Starring Peter Stickles, John Patrick Jordan, Mitch Eakins, Brian Lloyd, Sonny Carl Davis, Michelle Mais, Circus-Szalewski, Irwin Keyes, Jacob Witkin, Robin Sydney
Directed by Charles Band
Expectations: High. Part 2 was great.
On the general scale:
On the B-Movie scale:
After the wonderful follow-up to the surprisingly enjoyable Evil Bong, I eagerly awaited the third film in the series. Perhaps the fact that I was disappointed is directly connected to these unrealistic expectations, or maybe it’s because I was unable to see the movie in the theater in glorious 3D and scratch-n-sniff aided Sniff-O-Rama! In any case, I was expecting some quality comedy and instead I got what amounts to a couple of good jokes and a lot of filler.
In one of the most epic opening scenes Full Moon has ever done, an alien meteorite/spaceship hurtles through the infinite cosmos on a collision course for Earth. Don’t worry, it’s small. The world isn’t in danger… or is it? This scene evokes a feeling of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey with its space-faring visuals and haunting choral music, but this is where the similarities end. Inside this ship is an alien bong, hell-bent on controlling the Earth! So far, so good, but as soon as the bong makes its way to Brett and Bachman’s head shop, the movie starts to take a downward turn.
It quickly devolves into a series of characters from the previous films visiting the shop one-by-one and everyone catching up. This succession of scenes goes about like this:
“Oh hey, it’s you! What are you up to these days?”
“Well, now I’m a __________. (insert completely out of character job here.)”
“No way, man!”
Continue conversation for ten minutes.
The writing is at times funny, but generally it’s just boring because most of the scenes have little to do with the overall narrative flow. Each one of these character re-introduction scenes lasts many minutes longer than it should to pad the runtime and it shows. I’m not saying there aren’t good jokes mixed in, there’s one in particular about Old Milwaukee and James Cameron that still has me laughing, but overall I thought they could have done better. The overall premise is great though, coming from a contest Charles Band held to allow the fans to dictate the flow of the next Evil Bong film. The winner was Patrick Klepek, a video game journalist currently working at Giant Bomb, which just so happens to be one of my favorite video game websites. Their podcast is excellent, but I digress…
These re-intro scenes are intercut with dudes one-by-one trying out the alien bong, which gets hilariously referred to as looking like a shitty movie prop a few times, and then getting sucked into the bong’s dream land. These dreams are complete with the series standard naked but devious women and all kinds of pot-fueled shenanigans. The girls aren’t really much to look at because they’re all supposed to be aliens so they’re covered in neon paint and glowing bright colors. Admittedly they’re still naked girls so there’s something of a thrill there, but when nipples are glowing neon blue, it’s usually a sign to head home. The lighting and set design is interesting in these dreams though, with each girl lighting up a different color and the guys lit in another color, while the backgrounds are bathed in greens and blacks. Sure it’s a thinly veiled attempt to get the most out of the least set dressing, but it works. Evil Bong is easily Full Moon’s most colorful series as well as being one of their most creative.
I wish I could say it was as good as Evil Bong 2: King Bong, but instead Evil Bong 3 is the worst of the series. For all my issues with the film though, it’s still pretty fun and not overly bad if you enjoy the series, but it just doesn’t live up to the hype Full Moon successfully built up in me. Where the first film was a horror/comedy, the sequel was a comedy/horror and this one doesn’t have any distinct identity. Band was clearly going for the heavy comedic leanings of the sequel, but for me, it just doesn’t hit the mark. At least not tonight. I do plan on checking out the 3D version when it is released in September, which I’m sure will add quite a bit of enjoyment as there are tons of scenes where all kinds of shit gets poked out at the audience.
Next time I’ll be jumping into Empire’s 80s comedies in an effort to mix it up once again, with the out-of-this-world girl band flick Vicious Lips!