Bong Franchises as is physically viable…whether it makes sense or not.

The ‘Plot’ picks up about 6 months after the events of ‘Evil Bong 3’ and a few years after the events of ‘The Gingerdead Man’ but it seemingly removes ‘Gingerdead’ 2 and 3 from the Canon…which is just…odd. considering they reuse puppets from ‘Gingerdead man 3’ in the 3rd act of this thing.

Anyway…Basically the plot follows Larnell, our tragic 90s Stoner now going solo with a shorter than average, high pitched, one eyed, rage machine of an assistant who stabs first and asks questions later. The pair have set up a new weed dispencery on the beach front and Business is…well, not great. largely because they dont really seemingly understand how businesses work.

It transpires that just up the street, the survivors of ‘Gingerdead man’ have set up a new bakery with the aim of having a fresh start. Unfortunately for both businesses, theres incoming disruption. As Gingerdead finds out about the new bakery and decides to head over to finish his murdering spree, and it’s revealed that Larnell has basically kept Ebee ‘The Evil Bong’ under lock and key in a back room of the weed shop with the aim of figuring out her ‘Secrets’.

When recurring regular screwball ‘Rabbit’ enters the shop eating a cookie, Larnell is totally smitten by it, and heads over to the bakery where he’s greeted by Sarah Lee. The pair awkwardly flirt for a moment until Larnell suggests a cross promotion effort. With the weed store sending customers there to deal with the munchies, and the bakery maybe making the store some edibles to sell.

Its all rather short lived however when Ebee manages to escape entrapment and kidnaps Rabbit. Gingerdead arrives at the bakery and spots Sarah Lee and Larnell and the pair end up…well I wont say ‘In a race against time’ but basically they get given something resembling a ‘To Do’ list which we follow them as they go through it…aaand…thats kind of the movie basically.

I genuinely dont know how you mess up a cross over like this…other than to say a lack of money almost certainly played a part. As was the case with ‘Evil Bong 3’ we have 2-3 set spaces, a days worth of outdoor shoot footage and the vast majority of the films styalisation is almost entirely dependent on post production colour correction and CGI…with almost no effort put into the ‘In Camera’ side of things.

The scripts non existent. This is honestly a 20 minute story thats been stretched out to an hour and 23 by way of LOOOOOOOONG and drawn out conversations about store management and selling techniques. Gingerdead and Bong only actually interact in the same scene for *approx* 3 minutes, with them being seperated for the rest of the movie. Theres no grand showdown with the pair, they argue a bit, but they dont fight, and the ending is about as boring as its possible to make a movie about a killer cookie and malicious Bong occupying the same space.

Theres barely any kills in this, and what kills there are are largely done off screen, the pacing is a crawl, The tone is similar to ‘Evil Bong 3’ in the sense that they’re pretty much aiming for an out and out comedy with heavy emphisis on it being the stupidest, lowest common denominator humour its possible to do (I didnt laugh) But without the familiarity of the core cast barring Larnell and Rabbit you’re just left with a situation where the new characters are ‘Scrappy doo’ing’ their way through the script, and any of the GIngerdead folks are totally lost because they’ve been pulled out of a *largely* straight horror franchise (ignoring 2 and 3 as this film does) and told to play it for laughs…Imagine if Hellraiser crossed over with ‘Childs Play’ and they asked Pinhead to ‘play it daft.’ Thats what they’ve done here.

Its a bad story, padded to the Nth degree, with bad jokes, bad pacing, a boring resolution, poor character development and absolutely no enthusiasm in trying to get you invested in the movie…They start trying to upsell people on Resin statues of Ebee and ashtrays from the ‘Full Moon’ store in the 2nd act of this thing…and they try to do it with a straight face for christs sake.

The direction and cine is probably the films saving grace. There are moments in this where it actually looks quite filmic. The illusions utterly destroyed the second ‘Bong’ or ‘Gingerdead appear on screen (both have had a redesign for this movie, with Gingerdead having some kind of deeply unpleasent ‘Clutch Cargo’ style real mouth overlayed onto the puppet, while Ebee gets weird ‘GI Joe’ action Eagle panic eyes that rock left to right aggressively.

But outside of the redesigns, the film actually doesnt look half bad, we have some experimentaion with shot composition. They FINALLY remember to get some decent B-roll to help make sequences look a bit more interesting. and the cast seem to know whats going on and give performances worthy of the script (make of that what you will) I wish they used the set space a little bit more honestly…but at this point I’ll take ‘just above the basics’ as a decent starting point. Dont get me wrong, the sets still look INSANELY cheap…but they at least TRY to make them not look like that.

The performances are farily dire if im being blunt. John Patrick Jordan, Since ‘Evil Bong 2’ has pretty much been the best part of these movies. giving a performance that basically comes across as a stoned interpretation of ‘Randall’ from Clerks. Here? it’s much the same, and he’s easily the best part of this movie. Robin Sydney as Sarah Leigh just about manages to give a solid ‘straight woman’ performance to Jordans easygoing and dry weed salesperson. But beyond that, it’s just adult models who’s only note was ‘Get naked and look sexy’ or they just got random bit part actors into the shoot and told them to ‘do weird stuff’ to help fill time. To my memory, the scene in which an Asian couple enter the store, improv a load of physical comedy while speaking in border racist tones, do a couple of routines and then leave…having NO involvement in the rest of the film other than that scene. Was pretty much the template for how the rest of the movie runs. It was just a really poor watch.

But the cherry on the cake HAS to be the soundtrack…which is a hybrid of 1 or 2 Evil Bong tracks…*sigh* and old Full Moon tracks. with the title track being the only new composition I picked out.

I would have rated this thing half a star higher had they not had the utter AUDACITY to try and sell me stuff half way into this thing. Hell, had they done that and that was the beginning and end of it. I’d have probably still shown it *some* mercy. But the Bluray release of this contains TEN MINUTES of adverts for ‘Evil Bong’ and Gingerdead merch alongside a podcast where they try to hock merch too…its just very clear that this movies sole purpose was to upsell the audience on a new line of merch, and they used…what could have been a…well I wont say ‘great’, but at LEAST maybe ‘Fun’ little cross over outing to milk EVERY. SINGLE. OUNCE of goodwill that I had. The thing has a couple of okay moments in it. But its absolutely not an essential watch and I was quite dissapointed.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/gingerdead-man-vs-evil-bong/

Something of a step back for the franchise; ‘Evil Bong 3: The Wrath of Bong’ feels like a movie that had one goal ‘Come in under budget by any means necessary’ Because, MAN OH MAN does this thing feel cheap.

Picking up a year or two after the events of ‘Evil Bong 2’ the gang have all grown up and moved on with their lives, with 2 of our comedy stoners (the jock stoner and the hardcore stoner) going into the legal weed industry together by starting a business, while 90s stoner guy becomes an off grid hippy and our nerdy nerdlinger has started working for the science core of the government. When a meteor crashes on earth containing an alien species thats shaped like a bong, our nerd is sent to investigate.

Little does he know that the bong itself has been captured by a local homeless person who’s sold it to the stoner guys weed business…and little do THEY know, that the alien Bong is actually sentient and working on a plan to destroy the earth…with SPOOGE!.. *Sigh* cue about an hour of the dumbest humour and bottom of the barrel gags imaginable.

In a way its kind of weird that this is even an ‘Evil Bong’ movie, because the titula ‘Evil Bong’ doesnt actually turn up till about halfway through the second act, and for the vast VAST majority of the movie, she’s basically there to help our guys defeat the Alien Bong. Which is ESPECIALLY odd when you consider that we’re now 3 films deep in the ‘Evil Bong’ franchise and so far the ‘Evil Bongs’ been on the good guys side twice and only really worked against them once…Soooooo she’s the ‘Not so Evil Bong’ right now…

Across the board everything in this film feels like some kind of part regression. On the scripting side of things, ‘Evil Bong 2’ wasnt exactly a work of art, but it was a film that was self aware of what it was and cut its cloth appropriately, the tone was stupid, but had a level of sincerity, the characters felt like a breakout from there stereotypical roles in the first Evil Bong movie, it felt like they’d actually grown as characters and could continue to develop as the the series went on. It kept a good pace and I felt quite happy with it as a very basic work that was just trying to have some fun.

‘Evil Bong 3’ jumps the shark, dumbing the plot and characters down TOO much to the point that the sincere intentions found in the 2nd film really arnt there for this one. This almost feels like someone wrote the film with some kind of grudge after being told the characters were ‘too complex’ in the last entry. All of them lose their range here, the levels of stupidity are taken out of the equation, and we’re left with a cast of characters that arnt *quite* as one dimensional as they were in the first film, but are CHRONICALLY aiming to do the stupidest dumbest thing possible in almost every scene. to an almost painful degree.

Stupid humour can be really funny, I like stupid humour when its done well…this? is not done well (in my opinion). Scenes drag on and on, the pacing is a crawl past the first 10 minutes and never changes up the tone or action for the entire runtime. Its basically a load of guys chatting and being dumb in a weed store for 40 minutes married up to 40 minutes of those same guys in a sci-fi space void being molested by alien women acting stunned, stoned and stupid for ANOTHER 40 minutes…and the film kind of…cuts between the two.

While there are one or two moments in this that are enjoyable enough, the plots so paper thin, lacking any kind of impactful tone or direction to the story, that It really just felt like a time sink with the very rare light chuckle thrown in.

Add to this that the cine and direction have taken a bit of a dive too. the film has 2 sets and a couple scenes shot on location, and thats. IT. the location work seems almost shot on handheld in a rush and looks unprofessional. the studio work is passable, but would give some poverty row features a run for their money. I dont know what happened on the shoot for this movie, but the vibe it gives off is ‘Theres no money to do anything other than film the damn thing, we get 2 takes max per scene, we cant afford B-roll’

They utilise composite CG and animation for the titles and transition cards in this one, but they look horrendously cheap as of 2023. The kind of thing that could easily be knocked together in photoshop these days by an amateur in under 10 minutes. The thing lacks any kind of distinctive creative vision beyond neon body paint and references to the ‘Creepshow’ short: “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill”

Even the physical effects arnt up to snuff. We’re 3 films into the ‘Evil Bong’ series by this point and they STILL havent got a ‘Bong’ puppet that has fully animated facial features. ‘Ebee’s mouth twitches when she talks…which is terrible, but shamefully the BEST this series has managed to date, her eyes still dont move, and the Alien Bong’s in a similar situation, all the alien props look like they were bought at party city or were designed last minute…this is a professional retail production. And it feels like it was made by students as an ‘End of year’ film school offering.

Performances are a bit mixed, Our nerdy dork Alistair has been replaced in this movie by Peter Sickles, who does a fine enough job. Honestly I didnt actually notice the actor change until the film brought it up itself! the core cast trundle along about fine enough. But the material they have to work with, and the total lack of any kind of interesting set space (literally a park, a weed shop and a neon lit black void is all the sets in this film…) means there isnt really a whole lot they can do. I didnt dislike any of the performances in this one. They were all kind of pleasent enough and, for the most part, they manage to maintain their character tones from the 2nd film. Which is nice. I just wish the scripts had given them more to do and the director had had more time and budget to help get the best out of them.

And finally; the soundtrack…which is basically the same score as the first two films with 1 or 2 new tracks thrown into the mix especially for the 3rd outing…they’re okay. Im still really glad we arnt getting generic ‘full moon’ scoring on these things…but we are now at the point where. For the 4th film, I really do hope they go for a majority new soundtrack.

All in all? This thing falls between two chairs, more interesting and less irritating than the first ‘Evil Bong’ but WAY more dumbed down, budget starved and less interesting than ‘Evil Bong 2’ Not an essential watch, not recommended. The only thing I can say is, if like me, if you enjoyed the 2nd ‘Evil Bong’ film as the kind of movie you can just shove on in the background while your doing other things and occasionally have a little chuckle over it. This is basically more of the same, but stupid. So…and worse for it.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/evil-bong-3-the-wrath-of-bong/

Hey! Did you watch the first ‘Evil Bong’ movie and thought it was kinda sorta okay but there wasnt much plot to speak of? Well! Dont you worry! because ‘Evil Bong 2’ is the ‘Incremental improvement’ picture that you’ve been missing your whole life!.. Im serious…Thats literally the best this film gets…kinda, sorta, a little bit better than the first movie in almost every regard. Not enough to out and out make it praiseworthy, but enough that, given the choice, i’d probably pick this one over the first one.

The plot picks up about 6-12 months after the events of the first film, the guys are all out of university and trying to make their way in the world, when something strange befalls the group. They all begin to suffer from increasingly strange side effects, One becomes insatiably horny, the other suffers Narcalepsy and our Jock from the first picture becomes chronically fixed in a state of the munchies.

Whatevers causing these weird issues, the gang figure its something to do with the ‘Evil Bong’ so! they chase down the guy who delivered the bong to them in the first place who tells them they need to go on a secret jungle adventure, where they meet a research team looking into a lost tribe of semi nude women who worship an equally killer Bong. Shenanigans ensue.

And I think the biggest thing to note about ‘Evil Bong 2’ over the original is this is a film that feels much more comfortable in it’s skin than the first movie. The first felt kind of awkward in places as it tried to sell it’s horror elements on an equal footing with it’s comedy ones and the intensly awful stoner humour, forced nudity and awkwardness of the cast having to play roles they didnt seem too comfortable in made the film feel SUPER dated, stiff and a bit awkward at times, not helped by the great saggy middle of the thing which slowed the action right down to a crawl for most of the runtime.

This film feels a lot more at home with what it’s trying to do, its basically apeing the old ‘Lost island explorer’ type movies of the 30s and 40s. The stoner humour is much more played down, we get a wider range of comedy which…still isnt great, but HEY! they’re trying new stuff! The horror element has almost completely been removed, gone are the weird cameos from other franchises, the nudity is massively toned down and kind of makes sense in the context of the movie.

The films pacing is much more refined, the act structure works a lot better and flows more naturally between the acts. It still slows down a bit in the 2nd act, but here rather than it getting painful, the cast (who appear much happier to be on screen this time) manage to bring their stereotypical characters to life a bit more and actually make them a little bit more interesting.

The ‘Evil Bong’ aspect is pretty much held back till the 3rd act where theres a decent enough reveal. Though it’s a little dissapointing at how little the Bongs are intergrated here. It almost feels like Full Moon wanted to make a softcore nudie flick, but then at the last minute realised they could cram some ‘Bong’ in there and make a bit more money in doing so.

In either case, while its still a flawed script, I feel they’ve made some quite nice improvements here, the stakes a bit lower. But the trade off for that is a tighter production that gets the ‘Comedy/Horror’ tone it needed to aim for, that builds on its characters in a way that feels natural and does seem like a series moving in the right direction.

Speaking of, the direction and cine is much the same as the first film too. Which is to say technically, it’s not terrible. But it’s still very much shot for function over form and they’re REALLY relying more and more on a ‘Fix it/Make it look good in Post’ mentality, which really does this thing no favours. sequences tell the story fairly effectively, but theres no real compositional flare or interesting B-roll to help make the sequences spring to life.

90% of the style from this thing comes from Pre rendered CGI assets or harsh colour corrections in post, which makes the thing look a lot cheaper than it probably was to shoot. Which is dissapointing. Its a film thats done the bare minimum and very little else on that front, which was a little bit dissapointing.

I will give some credit to the direction of the cast though, here it seems our characters, rather than being stoned out of the gord for 85 minutes ACTUALLY got something in the way of assistance from the director. The cast are lively, spry, work with there set spaces pretty well and physically animate with a reasonable delivery that matches the circumstances they’re getting into. Its a big set up from the first film and while the dialogue they’re working with still isnt *Amazing*…they actually do seem to make a good go of what they’ve been dealt here…

Speaking of which, the performances themselves are a bit of a mixed bag, I appreciate that sometimes ‘Full Moon’ leans into the ‘So bad it’s good’ style of acting. Im less inclined to enjoy performances where the performer is purposely trying to give a bad performance. It kind of fails the brief if the person doing the bad act is IN on the joke.

Our core cast are mixed to passable i’d say, with the shackles of stonerdom off their shoulders, they do get to work a decent range and seem to be having fun. The supporting cast however is where the film does quite fall down, as you have extras who really wernt that into what they’re doing, or at least giving the vibe of not being *that* into what they’re doing, halfheartedly rolling through the script to get things over with. As such they quite often arnt all that animated and just dont really seem to want to engage with the film. Which does lose it some marks unfortunately.

The scores largely stolen from the first film, but there are some new tracks thrown into the mix that really do help pull the quality of the film up significantly (I honestly cant tell you how happy I am that this thing doesnt have generic ‘full Moon’ scoring)

And all in all? While I absolutley wont say this thing is a vast improvement over the original, it DOES seem to have learned from its mistakes in the first one and has tightned up the ship considerably, producing an end product thats better paced, better acted, *slightly* better shot and feels more at home with what it wants to be and how it wants to do things.

It’s absolutley not without it’s flaws. But I’ll take a step in the right direction over utter dross any day.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/evil-bong-2-king-bong/

Unapologetically silly and barely coherent, ‘Evil Bong’ is a Stoner Comedy Horror movie that REALLY tries to ‘big up’ the horror side of it’s makeup, but cant take itself serious long enough to ever truely commit to the bit.

The plot? A dorky nerdy dorky dork moves in with a bunch of stoners of different orientations (Jock Stoner, Hippie Stoner…generic 90s style stoner) and it plays a bit like an ‘odd couple’ piece for a decent chunk of the first act, until the lads find a classified ad offering a mysterious, oversized and ancient Bong that hasnt seen any action since the 60’s.

The lads are keen and decide to pick it up. Little do they realise that this Bong is no mere waterpipe, and infact contains the restless spirit of an interdimensional weed demon who’s able to transport any tokers to a mysterious ‘strip club world’ where they’re slowly seduced and murdered in increasingly daft and bizarre ways.

I’d say it’s spoilers, but Tommy Chong is featured prominently on all the posters and promo materials for this, so inevitably, when he appears as the Bongs previous owner attempting to put an end to the…’happenings’. it’s on for young and old as our characters take on their weaknesses head on with the absolute base line of humour not that far behind them.

And; i’ve got to be honest when I say that; While this film, in my opinion, isnt very good. I do have a bit of a soft spot for it. The script bothers to have a plotline for about 20 minutes of the hour and 25 running time, at which point it falls into a cycle of the Evil Bong pulling our stoners into the strip club world, at which point it’s boobies and VERY soft gore on a cycle right up to the final act.

The first act is pretty solid all things considered, it sets things up, gives you a taster for the vibe and introduces our characters and the scenario in such a way that DOES have a draw and appeal to it. Unfortunately, the film gets stuck in one gear from that point right up to about 10 minutes off the end where just…nothing much really happens.

Its basically all padding for about 40-50 minutes in the middle of this thing, and it sags horrendously as a result. To the point that the production LITERALLY do the cinematic equivilent of jangling some shiny keys in front of the audience, in the form of 3-4 cameos from other well known Full Moon Franchises (Trancers, Demonic Toys and…Ooga Booga?…jesus christ…) Who basically turn up, say a couple lines or physically move about in the strip club scenes…and then exit stage left, never to be seen or referenced again. They could literally be edited out of the movie and noone would ever have known they were there to begin with.

The pacing is pretty nippy, in terms of how it rolls out the script, I did start to clock watch a little around the latter half of the second act, but given the film itself had more or less given up on trying to keep my attention by this point, I kind of feel like it was a mutual clockwatching experience all things considered.

The characters are all pretty one note, and while there IS character development, it comes WAY too late in the films runtime to really be useful to adding a bit more nuance to the script, so if you like ‘generic stoner’ acting and a nerdy performance that feels like something out of the latter offerings of the ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ sequels…well…you’ll probably quite like this.

Tommy Chongs character is pretty much the main reason to really stick around for this thing. he’s playing a slightly more wired take of his ‘Chong’ character and he’s easily the most entertaining part of this feature, especially towards the very end when the ‘final showdown’ really gets rolling.

The Evil Bong herself? is largely mute or murmering for most of the runtime in this one, I know in later films she gets MUCH MUCH more of a personality, but here? She doesnt really get a whole lot to say or do till the 3rd act, and what IS present in terms of character is basically just ‘Shes a bit sassy and swears a lot.’ and thats about it. All these elements kind of come together to produce a script thats basically the cinematic equivilent of a microwavable hamburger.

Direction is fine, this is directed by Band himself and it’s about as proficient a work as I could expect from him. technically its pretty sound for the most part, but its very much shot for function over form. the crew are working to capture what Band wants. But what Band seems to want here is to just ‘get the film in the can, and get back to his european castle vacation’ I cant fault the direction here on a technical level, other than to say that its a film thats coasting almost entirely on it’s gimmick to get people through the door and watching. it’s not pushing the envelope in any way more than that.

Same goes for direction of the cast. I get that he’s intentionally playing on stoner and nerd stereotypes and that this movies basically trying to be something of a throwback picture. But the thing with that is that, the films being used as the reference to throw back to here; actually had people behind them who wanted to entertain SOMEONE. they BELIEVED in what they were making sincerely to some degree and were writing with the genuine idea of wanting to make SOMEONE laugh…

This film doent have that sincerity to it to me, it feels like the team involved in making this, freebased a bunch of stoner movies; picked a few broad joke topics to work with and bashed out SOME kind of nonsense for our cast to just, get through and collect their paycheck…The cast dont seem to have been briefed much further than ‘Your a stoner…so speak slower and say ‘dude’ more often’ and while I think they do okay for a film of this quality and style, they can only work with what they’re given, and garbage going in is, at best, only going to mean cheesy awfulness coming out.

They’re largely locked in one type of emotion, most of them are crashed out or sat for the majority of the film and the one or two other people who ARNT out and out stoners who turn up in this thing are screechy and just plain annoying.

The cine is fairly lifeless. This was one of the bigger mistakes this film made in my opinion, they took a ‘We’ll styalize it in post’ attitude to the production, meaning a lot fo the film is shot quite wide (presumably they thought they could just crop in as and when required) there isnt a whole lot of B-roll leaving sequences often moving between 3 different angles with nothing to really help bring the sequences to life, and the bulk of the styalization has been done through post filtering and CGI.

The lighting is fairly flat (basically shot flat and tinted in post) and the edit itself could have easily been 15-20 minutes shorter and twice the better for it. I will compliment the set designers though, who have perfectly captured the ramshackled nature of a stoner house in the mid 2000’s…

I was GENUINELY surprised that this Full Moon Film ACTUALLY has a half decent and original soundtrack. largely rap and R&B tracks. its a breath of fresh air after 20 odd films scored by Richard Band and the Full Moon sound stock library. It gives the film a bit more of a sense of identity and I kind of dug it…Im actually quite surprised that Full Moon havent capitalised on this and done some kind of ‘Weed Green’ Vinyl pressing of the score…Im sure it’d shift more than 40 copies…

I’ve ragged on this film a fair bit, and it is a totally flawed production, As a work of cinema its dreadful. Sludge cinema of the highest order. But one thing ‘Full Moon’ have managed to do VERY well in the last 20 years or so, is produce films that you can switch your brain off too and just bathe in the cheap and cheerful ambience. and ‘Evil Bong’ is a great film to just have on in the background, checking in occasionally for the VERY quotable lines and strange on screen shenanigans.

The arguement of whether cinema can ever really truely be considered an ‘art form’ in the same way as paintings or sculpting has been raging for nearly a century at this point…’Evil Bong’ is strong evidence that it cant. But not every film necessarily NEEDS to be ‘The Seventh Seal’.

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

And so the concluding part of Canon films (Unofficial) ‘Ninja’ trilogy ends on probably the most bizarre note it could have ended on. By bringing demonic possession into the franchise!

Yes, the plot of this movie revolves around a Linewoman and gym Bunny ‘Christie’ as she accidentally becomes possessed by the demon spirit of an evil Ninja after weilding a cursed Katana. Her new boyfriend (and cop) is put on the case of trying to hunt down a mysterious Ninja killer who’s attacking random cops and people across the city…aaaaand as you can imagine hilarity ensues.

This films kind of lived on in the cult cinema conciousness due to it’s infamy. Indeed this is a totally cheesy and strange movie, make no mistake. But I do rather feel it’s reputation overstates it’s oddness. As part of the Ninja trilogy, its definitely a change of pace. But as a standalone movie; it’s not really THAT weird.

The scripts a bit of a mess, Its a fun mess make no mistake, but It somehow manages the incredibly difficult feat of keeping the script incredibly basic story wise, while overcomplicating the basic elements of that script to the point that it becomes overly complex and awkward.

Its a cat and mouse possession plotline, it really shouldnt be more complicated than ‘Bad guy is killing people/being bad, good guys are hunting them down’ But instead we have police chases, manhunts, a BEYOND strange exorcism scene in the middle of the movie that im STILL not 100% sure if it’s supposed to have been a dream or not. All the characters overexplain there roles, the pacing is stuck in one gear for most of the runtime, occasionally juddering into something a bit more pacey when a fight scene kicks off.

It all unfortunatley trundles into a rather drab 3rd act with an underwhelming finale. Oh, dont get me wrong, this thing is dripping with all the worst aspects and excesses of 80s culture circa 1984. But its a bit of a mixed bag on that front, with some of those elements landing perfectly, and others being just amazingly cringeworthy.

The character dialogue is SUPER minimalist, basic dialogues about as good as it gets and the creaking sound you can hear across the runtime is the weight the actors are having to carry in making what basic dialogue is there engaging and entertaining. Seriously; without the cheesy hammy over the top ness of the cast. This thing would be dryer than sandpaper in the desert.

It’s a usual criticism, but I really do feel had this thing had either 15 minutes taken off or 20 minutes of explanation added on, it could have easily been the best of the trilogy on the story front. as it stands, it borders on the incoherent at times and its entertainment value is almost entirely AT the film, rather than WITH it.

On the direction front, this is probably the best of the trilogy! A film that fully embraces trying anything once, it misses about as much as it hits, but it manages to carry a basic standard of direction and cinematography (for the most part) While also not being afraid to completely go off the handle and get experimental, creative and weird. While it MUST be acknowledged at this point, that the film is clearly trying its best to ape ‘Ghostbusters’ (this film came out 3 months after ‘Ghostbusters’ did.’ I will always applaud a film that tries and fails, than one that plays it overly safe.

The cine is equally quite the mixed bag, While I feel more B-roll and cutaway footage really would have helped shore this thing up a bit more, the edit’s are somewhat tight and the compositions seem considered and thoughtful. While the film only just crawls past the 90 minute feature runtime. I think the editors have done a good job of keeping this thing as lean as possible, while working to that 90 minute minimum zone. It absolutely could have been leaner, but it has to be stressed that theres an art in meeting runtime requirements when it comes to figuring out what can be trimmed out and what has to stay.

All in all? Its a total cheese sandwhich of a movie. But I actually kind of had a soft spot for ‘Ninja 3’ I dont think I enjoyed it quite as much as ‘Revenge of the Ninja’ (Itself really more of an all rounder people pleaser) but I could easily see me double featuring this film with something like ‘One Dark Night’ or ‘Ghost Warrior’ as a more spiritual cheesy double header.

A decent enough campy cult watch thats a total mess of a movie, but all the better for it.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/ninja-iii-the-domination/

Sam Firstenbergs first foray into action direction was the middle part of Canons (Unofficial) Ninja Trilogy. And what we have here with ‘Revenge of the Ninja’ is a much more well rounded endeavour when compared to ‘Enter the Ninja’.

The film follows a father and son who flee there country after an onslaught of Ninjas kills everyone else. They’re brought to the US by a friend of the family who sets them up running a gallery showcasing traditional dolls. Little do they know, this gallery showing is actually a front for drug smuggling and money laundering. But when the deals arranged between the mafia and the Japanese Ninjas falls through, a turf war of epic proportins is unleashed.

I was genuinely somewhat surprised by ‘Revenge of the Ninja’ the script has a lot more nuance, pacing and detail compared to its predecessor. The characters all have active motivations, the 3 act structure has a nice pacing and decent transitions between the acts, theres plenty of characters and plot variety on hand to help keep things fresh and interesting and the final act has decent closure and feels solid.

The dialogues quite a bit toned down from the first film, I find this one much less quotable, but there are still some good lines in here that do help keep the thing going and I can quite happily say I had fun with this thing. Theres also a few moments where you kind of have to take a bit of a leap of faith with this thing, nothing too aggregious, just one or two moments where you have to assume that our characters are either really REALLY stupid or oblivious. But other than that, this is just a kind of fun, somewhat generic, but well managed script.

The directions pretty functional as well, the crew all seem to be on the same page and theres a little bit more experimentation and creativity behind the wheel here, I feel like Firstenberg played his first foray into action a *little* overly safe. But it’s quibbling honestly and whats here is really solid and more than keeps the audience on board.

This extends to the cast direction too, where we see our core cast utilise set space effectively with some great usses of props and experimentation on delivery flowing freely. If I was being a bit of a Grinch, i’d maybe suggest this was down to Firstenberg not quite being as comfortable in the directors chair at this point as he’d like to be, rather than it being some kind of intentionally free form melting pot…But whats presented here works for me as a piece of entertainment and I really quite enjoyed it.

As for the Fight Choreography? For a first time action director here, Firstenberg has absolutely bettered the first film in terms of how they show the fighting, weapon play and soft/no contact interactions are the flavour of the day and with firstenberg carefully masking the no contact shots, we have some fun and interesting little fight scenes that again, wont win over any of the die hard martial arts afficionados. But DO manage to look decent, impressive and weighty, which is everything you need at minimum for a good fight sequence. From there they only continue to build quite honestly…

The cine has a bit of a boost over the first one, scenes have a bit more considered structuring, theres clearly been more thought into b-roll and cutaway footage and the edit feels quite a bit tighter. The use of onset audio in places added a degree of gritty realism to the film which I thought was a nice touch. Its still not exactly changing the world. But its a much tighter, coherent and interesting production which I think really goes the extra mile.

The performances across the board are much more toned down vs the original. Theres a degree of ham present, but nothing like what was there before and instead we have a smidge of melodramatisism mixed largely with cheesy macho action fodder. The cast are lively, animated and really push themselves to give the best they can give here.

‘Revenge of the Ninja’ is just good cheesy fun and would probably pair up quite well with ‘New York Ninja’ or ‘Death Wish 3’ as a goofy and at times over the top revenge story, thats surprisingly well made given the budget and circumstances. Definitely one to check out if you’re a fan of the genre. Dont expect to have your mind blown, but do expect a damn good time.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/revenge-of-the-ninja/

The first of Canons *unofficial* ‘Ninja’ Trilogy, ‘Enter the Ninja’ is a BIZZARE watch if nothing else. The plot, revolving around a recently trained ‘White’ Ninja returning to a poor village to catch up with friends, only to discover that said friends are in the middle of awful intimidation tactics by a group of landgrabbers who want to run them and their charity services out of the country or worse, make sure the only land they’re GOING to be occupying is six feet under.

Our lead ninja sends several friendly messages to the baddies (I.E beating the crap out of them) that the land isnt for sale. But when the group find out our charity workers have a Ninja on their side, they decide to get a Ninja themselves…One whos all too familiar to the White Ninja.

Honestly, there isnt a whole lot to say about this one. The script feels like a Kids interpretation of an adult Ninja movie. and as such in places it can get very disorienting. Everything is SUPER blunt, all the characters are extreme charicatures of the usual architypes, the plot is super basic, bluntly cut with hard transitions between acts and an emphasis on fighting over plot. What emotional elements are present in the film are really rough, lack nuance and feel like they were dropped in to help break up the fighting and nothing else.

Honestly? I really enjoyed the tone and vibe this thing gave off in being SO rudamentary that it ends up downright silly in places. Its not a bad movie in that sense. But I did feel it was about 10 minutes too long and at times, a little TOO basic in storytelling. Like…I feel confident if it wasnt for the gore, that I could show this to VERY young kids and theyd have NO trouble figuring out what was going on.

Directions pretty basic too; Everything is working pretty much as it should…which is fine. But they never really go above and beyond just keeping the ship afloat. The films really lacking in a clear and stylish vision for how this story is to play out, as such it at times plays almost as a parody of Asian Ninja movies from the time (If your film feels like it was edited by Godfrey Ho at multiple points, I dont know if that means you failed or passed the brief…)

Direction of the cast is, if intentional, decent. As mentioned, most of the cast give seriously over the top hammy performances across the board which is arguably one of the biggest reasons to check this film out. they use set space and props pretty decently and while I dont know if all this was intentional, it did create and entertaining sense of energy that probably wouldnt have been there had the director matched his direction of the crews energy.

I also have to mention that the fight choreography is kind of dull as well, we have a mixture of soft contact play and weaponry work which is handled alright, but the total lack of any kind of creative flare from a cine perspective basically makes all the fights look kind of slow and uninteresting. they dont nearly do enough with the cine and direction to really sell these fights as being over the top and cool. Which I found rather dissapointing.

The cine is fine too, theres a couple of nice shots and some decent location work, the lighting in places is a bit extra which was nice to see. but so much of the film is just slightly washed out undersaturated ‘on location’ sequences that it quickly starts to look and feel a lot drabber than the poster would have you believe. Composition of shots is a little touch and go across the runtime, but i’d say there is more good than bad here…even if it is a little uninspired.

Oh…and the soundtracks passably okay, very 80s and not much else. Not an essential work…but it does the job. Almost the entire film is ADR’d though which…im not sure if that was intentional as an homage to the ADR work on a lot of the redubbed martial arts movies coming out of Hong Kong at the time, or if it was a budget thing…But it did help make the film feel more authentic.

All in all? While the production on the whole is VERY middle of the road, I have to admit that I quite enjoyed this one as a big slab of 80s cheese. the performances were the biggest draw for me with some great lines delivered with scene chewing vigor. Is this an essential watch for the martial arts genre? No. definitely not. not in my opinion at least…But I can recommend checking this one out if you’re getting into the genre, have seen a few and want to see something thats ‘from’ the genre, but clearly not ‘of’ the genre. Its the ‘Big Mac’ of Martial arts movies, and I appreciate it for that.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/enter-the-ninja/