 Dir. Charles Band, USA, 80 mins We all love a good horror crossover, don't we? Freddy vs Jason, Sadako vs Kayako, Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys... Actually, now that I think about it, maybe this crossover lark isn't all that it cracked up to be. Of course there's a temptation from within the industry – and indeed an appetite from audiences – to bring together famous monsters that goes all the way back to the Universal horror movies. Then again, trying to crowbar so many monsters and references into the last remake of The Mummy didn't work out so well. Let's say that it's a mixed bag. But, with a title like Gingerdead Man vs Evil Bong, how am I meant to resist at least checking this one out? I'm only human, you know... GM vs EB (as I'll shorten it from now on) throws together two of Full Moon Features' most popular creations in a crossover that honestly shares one of the complaints from Freddy vs Jason – namely that it takes a long time for the titular characters to actually collide. On the Evil Bong side we follow Larnell as he tries to open up a Head Shop, where he encounters a host of weird and wacky characters, including his deputy manager String. He promises more than one person that the Evil Bong itself is destroyed, but it'll be no surprise given the title of the movie that – gasp – she is still very much with us, and waiting for her chance to wreak havoc on all who would smoke from her, dragging them into the nightmarish realm of the Bong World... Alongside that, we have the story of Sarah, the nemesis of the Gingerdead Man, who is running a bakery selling some particularly popular cookies in GM's image. When Larnell sees one he decides that a business collaboration between his services and those of the bakery would coincide nicely – 'we give them the munchies, you cure them of the munchies' is the line if I remember rightly – leading the Gingerdead Man and the Evil Bong to finally meet and unleash a great battle between these two bizarre creations. I wasn't honestly sure what to expect from this one, especially jumping into a movie mashing together two franchises I knew very little about – the Evil Bong series alone is now seven movies in, with three from the Gingerdead Man. However usefully for me there was a bit of a recap, so that helped me to orient myself, although I'm sure I would have caught up eventually. But – and you'll have to forgive me – I rather enjoyed this one. It's not liable to expand your mind (in fact you may well lose a few brain cells along the way) but there were enough laughs throughout to keep me going. It never aims to be more than what it is, but with a cast of characters so larger-than-life than this it's hard not to have fun. It moves along at a brisk enough pace, there's good comic chemistry in the vast majority of cases, and while it's obviously made relatively cheap it doesn't show up too much. It's not the sort of film you can go overboard on ratings-wise, but for me it's a good example of the comedy horror b-movie. I wonder if you'd get more out of it if you'd taken a hit from the Evil Bong herself... RATING: 6.5/10. For me this kind of B-movie almost has an in-built ceiling as to how high a rating it can get, so this score probably isn't an ungenerous as it might sound for a movie I've actually been fairly positive about. There's nothing taxing or boundary-pushing or even new here, but damned if I didn't chuckle many a time here. In short, you could do a sight worse for a bit of horror comedy than this offering.    |
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