Welcome back to B-Movie Enema. This week, we’re going to have a little more fun with a fairly decent little horror movie released through independent distributor Scream Time Releasing. I’m going to be looking at 2017’s Bong of the Living Dead.

Bong of the Living Dead was directed by Max Groah. Groah has been around as a writer and director since 2010 when he made his first short film, Ringtone: The Gareth Blevins Story. Bong of the Living Dead is his first feature film. In fact, it’s still the only full-length film he’s made, though he did team up with Scream Time Releasing to write and direct a segment in the anthology film 10/31 Part 2.

Groah produced the film through Backward Slate Productions which is a small indie production company out of Columbus, Ohio. There’s a pretty healthy Midwest United States groundswell for indie film, particularly in the horror genre. Being a frequent visitor of HorrorHound in both Indianapolis, the home base of B-Movie Enema Industries, and Cincinnati, as well as visiting Days of the Dead Indy a few times over the years, I have often seen several indie filmmakers from the surrounding areas. It seems as though there are several Ohioan indie horror filmmakers with varying degrees of exploitation, throwbacks to the style of the 80s and 70s, and production quality.

Scream Time Releasing, though, well, I think they release very well-made films. There’s a certain amount of quality expectation I have when I step up to Scream Time’s booth at a convention. This is not the first time I’ve looked at one of their releases and it won’t be the last time either. Back in 2019, I looked at Pool Party Massacre which definitely had a much more 2000s kind of vibe to it. Then, in 2020, I reviewed 2012’s The Sleeper which was designed to look and feel more like a 70s stalker film and featured a friend of B-Movie Enema (at least I have no reason to think he wouldn’t be), Joe Bob Briggs. It’s far from the last time I’ll look at releases as I’ve got at least five more releases of theirs I could review.

What’s kind of interesting is that Bong of the Living Dead would seemingly be the LAST film of theirs I would have naturally purchased. The reason for that is I’m not a big pot guy and I’ve never really understood stoner culture. I’m not anti-pot. In fact, I’ve not only enjoyed a little weed over the years but I’m very strongly pro-legalization. However, I don’t really fully understand people who place that first in terms of their personality. So when movies are described as a stoner this or that, it’s usually a sign to me that I wouldn’t necessarily understand what it’s going for.

But that said, there was something about this that spoke to me. So when I did watch it a few years ago, I was surprised at how well-made and nicely written it was. The movie may be called Bong of the Living Dead, but the pot element of the movie didn’t overpower some of the other stuff that was going on. Very easily the movie could have been made in a way where all the characters were one-note and mostly too preoccupied with being stoned out of their gourds instead of dealing with the present danger of the zombie apocalypse. Usually, that leads to a comedy that misfires because they are being snarky or idiotic about the things trying to eat their brains.

Because this didn’t fall into normal trappings, the movie turns out to be pretty good, so let’s talk about it and why I find this a really enjoyable, top-level indie horror comedy.

As the movie opens, we meet four of our five main characters. The two guys on the porch above are Hal and Christ. The other two are Jon and Tara – they almost act like a couple. Hal and Christ mostly live stoner lives. They hang out on the porch, smoke pot out of bongs or things like a baseball bat they turned into a bong, and they get hassled by the crotchety old man next door. They also work at a video store. They also get hassled there by busybody moms who complain about porno titles.

Their day-to-day isn’t so interesting. In fact, the doldrums of their existence probably only feed their desire to get stoned and deal with people hassling them. However, someone who is unknowingly having a fairly interesting day is the fifth person of this group of friends, Dr. Kate Mitchell. Kate laments to another doctor at the hospital that they’ve unexpectedly lost a handful of young, seemingly able-bodied people to mysterious infections from bites.

Later that night, a girl is chased through the streets of this Columbus, Ohio suburb. Whatever is chasing her is grunting and kind of flailing as he runs after her. Back on the porch, the friends discuss and debate zombies and zombie movies. Eventually, Tara and Kate get tired of the conversation Hal and Jon keep going on and on about. Kate finally snaps and says that zombies can’t be dead or undead. They have to be alive because zombies have brain activity. Brain activity is life. End of story. Diseases can potentially cause necrosis, but the brain is still working. Jon hushes the continued debate between Hal and Kate when he hears that one girl being chased by the grunting guy that we saw earlier. They eventually have to use their baseball bat bong to hit the guy who is attacking the girl.

While they do that, Christ goes on a date with a hippie girl named Danielle whom he gets high with out in the alley behind the video store. After he ponders if the movie Independence Day was made by time travelers to warn us about the impending apocalypse, Danielle thinks it’s hot that he has such a deep and amazing thought and wants to mount him and fuck him right there in the back seat. While they get it on, more grunting and stumbling around is heard in the field and wooded area where they’re parked.

Parked near Christ and Danielle are a couple other people they know also getting it on, but, unfortunately for them, they get attacked by flesh-eating zombies who feast on the naked girl and swarm him when he tries to escape.

This opening, oh, 18-20 minutes or so serves as the cold opening to the movie. It sets the stage for our main cast of six characters – Kate, Hal, Christ, Danielle, Jon, and Tara. We understand their kind of slacker existence. Well, we know Kate is a doctor. The rest seem to be the typical 20-something slackers.

Think of this movie as a mixture of something like Clerks and Return of the Living Dead. I know it’s likely sold to people as more of a mixture of Clerks and Night of the Living Dead as NotLD is mentioned and discussed between Jon and Hal when talking about zombie movies and zombie types. However, I would lean more toward Return of the Living Dead being the real inspiration because that would tie back in the idea that these zombies are a little quicker, maybe slightly more intelligent in terms of being predators, and the fact that George Romero’s classic exists in this universe.

I prefaced getting into the movie review proper by talking about not really being one that goes too much for stoner comedies. I’m not a stoner and therefore can be easily annoyed with characters in these types of movies. That said, I like these characters. They aren’t so annoying dopey. They are more emblematic of slackers. I can appreciate this because I, too, was a slacker. I spent my last couple teenage years and the first few years of my 20s working at a video store and just kind of listlessly weaving my way through a silly life. I spent the following five years listlessly weaving my way through a silly life while working at a movie theater.

I get these types of people who sit around with friends and have dumb conversations about pop culture things. They just want to do whatever they can to exist with the least amount of worry or concern or, frankly, pain as possible. I get that. Personally, I kind of miss that about being a 20-something slacker. You can always ask yourself why you wasted some of your life being that way, but, in the end, you find yourself kind of longing for a return to that when you’re a 30 or 40-something bozo with stupid responsibilities.

But a bitchin’ website for movie reviews.

So that zombie chasing the girl earlier before Jon and Hal hit him with their baseball bat bong didn’t stay down. It wasn’t until Hal knocked him in his head and crushed it that it stayed down. That zombie was a cop and Kate looked under his shirt to see that this cop had several gunshot wounds in his chest. Hal is very excited that they have stumbled upon a zombie. Kate reveals that there are several more zombies coming for them.

Christ and Danielle come home and the six friends barricade themselves in the house. Naturally, they do what they do to cope – get high. Despite Hal and Christ’s initial excitement that they are in the beginning stages of a zombie apocalypse like their favorite movies, it starts hitting everyone pretty hard that the shit is hitting the fan in Columbus. Well… I guess it doesn’t seem to bother Danielle too much. She’s a little too flighty and airheaded to be bothered by much of anything.

Kate can’t believe that this is happening. These are things that have no heartbeat. They can only be killed by being shot in the head. They want to eat them. From a medical professional perspective, she can’t believe she’s saying these are actually zombies.

After getting over the shock, Hal unveils his long-formulated plan of how to deal with a zombie apocalypse. They need to get their hands on weapons. Specifically, they need hammers, axes, and so on. These are things that don’t need to be reloaded with ammo or have gasoline to operate. Next, they need to make the house zombie-proof. Thirdly, they need to go out there and kick zombie ass!

His rousing speech and plan to kick ass only riles up Christ. The rest of the group are not as impressed with the plan. The gang starts clearing out the zombies out front. They are surprised that they are pretty efficient at this business. This allows them to start zombie-proofing the place.

This also allows everyone to cope with what’s going on in their own ways too. Danielle asks Kate if she’s ever seen a dead body before tonight. Kate tells her she’s a doctor so, ya know, she’s pretty used to it. Turns out Danielle is too. She says she killed her English professor before kind of slowly leaving the room…? Kate and Tara, longtime friends, talk about a memory of theirs during college but also talk about how scared they are. Kate thinks that maybe things will be okay. The army is pretty good so they can probably get rid of the zombies. And… if they can’t? Well, they have Hal who has been seemingly prepping his whole life for this exact moment. The guys, on the other hand, mostly just get high and try to cope with the unexpected development that something they’ve discussed and prepped for all their lives is actually happening.

That’s the real charm of Bong of the Living Dead. It’s written just well enough to be sure that we like these characters and give them enough opportunities to be serious as well as funny. It’s kind of like being around your friends when things go south. You can cope with the seriousness of a situation and still crack a joke or allow your own personality to kind of come through. I think that’s why I like this movie. I can see myself appreciating these people even if I’m not smoking with them.

The next morning, the rest of the gang discovers that Hal spent the entire night coming up with weapons and tools for everyone to use against zombies. He took apart a table and that gives them four clubs to use to whack zombies in the head. He put a saw at the end of a broomstick so they could cut into zombies from a distance. He’s got a colander to use as a helmet. He’s got magazines to put around limbs so zombies can’t bite into them.

Kate pulls Hal to the side and asks him to be careful. Just because they have these weapons and things, it doesn’t mean anyone knows how to use them. Everyone else is pretty damn excited. Hal says that they are heading out at dawn to start getting rid of zombies. Considering it is still only about 2pm and dawn is a long way away, they just have to figure out how to spend the rest of their day.

I think we all know how they plan to do that…

The next day, Jon, Tara, Christ, and Hal go out on patrol to get zombies. However, they soon discover the rest of the town has already figured out how to handle the zombies. The doctor who works with Kate coaches people on the importance of not getting bitten by a zombie and how to destroy them by destroying their brains. There are a few straggling zombies that get handled but the situation is mostly clear and the apocalypse is not going down the way Hal and the rest of the group thought it would.

Hal is pissed off that there are still people around. Jon is disappointed that everything they planned for is also something everyone had a plan for too. They are even more pissed off that a local councilman is using the zombie outbreak to campaign. Since civilization still exists, Hal, Jon, and Christ decide to just play a game in which they kill zombies. While the rest of the town wipes out zombies, the gang just gets high and bullshit around. They kill the occasional zombie but it’s not too much of a problem.

Eventually, though… the people who were organizing to kill zombies are, themselves, being killed by zombies.

As the zombies slowly take over, the group begins questioning what they should be doing. They just sit around and watch whatever TV station still comes in. They are very nearly out of pot. They’re getting lazy about leaving doors open which means the zombies, if one happened to come by would have unfettered access to them. Jon and Tara argue about what they should do. Tara wants to get as far away as possible and seclude themselves from wherever zombies could be. Jon says there’s no place for them to go because people are everywhere. Christ says worried about their drugs running low. Hal says that if there is no place to go, they have to go out and kill as many zombies as they can. It’s unraveling.

Later, as some of the group start looking for their own space, Christ and Danielle have a fight. He eventually goes to the video store to pick up a movie he wants to watch. On his way back, he is nearly attacked but fights it off thanks to Kate calling the zombie out to him from the porch. However, a second zombie was creeping around the corner, grabs Kate’s arm, and bites it. Hal chops her arm off above the wound with his axe, but she’s not in good shape. They can only do so much for her since they don’t really have any antibiotics or knowledge about how to care for the wound.

The reality of the situation is starting to really bother each person in the group. Kate is really close friends with Tara. Tara being upset is bothering Jon. Hal has always been in love with Kate. Christ wanders off alone. Danielle is struggling with everything that’s happening. She then has an allergic attack from milk and dies. When Christ returns home, he finds out that Hal and Jon were burying Danielle. When they try to figure out if they should say something about her, Christ uses the final bullet in the gun they got from the zombie cop to shoot Danielle’s corpse in the head.

Soon, the entire town is overrun by zombies. Christ has completely lost it. Hal finally says it’s high time they get the hell out of there. There’s a truck they can use to get out of the town. The problem is they have to fight their way through the hordes of zombies that are running around wild on the streets. Hal asks about the firebombs that they haven’t yet mentioned before this whole movie They also have to figure out what to do with Kate. She’s not dead and no one wants to leave her behind.

Good news on the Kate front… She’s awake, in badass mode, and she has a plan.

They try to fight their way out the front door, but there are too many zombies. Hal gets his ear bitten by a zombie. Soon, the zombies get into the house. Jon and Tara go upstairs while Kate, Hal, and Christ go to the basement. Jon and Tara are trapped in the bathroom. They decide to finally fuck after Jon admits to loving Tara since they first met each other while Hal builds a super bong with a stash of pot they find from the crotchety old neighbor’s backpack. They use it to get the zombies stoned so they can make it to the truck to leave town.

Hal stays behind while the others get away. He says his goodbyes and rushes into the horde of zombies. The friends remember their time as childhood friends while Hal fights to the end and the others drive away.

Let’s be real about some stuff, shall we? There are A LOT of indie horror films being made today. In fact, the vast majority of micro-budget and no-budget indie films are horror. I believe this is due to horror historically being the lower budget genre and through the sheer fun of being scared and practical effects work it inspires a lot of people to do their own thing. So, all that said, through these types of purchases and convention finds, I’ve seen a ton of these movies. I think a lot of these movies are the modern-day version of regional films that used to travel around to various local theaters and drive-ins back in the 70s.

While I appreciate the effort that so many indie horror filmmakers put into their movies by raising funds, writing a script, getting people cast (if not having buy-in from friends and friends of friends to work for free), and simply having the money for cameras and editing equipment and all the other stuff that goes into making a film, a bunch of these movies aren’t usually that good. They’re either not compelling, derivative, poorly written, badly acted, or just plain trashy. But Bong of the Living Dead? This is an exception.

Director Max Groah and his co-writer Tim Mayo have written something interesting. Sure, we’ve seen zombie movies before. Sure, we’ve seen zombie movies dealing with friends having to fight them off. However, I like these characters. I feel like I could hang out with them. This movie is about 80 minutes. For 60 minutes, it’s a comedy. For the final 20 minutes, it gets serious. When it changes the tone for those final 20 minutes, it’s earned. I like these characters enough to be bummed out when things happen to some of the characters. The movie is simply well-made.

In fact, I think it’s safe to say this is one of the very best of these micro-budget, crowd-funded indie films. It’s widely available on streaming services. I recommend you check it out if you like smaller films like this that are totally held together with gumption and a whole lot of earnest effort.

However, it’s time to bring this review in for a landing. Next week, we’ve got another small-budget horror, but from someone who would go on to make quite the name for himself. Join me as we go down under for an Ozploitation treat. I’ll be visiting a fictional town in Australia named after a major European city and try to avoid some hungry automobiles. Come back here in seven days for Peter Weir’s The Cars That Ate Paris!