Zombie movies are a dime a dozen these days. Hell, in the wake of “The Walking Dead“, they might even be more frequent than that. Lord knows I have seen plenty of them over the past decade alone. All too often, the ones that fail do so because they focus more on special make-up effects than on character. Zombie make-up and gore effects will always be important to the subgenre, but flesh-eating ghoul movies cannot fulfill an audiences on grue alone. Character is just as, if not more important, and it is on that level that Bong of the Living Dead succeeds.
Shot and set in Columbus, Ohio, Bong is a scrappy and somewhat shaggy zombie horror comedy that has a few flaws, but it constantly makes up for them with charm. There’s a lot of heart behind the work and it shows up on the screen in spades. The horror moments, when they come, aren’t always effective and not all of the comedy lands, but there’s some much enthusiasm behind it all that it doesn’t matter.
For me, when it comes to horror comedies, the most important question is always “Would you still watch it without the horror element?”. The answer is yes. This is a fun cast and they all have good chemistry with one another. These characters care about one another, even when they’re occasionally being assholes.
Bong takes a rather somber and sobering turn in its third act. That is to be expected within zombie cinema. The inherent dread of the zombie is the dread of one’s own mortality. I think that’s why a zombie horde is such an effective terror tool. Much like a zombie movie, we begin our lives with a few potential deadly elements inhabiting the world around us. You can cross the street to avoid most of them early on, but as time rolls on, the chances of death increase. The horde of Death itself grows over time and no matter what you do, one day it will overwhelm and devour you. The best zombie films know this and while Bong of the Living Dead doesn’t quite hit those heights, it is a good example of why this subgenre persists. Life can be a wild adventure, but even those who live it the largest will eventually meet their demise. Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun along the way.
