Gingerdead Man & Evil Bong (2005-2016) Series
So as it is coming up to Halloween 2017 it is time for me to review another series of horror films.
This years choice comes from Full Moon again of Subspecies and Puppet Master fame and is two franchises which will come together in a crossover film.
These probably aren’t going to be good.
Daddy, you have got to come and get me,
I’m at Betty’s Bakery and we got homicidal baked goods after us.
I’m not sure if I should like this. It is a film about a killer pastry but on the other hand it is voiced by Gary Busey.
So Gary Busey plays Millard Findlemeyer who kills a father and son whilst robbing a cafe leaving only the daughter alive. Fast forward a couple of years and he is executed thanks to the daughters testimony but only a few days later at her bakery someone drops off a tub of gingerbread mix.
The bakery is failing due to competition from across the road but also the mother being a drunk though it could also be due to hygiene reasons as when one of the staff cuts his hand they hold it over a mixture of dough allowing blood to be mixed in.
She uses that same dough to make a gingerbread man and you can imagine what happens next.
So we end up with the usual characters. The good girl hero, her bitchy stuck up rival and her troublemaker boyfriend allowing for lots of conflict which always improves every horror film as that must be why we see a conflict with every sodding group of teenagers.
Except they seem to work together well. The girls are at each others throats but still look out for each other and the boyfriend isn’t the usual idiot boyfriend trope. Well I’m sure all this will change in the sequels.
Of course we are here for a killer gingerbread man and that is what we get. The puppet used seems to work. It looks cheap and a bit of a mess at times but it isn’t distracting and to me just fits.
Gary Busey is great delivering the expected bad puns that litter the film and even the puns seem to work. They don’t become too obtuse given how bad they are.
With the low number of characters there are still enough deaths that are nicely spaced out and the film doesn’t drag its feet thankfully though with a runtime of 70 minutes it shouldn’t.
And to be honest 70 minutes on what is essentially a film based around a pun is more than enough.
If you like stupid bad films then you might like this. If you feel like you must have more sophisticated taste and only The Exorcist will do then stay away. Far away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by-KVHh1srw
So here we have a film about a killer bong. This can’t work.
Alistair (don’t call him Al) who is a Revenge of the Nerds ripoff moves in with with skivvy stoner fuck frat boys complete with the meat-head and always stoned stoner archetypes.
One of the stoner responds to an ad for the titular bong leading to deaths aplenty. Well as many as a sentient bong that can’t move can manage.
So how does the bong kill? Well Ebee (the bongs name) waits until they are stoned and then sucks their essence into her and leaves them trapped in a strip club with their own personal attractive stripper to see to their needs.
The film doesn’t explain why this is a bad thing. Ever.
It sounds ok to me, maybe you have to pay for the drinks?
The strippers do have to kill you first by use of their killer bras.
While most of this 80 minute film is the usual nerd v stoners and trying hide a dead body story the humour was good enough. Everyone was engaging without becoming too irritating which like the Gingerdead Man was probably helped by the films runtime.
One for fans of bad horror (Bill Moseley appears) and stoner films (Tommy Chong appears) and one that surprised me.
*I am not suggesting Bill Moseley appears only in bad horror films. He is easily the best thing about The Devils Rejects and House of a 1000 Corpses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqtQ60rWzRE
The Passion of the Crust
(2008)
“I didn’t know you could do that to a cookie!”
So the opening films in low budget based on a very weak premise or pun horror films can be ok but when you reach sequel time is when the thinly based premise tends to fall apart.
A big problem can be a change in direction which is either due to the makers not understanding what made the original work but also a the need for a quick cash-in.
Another reason can be to keep things fresh so they don’t go stale.
I think I did well waiting til the second film before I cooked up a bakery based pun.
So it starts on a film set for a fictional film about puppets that come to life. Sound familiar?
It should because what Charles Band is doing is parodying or maybe is attempting to show how self-aware Full Moon Studios are at what they produce and this largely works.
He even takes pot shots (pun intended) at his own killer puppets genre when someone comments how puppet based movies are dead.
So on this set we have an eclectic mix of characters from the gay make up artist to the former 80s scream queen played by former 80s scream queen Michelle Bauer trying it on with everyone.
Little Tommy, who is an adult and acted badly though that is the intent, is visiting the studio as his dying wish for a Dreams Come True type of organisation because he is a fan of their brand of tripe.
Somehow the Gingerdead man is posted here specifically and starts killing people.
Now he isn’t in this that much as the film revolves around mocking b-movie studios and later online horror film critics.
Did I say that I like this film yet?
Full of bad jokes and bad acting at the start the self awareness helps the jokes to work but half way through the films quality suddenly increases leading to an insane and slightly over-the-top finale that really entertained me.
Even the music which seemed out of place in the background at the start really improves here too.
Not a bad sequel which fans of the series should enjoy. Emphasis on fans of the series as it is difficult to recommend any of these films to the average horror-goer.
King Bong (2009)
“With a name like Poontang
They’re probably a bunch
of pussies”
Following up from the first film our skivvy stoner fucks are experiencing severe side effects to what you normally get from weed so they call Alistair for help.
Managing to track down the delivery man they all decide to travel to South America in hopes of stopping these symptoms. When I say all I mean delivery man included.
So there they stumble upon a medical student who helps them and together come up against King Bong who is Ebee’s ex who dumped her members of the Poontang Tribe.
A tribe of topless women.
At this point the film has dropped all horror elements and is now a stoners film. It wasn’t that bad. Some of the jokes were funny and I like these Full Moon films anyway but the fact is this isn’t good.
Only worth watching if you are keeping up with the series or don’t mind stupid films. Stupid is a bit harsh. I’ve seen films that are completely moronic so maybe silly is better.
I feel that the rest of the series will be like this so thankfully I’m only watching them for the crossover with the Gingerdead Man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtz7VbO1KbA
The Wrath of Bong
“Your joint sir.
That was monkey!”
So here is the third installment of the Evil Bong series.
To be honest it is pretty much like the second. This time a meteor lands and the space bong inside finds its way to our series regulars including the delivery man again.
The bong is evil otherwise the title wouldn’t make sense and they have to stop it.
They all become trapped inside as usual where a bevy of topless beauties do their evil bongs doing and the lads need to find a way to stop the beauties and bong.
The humour is the same with a few jokes making me laugh and everyone is as they should be.
This is familiar territory. If you got some entertainment out of the previous film like I did then you will this too.
Only really for fans of the series.
That said John Patrick Jordan playing Larnell does stand out for me. I wouldn’t be that upset if the next ones were the same but I am here for horror and not a stoner film so thankfully up next is Ginderdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver
Saturday Night Cleaver
“He said I can smell your muffin.”
Starting off at the Scientific Research Institute for the study of Homicidal Baked Goods, we have a quite good parody of Silence of the Lambs.
After escaping, the Gingerdead Man travels back to 1976 where the rest of the film is set in a rollerball rink.
Taking cues from a variety of horror films and using them reasonably well the third in this entry is surprisingly well made and doesn’t take the bad humour to stupid levels like films of this sort tend to do.
On top of that there are plenty of lovely and bloody deaths that mix practical with not so bad CGI, who’s flaws I overlooked because it not only looks better than you would expect here and is a big step up from previous entries but because it fits the look and feel of the film.
The bikini car wash with Hydrochloric acid instead of water was the highlight.
A silly, fun and bloody film that has catchy 70s-esque disco tunes constantly playing in the background which seems to restrain itself when it comes to the bad jokes, bad acting and more importantly trying to throw in as many random scenarios as possible.
Probably still only for fans of the series.
vs
Evil Bong (2013)
“Kiss my Doughnut Hole!”
So we come to the main event. The crossover event combining the Gingerdead Man and Evil Bong films but is it worth it?
This acts as a direct sequel to the original Gingerdead Man film and seemingly ignoring its two follow ups and as the Evil Bong series directly follow on from each other means this follows on from the third film.
Sarah Leigh from the first Gingerdead Man opens up a new bakery near Larnells bong shop and the two end up having to fight off the Gingerdead Man and needing Ebee’s help.
The problem is by the time the pairs paths have finally crossed we are into 40+ minutes of the film and as for the showdown between Ebee and Millard Findlemeyer…
Well they bicker for a minute or two before Millard jumps into Ebee so he can kill Sarah.
All of it is a let down. Most of the first 40+ minutes are spent in the bong shop with meaningless banter that offers nothing to the actual plot of the film or nothing to do with any of the Evil bong series.
As for how Sarah and Larnell finally come into contact with each other, well that is so sudden and clumsily handled it seems the makers were writing one film with no connection to anything we’ve seen and suddenly remembered this is a crossover event so to include Sarah.
Hardly any deaths, hardly any killer pastry, hardly any evil bongs. When the chase is finally on we have 2 minutes with our heroes fighting Millard before they are separated and never to meet each other again.
Just talking for the heroes whilst there is a parody of the General Zod trial from Superman 2 for Millard.
Anti-climatic from start to finish. Someone left out the self-raising flour from this snooze fest.
Littered with references to both series that appear with no rhyme nor reason and mostly fail apart from a scene where Robin Sydney plays both her Sarah Leigh and Luann from Evil Bong characters together.
A wasted opportunity in every way.
“Time to meet your baker!”
Following on from Gingerdead Man vs Evil Bong, we find out that Rabbit (the delivery man’s name) is about to open his topless bowling alley after escaping from Ebee’s Bongworld.
Meanwhile Millard (The Gingerdead Man) is still trapped but just like Rabbit is getting bored with the fake paradise he’s in so when he finds out Rabbit has escaped he follows suit in order to get him back as he’s his only friend and to kill a few people as well.
Well, on opening night at the topless bowling alley Larnell and Sarah happen upon it to have a secret night out leading to an inevitable showdown.
However at 53 minutes Evil Bong 420 ends on a cliffhanger ready for the next installment.
A vast improvement over the last installment. Granted most of this short film is still inane talking and bad jokes but at least here they are relevant to the film.
Some Full Moon characters from other series appear including Hambo and Ooga Booga as well as appearances from the likes of David DeCoteau who directed Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama and several of the Puppet Master films which you can read my reviews of here.
If you’ve watched this many of the films by now then you know what to expect. Nothing new or any change to the formula and I don’t think that’s all that bad.
I do quite enjoy these stupid films. They have grown on me and this is closer to what Gingerdead Man vs Evil Bong should have been.
(2016)
“Take me to you weeder”
So our gang have been trapped in Bongworld for 6 months and want to escape when Ebee or Eebe or Eebee, it seems Full Moon can’t decide how to spell the titular characters names, informs them of her revised plan to take over the world. She just needs $1 million and the boys are going to sell her special weed to get it or the girls will be the ones getting it.
Here we have something I haven’t seen since the 80s. Using a film or TV show to sell a product which seems to be the sole purpose here.
About a third of the way through Hambo turns up and following him every character that has a toy based on them that is for sale complete with a little advert for the doll complete with many references to the website you can buy them.
This doesn’t have to be a bad thing if done correctly however it is so blatant and takes up so much of a film in which the entire plot is based around this it seems to me to be nowt more than manipulating the audiences wallet.
The dolls themselves are offensive stereotypes which again doesn’t have to be a bad thing but they are for secondary characters that have very little to do with the main film.
I can’t imagine they would all that enticing when the main cast would seem more appropriate.
At the end the film sets up the next sequel Evil Bong 666 (2017) which I don’t have and makes everything that has happened in the film redundant. They could’ve skipped this entirely and gone on to the upcoming sequel.
Even fans shouldn’t like this one.
Not good Full Moon, not good at all.
So in conclusion, the Gingerdead Man films are fun different horrors that have their ups and downs during the films and whilst the Evil Bong series has its highs it also has some bad lows.
Mainly for fans of Full Moons other releases.