Bong of the Dead (2011)
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| MVD Visual (USA) | Region 1, NTSC | 1.78:1 (16:9 enhanced) | English DD 2.0 | 98 minutes |
(Full Specs) |
| Studio: |
MVD Visual (USA) |
| Region: |
1 |
| Format: |
NTSC |
| Aspect Ratio: |
1.78:1 (16:9 enhanced) |
| Audio Options: |
English Dolby Digital 2.0 |
| Subtitles: |
None |
| Running Time: |
98 minutes |
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| The Movie |
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| Credits |
Director: Thomas Newman
Starring: Simone Bailly, Mark Wynn, Jy Harris, Barry Nerling
Screenplay: Thomas Newman
Country: USA |
| External Links |
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I would not have said that I'm against stoner movies per se, but when I think about it, they often bore me. Aside from Up in Smoke, I can't think of a marijuana movie I really liked. Well, maybe Reefer Madness, but that's a little bit different. I've certainly enjoyed movies which have marijuana users, but I just can't think of any others that I would rewatch where marijuana was a primary objective. With that in mind, I present to you my thoughts on Bong of the Dead.
The film starts with some meteors crashing to Earth, and then a Billy Connolly-lookin' guy who learned nothing from The Blob gets too close and gets infected. He turns into a zombie, and the plague begins. Six months later, and it's a zombie apocalypse…kinda The zombies have been fairly well controlled, and people are now able to live in secure zones without much fear of the living dead.
A stoner decides to exploit a zombie as weed fertiliser, and is delighted with the strong and extremely fast growing results. However, because most of the zombies have been corralled, he and his friend have soon smoked their stash. When they run out, the pair decide to go into the danger zone to harvest some more zombies. They have a skirmish with an intelligent zombie, but get away and wind up with their car broken down at a reclusive home. There they find the homestead is being kept secure by a lone woman and they stay for a long time. Eventually the zombies turn up again.
For most of its runtime Bong of the Dead feels more like a weed road movie with occasional zombie mayhem than a zombie movie with occasional marijuana mayhem. When it gets to the finale things pick up considerably, and most of Bong of the Dead's money was clearly saved for the ending, which borrows from Braindead and Evil Aliens, but is still an impressive achievement considering the film's shoestring budget. Bong of the Dead is slow to start, but pot movies were never known for their action (though I guess things like Pineapple Express have changed that a little) and Bong of the Dead is far more a stoner comedy than a horror movie. The problem there is it's not as funny as it thinks it is.
Bong of the Dead was made by Thomas Newman who wrote, directed, shot and edited the film, plus he did FX composites as well. When one guy is doing that much you know there wasn't a lot of money on hand, and I feel more inclined to be nice because I'd imagine he has put years into this movie. So, being nice, I'll say the movie has a few good moments, wasn't every really dull, and ends on a high note.
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| Video |
| The film was made cheap, and it does show. There's haze, and the movie also looks to have been processed so it will seem more 70s. The transfer was fine for such a low budget movie. |
| Audio |
| While this 2.0 mix has some nice bass at times, the track is problematic since the whole movie is ADR. That's one of my pet peeves, so I found this really annoying and distracting. |
| Extra Features |
| The trailer! |
| The Verdict |
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The last 25 minutes or so were pretty good, but other than that I wouldn't recommend this one to horror fans. There's evidently a two disc, uncut edition available, but I couldn't readily find much info on what extras it includes, so gave up researching that version. It's pretty expensive, too, so if you just want to see the movie this release is significantly cheaper.
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