Review by Ben Bussey
Guess what: it’s zombie apocalypse time again. However, this time around things aren’t completely hopeless for the surviving humans, as the government manages to round up the bulk of the zombies and dump them in designated ‘danger zones.’ Alas, for professional stoners Edwin (Mark Wynn) and Tommy (Jy Harris), there proves to be a practical downside to this system. They’ve just happened to discover that, when liquidised into green goo, zombie brains are the world’s most powerful fertiliser, capable of growing, within moments, the most potent weed known to man. However, after taking a few bong hits and body-popping their way through an almost-naked rooftop montage (and not for the last time, I’m afraid) they come to the alarming realisation that they’re all out of green goo. With their town almost entirely cleared of zombies, they decide there’s only one thing for it: to head to the danger zone and score as many zombie brains as humanly possible.
And if that makes this film sound like Cheech and Chong/Jay and Silent Bob/Harold and Kumar meets Night of the Living Dead/The Evil Dead/Braindead (or Dead Alive for the benefit of my American friends)…? Well, that’s not exactly an accident. As to whether Bong of the Dead is as much fun as any of those films; well…
I won’t deny that my heart sank when this DVD landed on my doorstep. While I am not about to dismiss the amount of work that goes into shoestring productions such as this (shot for $5,000 in 15 days, a fact which the publicity will make a point of reminding you), the sad fact is that the vast majority of these films wind up so bad they’re borderline unwatchable. As such, when I say Bong of the Dead is an above average microbudget indie horror movie, this isn’t exactly high praise. If you have a taste for the self-consciously stupid, this movie may well give the odd tickle to your funny bone, but you’re also very likely to find your patience sorely tested along the way.
Things start off quite promising. The opening ten minutes or so illustrates the outbreak of zombie activity from the perspective of an elderly couple who are among the first to get infected, and takes the interesting approach of running entirely without dialogue. That combination of old-fashioned silent comedy and gore obviously evokes Raimi and Jackson, but in a more sophisticated manner than a great many imitators manage. It’s an impressive sequence which would work well as a short film in its own right; and, honestly, I think that might have been the better approach, as what follows is a damn sight less inventive and amusing. Here’s the thing: if the main protagonists are comedy stoners, it might be beneficial if they’re actually funny. And Edwin and Tommy… they’re really not that funny at all. Drawn in such broad strokes as to make any of the aforementioned stoner movie double acts look like the height of subtlety, the joke wears thin very quickly indeed.
A degree of respite is offered with the introduction of a third protagonist midway, namely Simone Bailly’s tough girl loner Leah. Unfortunately, this character quickly turns out to be as much of a two-dimensional cliché as her male counterparts, bonding with them in an utterly unconvincing fashion simply because it serves to move the story forward. Credit where it’s due, though; Bailly, Wynn and Harris are certainly better actors than tend to be cast in microbudget horror movies, but they just don’t have the chemistry they need to make the film engaging. This is all the more unfortunate as they’re on screen for pretty much the duration of the running time, which incidentally is at least twenty minutes longer than it should be. Sure, there are a few decent zombie attack sequences, particularly the agreeably OTT shoot-‘em-up/chop-‘em-up finale, but for the bulk of the film it’s simply these three actors exchanging dialogue, much of which is either spectacularly unfunny stoner jokes, or painfully over-familiar philosophical musings on the zombie apocalypse. If all this could have been pared back, Bong of the Dead might have been a perfectly passable midnight movie. As it stands, it’s overlong, repetitive and excessively self-indulgent.
While we’re on the subject of excessive self-indulgence, I’m truly taken aback by the jaw-dropping pomposity of Thomas Newman, the writer-producer-director-editor-visual FX-music composer-camera operator-director of photography-passionate-underdog-dreamer of Bong of the Dead. This is how the man describes himself in the trailer below. Seriously. And not only does he devote more than half of the trailer and the bulk of the official website to emphasising what a hard-working visionary he is (there’s a second trailer as well, with further self-congratulatory superlatives), he also devotes several paragraphs of the end credits to celebrating his immense achievement and the personal victory it represents over all those who told him he could never do it. Okay… once again, far be it for me to dismiss the effort and personal sacrifice solo filmmakers put into their work, but even so… maybe it’s just me, but there is something to be said for humility, isn’t there? Most filmmakers who create zombie stoner movies don’t really believe it makes them Orson Welles, do they…? I don’t know, I suppose it’s possible Newman is being ironic in his utterly ludicrous self-importance, but that’s not the impression I get. Watch the trailer and decide for yourself.
Still, much as I’m loath to give further praise to someone with such an inflated opinion of himself, I must concede that Newman has crafted a slick-looking film that you’d be forgiven for thinking cost a great deal more than $5,000. The photography, music, digital effects and practical gore are considerably better than those generally found in bargain basement horror. If we could only say the same for the plot, dialogue, characterisations and direction, then we might have been onto a winner with Bong of the Dead. Sadly, all we have is another half-baked comedy horror that is nowhere near as funny or enjoyable as it thinks it is, and there are few things more off-putting than that.
Bong of the Dead is released to Region 2 DVD on April 15th from Left Films; alternatively it is available for download now from www.bongofthedead.com.