Cranpire Movies Presents: Bong of the Dead

 Normally, I wouldn't watch a movie called Bong of the Dead. The title really tells you everything you need to know about the film, and I'm positive I can find ten more movies with little to no effort that will be more enjoyable. Then again, I said the same thing about ThanksKilling, and I was dead wrong. Since friend of the Blogorium Cranpire has transplanted himself to a commune, he can't watch movies like Bong of the Dead, which he normally would.

 If I needed to know why not to watch Evil Bong or One Eyed Monster or Mega Shark vs. Crocoppotamus, I could ask him. But now he's gone, so somebody needs to carry on the tradition. Why it was me, I'll never be quite sure, but here we are. I just watched Bong of the Dead. Yeah, I really did. It's the first of what will be a regular series of "Cranpire Movies," which honestly is the same thing as "So You Won't Have To" for most of you. Sorry Cranpire, but it's true.

 Meteors fall to Earth, turning humans into flesh eating zombies. After six months, most of the cities are deserted, so stoners Edwin (Mark Wynn) and Tommy (Jy Harris) have all the time in the world to get high and act like idiots. One day, Edwin discovers he can use zombie brains to make a super powerful strain of weed, but when he runs out, they decide to head into the "danger zone" to collect more zombie fertilizer. Along the way they meet Leah (Simone Bailly), a loner living in her family's gas station / bar, who grudgingly helps them fix their broken down car. But trouble is ever lurking from the zombies, include Alex Montgomery Dickens III (Barry Nerling), a talking member of the undead creating his own army to wipe out the living...

 Bong of the Dead is so busy borrowing from better movies that one has to wonder why this turned out as badly as it did. The movie is, at bare minimum, a combination of Pineapple Express and Zombieland with just a pinch of Blood Car to make things interesting. Or it should - the concept of using dehydrated zombie brains mixed with water to create a super weed fertilizer is introduced and promptly forgotten until nearly an hour into the film, and when it comes back, it's more for a "hey guys, we know we set this up and then turned into a 'road' picture, so we're going to at least acknowledge you aren't as high as we are" fait accompli. But like nearly everything else in Bong of the Dead, that too is forgotten to move on to the "big" showdown.

 The editing is lousy, which undermines the occasionally impressive cinematography, and the over-use of digital effects to mask budget shortcomings doesn't help. Then again, I could overlook the trappings of a low-budget zombie movie if I cared about Edwin, Tommy, or Leah. Two obnoxious stoners and a stock "badass babe" character can't carry the long stretches of bad jokes, punctuated by moments of "drama" that grind the film to a halt.

 Not having zombies in the movie after the opening (a semi-clever prologue featuring a guy who looks like Hulk Hogan and his wife turn into zombies and eat each other) for nearly thirty minutes wasn't an issue for me. It's nice to see a zombie movie made on the cheap that doesn't rely on the zombies to carry the film. Then again, when it means spending time with Tommy and Edwin, which includes no less than two "we're high and doing stupid stuff half naked" montages, Bong of the Dead tested my patience.

 The zombie boss wasn't interesting enough to sustain this chicanery, neither was Leah (who is, admittedly, resourceful before those morons show up), and the movie dragged along until suddenly we needed gratudity, a joke about a Chinese zombie using chopsticks to eat brains, and an appropriation of Dead Alive's lawnmower-as-weapon. The ending doesn't really make much sense, except for a "you can see it coming a mile away" ripoff of Shaun of the Dead (appropriate, since it also rips off the beginning of Shaun of the Dead). Thankfully, there's a mid-credits sequence that recycles a concept from Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis, in case you hadn't seen that winner. If you want to say it's "homage" be my guest, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

 I guess I was supposed to be grossed out or offended or something when the pregnant zombie gives birth to a zombie baby and another zombie picks it up and eats it, but by that point in the film such a cheap stunt is too little, too late. Bong of the Dead takes far too long to deliver any of the exploitation its title sequence implies is coming, and instead leaves audiences with a (no pun intended) half-baked experience. Flashes of good ideas come and go, but in the end I was left with three characters I didn't give a shit about, a story that could at best be described as "meandering," and some scattered gore that deserves to be in a better movie. I can't even say that this is a "Cranpire" kind of movie because I think he'd turn it off and take a cigarette break before watching Swamp Shark. And to be honest with you, I wouldn't blame him.