Monday, July 22, 2019

Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong (2013)


When you look back at the history of horror, a few names stand out as influencing what would come after their work.  Alfred Hitchcock, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Kevin Williamson, Stephen King, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Dario Argento, and H.P. Lovecraft are only a few of the names that come to mind.  One person who tends to fly under the radar but has greatly influenced the horror genre is Charles Band.

His career began in 1973 when he directed and produced a movie called Last Foxtrot in Burbank.  It was a spoof of Last Tango in Paris.  Not horror, but a foot in the door for filmmaking.  Charles Band would go on to found a few different production companies, including Empire Productions and Full Moon Features.  Through those companies, he would create long lasting franchises that have since become cult hits.  The most famous would likely be the Puppet Master franchise, which has included more than ten films.  But there have been many more.  Trancers began in 1984 and lasted six films.  The first two Ghoulies movies were made with Empire Productions.  Subspecies, Killjoy, Demonic Toys, Witchouse, and Decadent Evil are a few of the other franchises that have found their way through Charles Band’s production companies.

The new millennium saw two franchises reign within the Full Moon Features productions.  The Gingerdead Man was released in 2005.  Gary Busey voiced a dead serial killer whose spirit had possessed a gingerbread man in the first film of the franchise but wouldn’t return in any subsequent outings.  Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust came out in 2008 and took the action out of the bakery setting of the original.  Instead, it was a comedic tribute to low budget filmmaking, taking place in a small Hollywood studio.  2011’s Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver saw the Gingerdead Man going back in time to a 1970s roller rink to be involved in a story that took more than a few beats from Carrie.

The other franchise was Evil Bong.  The 2006 original had a group of friends find a bong that would transport them to a different dimension when they took a hit from it.  That other dimension would eventually drain their lives.  The sequels, 2009’s Evil Bong 2: King Bong and 2011’s Evil Bong 3D: The Wrath of Bong saw the characters team up with the original evil bong to take down newer, stronger evil bongs.
Following each franchise hitting the three film mark, Charles Band found a new way to move forward.  He brought the franchises together.  2013 saw the release of Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong, a crossover that had the two villains going up against one another.  Though they didn’t really go up against each other.  They were kind of just doing their own thing and both going after the same humans in different ways.  Larnell (John Patrick Jordan), Luann (Robin Sydney), Rabbit (Sonny Carl Davis), Velicity (Amy Paffrath), and Eebee (Michelle Mais) returned from the Evil Bong franchise, while Sarah Leigh (Robin Sydney) and The Gingerdead Man (Robert Ramos) returned from the Gingerdead Man franchise.

The story was pretty simple.  Larnell opened a new head shop.  Down the street, Sarah Leigh opened a new bakery.  Larnell thought it would be a good idea to team up so that people would get the munchies at his place, then fill themselves up at the bakery.  Their plan was interrupted when the Evil Bong got loose and the Gingerdead Man returned to kill people.  They took the Gingerdead Man into the bong world and escaped while he was still trapped in there.
A fine line must be trod to have a successful crossover film.  Two franchises are coming together to make a continuation that works for both.  A basic knowledge of each franchise is needed to give a background of the characters who are now interacting for the first time.  An audience won’t get the most out of their experience if they don’t understand the characters’ motivations and how that put them in the crossover situation.

The best way to do this is to sprinkle in bits and pieces about what happened in the previous films.  It’s tough to do without the writing feeling forced.  Audiences don’t want a full recap of what happened in each franchise.  They want just enough to understand the characters before getting into a new story with them.  Otherwise, they could just be watching the other movies instead of the crossover.  Even with the promise of the characters and franchises coming together, a recap feels like wasted potential.

Freddy vs. Jason did a fairly good job of bringing the horror characters together.  There was enough background to clarify who the two horror villains were.  Freddy was in Hell and wasn’t a threat because the Springwood teenagers weren’t having nightmares about him anymore.  His power came from their dreams.  Without dreaming of him, he had no power.  Jason was roped into it through Freddy’s manipulation.  Freddy used Jason’s memories of his mother to push Jason into killing the teenagers of Springwood.  Through those story elements, audiences could understand the characters.  Freddy attacked teenagers through their dreams and Jason was a serial killer who was extremely attached to his mother.
Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong wasn’t as graceful with the backgrounds of the characters.  The backgrounds became a detour from the story being told.  Larnell explained the plot of the three Evil Bong movies to his employee, String (The Don).  This involved an on-screen recap of the series through archive footage.  The same thing happened with Sarah Leigh explaining the first Gingerdead Man film to her coworker.  There was archive footage from the movie used to show what happened.  Luckily, Sarah Leigh wasn’t in the other two Gingerdead Man movies, so they didn’t get recapped as well.

The problem with these kind of recaps are that they feel so out of place in the film.  The story comes to a dead halt as a recap of other stories takes over.  Instead of moving things forward, the audience is forced to look back at what has already happened.  All that is needed to make a crossover work for people coming from either franchise is to establish the characters in a way that highlights the past without making that the sole focus.

Had Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong focused more on character dynamics, it could have kept a good pace and not felt like it was deviating from the story for a recap.  The character dynamics that existed were good.  The way that Larnell reacted when Rabbit came back fit both characters perfectly.  Saying that bad things happened whenever Rabbit showed up was fitting for both characters.  There didn’t need to be a full archival footage recap.  They could have had a conversation, sprinkled with jokes, and it would have worked fine and kept things moving.  That could have worked with Eebee as well, who was locked up in the back room.  Character interactions work better than recaps for something that audiences already had a chance to see.
Crossover movies can get audiences very excited.  They want to see two, three, or more of their favourite characters come together in a new story.  Charles Band brought the Evil Bong and Gingerdead Man franchises together in 2013.  It was a lackluster meeting of the two characters that didn’t really tell much of a new story.  It did, however, lead to a pairing that never really went away.  The Gingerdead Man franchise was done.  The Evil Bong franchise went on for, currently, four more films.  The Gingerdead Man and Sarah Leigh appeared in the sequels.  It was basically a franchise that came out of the crossover, but with the Evil Bong name instead of the crossover name.

Charles Band has built much of his career through franchises.  There have been bigger, more successful franchises than Evil Bong and The Gingerdead Man.  Notably, two new Puppet Master movies came out last year.  He has made a massive impact on the horror film genre through his work over the past four and a half decades.  Names like John Carpenter and Wes Craven are often named as the most influential figures in horror filmmaking.  Charles Band might not get the same recognition, but he has definitely had nearly as much of an impact.  Particularly in the lower budget area.  The man is a living legend.
Let’s get the notes out of the way and get out of here:

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