Sunday, May 3, 2020

Evil Bong 420 (2015) and Cliffhanger Endings



To be continued. Three simple words that change the whole world. You’re sitting in front of the screen, watching as events unfold for the characters you have grown to love. Everything builds to a certain point. Then those three words come onto the screen and the credits begin to roll. As an audience member, you’re left wanting resolution. You want to know if the characters will make it out of danger, come back together after a big fight, resolve their emotions, or a number of other things. The anticipation is what filmmakers want to leave you with.

This is called a cliffhanger. If you’re reading this, you probably already know that, but let me take a moment to explain it anyway. A cliffhanger is a way to end a chapter of any continuing story to try and keep the audience interested so that they come back for more. A big revelation happens. Perhaps it’s a reveal of someone’s intentions. Maybe it’s a breakup. A character could be in mortal danger. A new foe could have come into the picture. Whatever the case may be, something happened in the final moments that did not get resolved and left the audience wanting more. Then, hopefully, they were hooked in enough to come back for the next installment.

Cliffhangers likely found their origin in word of mouth storytelling. As someone told a story, they would end it on a big note to leave the people around them interested between the times when they were telling stories. That way, people would come back and listen to them tell more stories around a fire or in a cave or in a tavern. Clearly, I don’t know that for sure. I’m guessing here. It was all done through word of mouth. There’s no concrete evidence. That’s why I need to look at the next type of storytelling in line, the written word.


Let us jump to the 1800s. People like Charles Dickens and Alexandre Dumas would release their novels in installments. For example, A Tale of Two Cities was released in 31 weekly installments through Dickens’s literary periodical All the Year Round. When something is released in installments, there must be a reason to have people come back to read more. At the end of a chapter or a weekly installment, once in a while, there would have to be some sort of a question to leave the readers thinking. Not necessarily a literal question with a question mark at the end. It would be a situation that would leave people wondering what was next and wanting to read it.

That translated well into novels in general. A large novel could be daunting to look at. The thickness of something like The Stand by Stephen King or Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling could frighten some people from reading it. But those early chapters would build up anticipation for what was to come. The Stand followed a few different story threads as the point of view switched between characters. Having one of those question moments at the end of a chapter before switching the point of view to a different character would make the reader want to keep reading so that they could get back to that character and resolve what happened.


This style of storytelling came in handy when serials were all the rage on the radio and in the early days of film and television. Stories would be told in episodes, much like the chapters in a book. To hook the audience in at the end of an episode, they would bring in a cliffhanger ending. It would leave the audience wanting to find out what happened in the next episode. It would keep them tuning in, episode after episode, to listen or watch as the full story unfolded. Every episode of the 1948 Superman serial series ended on a cliffhanger. The first episode, for example, ended with a train heading towards destruction and the narrator asking if Superman would be able to save it. People wanted to know the answer and would come back for the second episode.


That translated pretty well to television series. For a long time, television became an episodic medium. Things would change gradually over time, but for the most part, every episode was self-contained. There were some episodes, however, that would lead right into the next episode. They were considered two-parters, or sometimes three-parters. These stories would be perfect ways for a cliffhanger to be used. The first part would end on a highly dramatic moment, and the second part would be the fallout of that moment. Think back to the season four two-parter in Friends, The One with Ross’s Wedding. The first part ended on the note of Rachel deciding to get on the plane to crash the wedding in London. It was a huge moment in the Ross and Rachel relationship, leaving viewers with the desire to see what would happen when they connected at the wedding. Would Ross leave his wife, Emily, for Rachel? Would Rachel ruin the wedding? What was going to happen? Tune into the next episode to find out.

It wasn’t just two-parters that would do this. Season finales would also use the cliffhanger ending to bring viewers back in for the next season. They wanted to keep people watching that show, instead of going to whatever other shows would be playing at the same time next season. They wanted to have the anticipation level high so that people would be anxiously awaiting the show’s return. That same two-parter of Friends could be looked at for a season ending cliffhanger. The One with Ross’s Wedding, Part 2 was the final episode of season 4. About halfway through the episode, there was the reveal that Chandler and Monica were sleeping together, which people would be excited to see play out the next season. But the final moments of the episode raised things even further, when Ross said the wrong name at the altar, showing that he wasn’t nearly over Rachel. This type of moment to end a season would keep people on their toes wanting to see the fallout in the next season. It was a cliffhanger that kept people hooked to the series.

And, of course, many shows have gone back to the idea of serialization, which makes the cliffhanger all that more prevalent. Nearly every episode in serialized television ends on a cliffhanger. It’s not even to keep people hooked anymore. It’s to build suspense. You could look at any episode of The Good Place. The entire show was episode after episode moving the story forward with big revelations. Nearly every episode ended with some sort of big moment in the final seconds that would have repercussions on the entire show going forward. The first episode ended with an emergency meeting being called and Chidi left with the choice of whether or not to help Eleanor. The second episode ended with Eleanor receiving a note that said she didn’t belong in The Good Place. The third episode ended with someone else saying they didn’t belong in The Good Place. It was cliffhanger after cliffhanger used as more of a story beat than a hook to keep people coming back.


Television wasn’t the only visual medium to utilize the cliffhanger ending. Some films have also used that style of storytelling to keep people invested for a new installment in a franchise. The Empire Strikes Back ended with Han Solo being frozen in carbonite. Audiences would walk out wanting to know if they saved Han, how they saved Han, and what would happen in the fight against Darth Vader, who had just revealed that he was Luke’s father. Back to the Future, Part II also ended on a cliffhanger as Marty got a letter from Doc Brown, who was alive in the Wild West. How would Marty save him, when Doc took the DeLorean?


The concept of a cliffhanger is seen more frequently in horror movies than anything else. Franchises are the bread and butter of horror. They’ve been a staple since the early days, with the Universal Monsters movies. When slashers grew in popularity, so did franchises. Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and numerous other franchises sprung up. Memorable monsters and murderers were on the big screen. Studios wanted to keep bringing those villains back because people enjoyed them so much. A perfect way to bring the people back was to add a twist ending, which would set up for another film. In other words, a cliffhanger twist.

Look at the first film in the Halloween franchise. Laurie Strode and her friends were stalked and/or killed by Michael Myers through the entire runtime. Laurie was the final girl, trapped in a closet, with Michael barging his way in. She stabbed him in the eye, seemingly killing him, only for him to get back up again. Dr. Loomis showed up and shot Michael a bunch, knocking him off a balcony in the process. Everything was good. The boogeyman had been killed. Except, in the final moments, Loomis looked down into the yard to find it empty. Michael Myers had escaped. Cue credits. Audiences were left wondering where Michael went. They wanted to know if he was going to go after Laurie again. They needed to know if he could be stopped. They were primed for the sequel because of that cliffhanger ending.
  


Friday the 13th had the cliffhanger of Jason jumping out of the water to attack Alice Hardy. Both Friday the 13th and Halloween franchises have a main character who ends a mid-franchise installment becoming the killer they had just escaped. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday had Freddy Krueger’s glove burst from the ground to drag Jason’s mask to Hell, setting up for a potential crossover between Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. They were constantly doing cliffhanger style endings to intrigue audiences for a potential new installment.

It wasn’t just the big horror franchises doing cliffhanger endings, either. The franchises that flew a little more under the radar would do it as well. That’s where we get things like Evil Bong 420, one of many Charles Band produced, and in this case directed, horror franchises. Most of the movie is a sex and stoner comedy set in a bowling alley. It’s part of the Evil Bong franchise, though, so Eebee (Michelle Mais) was bound to make an appearance. Rabbit (Sonny Carl Davis) had escaped the bong world and opened a topless bowling alley. For whatever reason, Larnell (John Patrick Jordan), Sarah Leigh (Robin Sydney), and Velicity (Amy Paffrath) showed up at the bowling alley. When Eebee arrived, she transported them all to the bong world and the movie ended. How would they escape? Were they trapped forever? That would be for the next movie to depict, which meant that the audience would be hooked into another sequel in the franchise.


The cliffhanger is a widely used piece of storytelling. It can hook people in. It can build suspense. It can leave people wanting more. Every form of storytelling has used it, whether that be spoken word, written word, radio, television, or film. The cliffhanger ending is something that will never go away, as more and more suspenseful stories are being told. It’s a way of life in storytelling.

Imagine yourself turning on a television show. The episode is coming to an end. There are thirty seconds left. You’re settling in for the nice conclusion to the events that just unfolded. All of a sudden, a door bursts open. There’s someone coming through the door with news. Are they there to harm the main character? Are they a long-lost relative returning to the character’s life? Is there something in the next room that the main character shouldn’t see? You’re not going to find out. Not in this episode, at least. Those three fateful words pop up on the screen because you just saw a cliffhanger ending. To be continued… And now you must wait for the next episode. Waiting. Wanting to know. That’s some power in the storytelling.


I’m not going to leave you hanging, though. Here are some notes:

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