Sunday, February 20, 2022

Evil Bong 666 (2017) and How the Evil Bong Franchise Has Changed


Evil Bong was released in 2006. It came from the mind of prolific B-movie producer, Charles Band. I wouldn’t learn about it for another six years or so. I was writing about bad movies (I still am!), I had a bunch of ten-movie box sets (I have even more now!), and I thought that combining the two would be a good idea. Eight years ago, I dove into one of those ten-movie packs and discovered Evil Bong. Then I wrote about it, as one is wont to do.

Since writing about the first movie eight years ago, I’ve gone on to write about the second, third, fourth, and fifth movies, as well as a crossover with The Gingerdead Man. While most of them barely had a story holding things together, there were things that happened in one movie and affected what happened later down the line. Characters would come in and out of the series. Settings would evolve. Bare bones storylines would connect the movies together. And there were crossovers galore. I want to give a sort of overview of the franchise, where it started, where it ended up, and the people who were along for the ride.


It all began with Evil Bong, the first movie in the franchise. It was the introduction of many of the franchise’s main characters. Larnell, Brett, Bachman, and Alistair were the four protagonists of the first three Evil Bong flicks. Larnell was the stereotypical stoner. Bachman was the surfer stoner guy. Brett was a jock, and Alistair was a nerd. Also around were Brett’s girlfriend, Luann, and Larnell’s grandfather, Cyril. Each of these characters would return throughout the first three Evil Bong movies, keeping a world-building continuity. As would Eebee, the evil bong.

Evil Bong also introduced some important side characters into the franchise. Jimbo was Eebee’s previous owner before Larnell and his crew purchased her. He was only in the first movie, but the heroic effort he put in during the climax had a lasting effect upon future events. Rabbit, the guy who delivered Eebee to Larnell’s place, would return for each Evil Bong movie, becoming a main character along the way. Then there were the crossovers. The Gingerdead Man, Jack Deth, Ivan Burroughs, Jack Attack, and Ooga Booga all appeared in bit parts. The Gingerdead Man and Ooga Booga would return later in the franchise, as well.

These characters were the basis for the Evil Bong franchise. They would carry it from one movie to the next, and the next, and any beyond that. The main quartet of Larnell, Brett, Bachman, and Alistair stuck around for the first three flicks, helping it feel like somewhat of a trilogy. Then the main character roles would start to transition. I’ll get to that later. Eebee stuck around through the entire franchise as the primary antagonist, though she sometimes took a back seat to new antagonists through the series.

The other important element that the first Evil Bong brought to the franchise was the bong world. Every Evil Bong movie had some alternate world that the characters were transported to. Eebee, the evil bong, would transport people into her bong world whenever they smoked weed from her. The bong world was pretty much just a strip club populated by many of the crossover characters that I just mentioned. After spending some time in that bong world, people would be killed by Eebee. That was her plan. She wanted to take them to the bong world and kill them. This idea would be remixed through the remainder of the franchise.


Evil Bong 2: King Bong introduced another key character. Larnell got a love interest in Velicity. She would become a main-ish character, going forward. She showed up in the third, fourth, and fifth movies, as well as the crossover with The Gingerdead Man. The other important character introduced in the sequel was the King Bong, who I think was only in this one movie. This new bong was the primary villain of the movie.

The story of Evil Bong 2: King Bong was the result of things that happened in the first film. Larnell, Brett, and Bachman suffered from ailments caused by the events of Evil Bong. They found out that Jimbo (who wasn’t in the second movie, but was the catalyst for it) got Eebee from the Amazon. Took a trip to the Amazon to find cures for what they were going through. Along for the ride are Rabbit, Cyril, and Luann. And Alistair, of course, being one of the main four characters.

The Poontang Tribe was introduced in Evil Bong 2: King Bong. It was an ancient Amazonian tribe that created Eebee. This tribe became an essential part of the Evil Bong franchise for a few installments. They were topless Amazonian women who were all about weed and bongs. In the second film, they were the tribespeople of King Bong. They would later become the topless women within the bong world. The strip club bong world was no more. The new bong world setting was a jungle with topless women, thanks to the Poontang Tribe.

The final thing that Evil Bong 2: King Bong introduced, which would return time and time again, was the story trait of teaming up with Eebee to stop some other evil, before that “enemy of my enemy is my friend” relationship was abruptly broken. The main quartet worked with Eebee to take down King Bong, before leaving her behind with Cyril. It didn’t matter who the main characters were going forward. Whether it was the quartet, Rabbit, or anyone else, they always worked with Eebee for a bit to stop some other evil force. It was never a smart decision because Eebee would typically pull something evil on them.


When everyone was healed of their ailments, they headed home. In Evil Bong 3D: The Wrath of Bong, Brett and Bachman opened a smoke shop. Larnell and Alistair were brought in to help Brett and Bachman, who had obtained a space bong. They teamed up with Eebee, Rabbit, and Cyril to stop the space bong from doing its evil space bong thing. The relationships between Brett and Luann, and Larnell and Velicity were also given some time.

The main thing that Evil Bong 3D: The Wrath of Bong introduced to the franchise was the idea of the main characters owning a head shop. Brett and Bachman owned the head shop this time out. Larnell, Rabbit, and some others would also run smoke shops throughout the franchise. After a movie set primarily in an apartment, and a movie set primarily in the Amazon, the rest of the franchise, at least up until the sixth movie, would be set in smoke shops.

Evil Bong 3D: The Wrath of Bong was the final appearance of the characters of Brett, Bachman, and Alistair. It was the only appearance of the space bong. This was the final movie in the original era of the Evil Bong franchise, with things becoming much more fluid in each subsequent outing. That fluidity was apparent in the crossover, but would continue through the fourth, fifth, and sixth prime franchise installments.


Next up was Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong, which reintroduced The Gingerdead Man into the franchise. Really, it was a movie that merged the two franchises, rather than crossing them over. Larnell opened a head shop with his girlfriend Velicity. Down the road, Sarah Leigh (the main character from The Gingerdead Man) had a bakery. Larnell visited the bakery to offer Sarah Leigh a partnership. Together, they could conquer the munchies market. The problem was that they each had evil in their lives. Larnell had Eebee, while Sarah Leigh had The Gingerdead Man.

There’s really not much to say about this one. It brought in a couple characters, thanks to the crossover. Sarah Leigh and The Gingerdead Man would stick around. Larnell was still there. Rabbit, Eebee, and Luann were around. Most of the story was devoted to recapping the previous six films. There were three Evil Bong movies and three Gingerdead Man movies before the crossover. The movie made sure that anyone who missed any of the movies would be able to keep up. Storywise, though, there was nothing new being brought to the table. Aside from a possible relationship between Larnell and Sarah Leigh, which would become an issue later on.

It should be noted at this point that there were actors playing multiple roles in the movies. Sarah Leigh was played by Robin Sydney, who also played Luann. She would play Faux Batty Boop in Evil Bong 666. I’ll get to that later. I’m saying that a lot in this post. Mindy Robinson was brought into the franchise as one of the Poontang tribe girls. She would go on to play a slew of other characters, including one of the main characters in Evil Bong 666. Again, I’ll get to that.

Other characters were introduced in Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong who would recur through the movies that followed. A couple stoner characters were introduced who would return in almost every iteration. Orson Chaplin always played one of them, though the other one would switch actors after the crossover. An Asian couple was introduced. They would also appear in Evil Bong 4 and 5. Then there was Hambo. He was a character from Zombies vs. Strippers and Ooga Booga who appeared in a few Evil Bong movies, always trying to sell some sort of memorabilia.


You could maybe say that Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong was the beginning of a new trilogy of Evil Bong movies. It was the first to feature many of the characters who would appear in the two movies that followed. They were the three movies that featured Larnell and Rabbit as the main characters. Larnell took the crossover, Rabbit took the fourth, and they co-lead the fifth. The problem was that the new trilogy lost the story that the previous trilogy had.

The Evil Bong franchise took a turn in the middle three entries to become more vignette-based than actual story-based. There was a very basic story to each of the movies, but they became more about showing different scenes of people coming into the various head shops and how the main characters interacted with them. There’s not much to say about any individual entry in this part of the franchise. They kind of blended together as the same movie with very slight variations.

Evil Bong 420 featured Rabbit running a bowling alley smoke shop. Mindy Robinson was back, playing one of his employees. Another employee, Candy, would return for Evil Bong: High 5!, having sexual relations with both The Gingerdead Man and Ooga Booga, who returned for some reason. There was a family of rednecks who showed up in both those movies, as well. And there was an appearance by director David DeCoteau in both. They really were a strung-together series of vignettes of people arriving at Rabbit’s bowling alley, and later Eebee’s smoke shop where she employed Rabbit and Larnell. They were essentially the same movie twice in a row with slight variance.


Evil Bong 666 changed things up a little bit, which was a refreshing next step for the franchise. Lucy Furr (Mindy Robinson) re-opened Eebee’s smoke shop from the previous movie. She bought it in a fire sale when Rabbit (Sonny Carl Davis) got out of the business. Her thought was that she could use the smoke shop as a front to murder the patrons in the name of Satan. When she killed her first victim, a rift opened up and Eebee (Michelle Mais) arrived. She had been trapped in Sexy Hell. Lucy Furr worked with Eebee to find more victims to open that rift and meet Beelzebud (Peter Donald Badalamenti II). Rabbit tried to stop them.

The biggest change to the Evil Bong franchise to come with Evil Bong 666 was that Larnell was written out. The fifth movie (technically the sixth) saw Eebee defeated when a bunch of characters were placed in the “nothing head” of Rabbit’s brain. While Eebee and The Gingerdead Man were able to escape through Sexy Hell, Larnell was trapped. It would be too dangerous to get him out, so he was lost forever. That meant that the main character role had to switch, and it kind of went to the threesome of Rabbit, Lucy Furr, and Faux Batty Boop (Robin Sydney).

Another Full Moon franchise was tied into the Evil Bong series in Evil Bong 666. The Gingerdead Man, Decadent Evil, Ooga Booga, Zombies vs. Strippers, and Trancers had already crossed over with the franchise by this point. Evil Bong 666 brought in the Killjoy series, introducing Faux Batty Boop as one of the main characters. That character wasn’t from the Killjoy series, though she was introduced with Killyjoy characters at the beginning, and she spent some time looking for the Killjoy characters. She was also based on Batty Boop, an actual character from the final three Killjoy movies. Killjoy had a big influence on Evil Bong 666.

Evil Bong 666 was a step up, in terms of story, from the few movies that came before it. There was still a slight feeling of vignettes, with the two stoners showing up, and a couple women showing up at the smoke shop for the sole purpose of taking their tops off. That stuff was very reminiscent of the second Evil Bong trilogy. But the thread that brought it all together was a little stronger. It wasn’t simply that the guys had to run the shop until they made enough money to trade for the women. The story was more than the day-to-day operations of the smoke shop. People were being taken to Sexy Hell to be sacrificed to Beelzebud. Faux Batty Boop was looking for some other characters. Beelzebud was trying to bring all the Sexy Hell demons to Earth to take over and make a planetary orgy. Eebee was caught in the middle of it all. There was more to grasp onto.

Also helping to make the story feel more like a story was the newest important character to be introduced, Gingerweed Man (Brooks Davis). He was a creation of Rabbit and Eebee, constructed to go to Sexy Hell and stop Beelzebud. They wanted him to save Faux Batty Boop and Misty (Jessica Morris) from the gross orgy and potential sacrifice. He was a little bit Gingerdead Man, a little bit weed, and a whole lot of fun, new character. I say he’s important to the series because he would end up getting his own spin-off movie. It’s only a matter or time before I get around to covering that one.


Over the course of six Evil Bong movies, many characters have been introduced and written out. There was the trilogy of films where Alistair, Brett, Bachman, and Larnell were the main characters. Alistair, Brett, and Bachman left the series and there was a trilogy of films where Larnell and Rabbit took center stage. The bong world went from strip club to jungle, before being put aside completely for Sexy Hell. Many characters from other Full Moon franchises appeared, franchises that included Killjoy, The Gingerdead Man, Decadent Evil, and Strippers vs. Zombies. The stories transitioned from stopping various evil bongs to vignettes while Eebee and The Gingerdead Man did their thing, to fighting against Beelzebud in Sexy Hell. It was a franchise that was always fluid in its storytelling and characters. People and beats moved in and moved out on a regular basis. It never stayed the same for too long.

I’ve now seen seven different Evil Bong movies for Sunday “Bad” Movies. Six of them were entries in the main series. The other one was a crossover with The Gingerdead Man. There are still two movies to watch, which I’ll be sure to get to at some point. There’s still Evil Bong 777 and the spin-off The Gingerweed Man. Will they continue the trend of fluidity in the franchise? Will they cut that short and do nothing new? I won’t know until I see them. I don’t know when that will be, but it will happen. I can be sure of that.


I can also be sure that I’m putting notes here:

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