Before we get too deep into this review of Full Moon’s Weedjies! Halloweed Night, I’ve got a confession to make to you kids. At the ripe old age of 33, I have never smoked what many of you young rapscallions sometimes call “the marijuana.” As such, I’ve never really understood “stoner comedies,” and right off the bat I know I am most definitely not the target audience for a flick like Weedjies (which, for those curious, is supposed to be pronounced like “Ouija.”)
That said, even if you are a hardcore low-budget horror-comedy fan weaned on the likes of Demonic Toys and Dollman and a lifetime subscriber to High Times magazine, I have a hard time believing anybody will find Weedjies to be uproariously delightful. Yes, on the whole it’s a pretty fun movie, but the laughs are few and far between. Needless to say, if you want to get the most mileage out of this one, your cinematic taste buds better err more towards Cheech and Chong than Ghoulies, and even then I’m not sure you’ll want to dab the DVD, if you catch my drift.
But keeping with the spirit of the season and the film’s motif, I think it’s only fair that I write this review while — “influenced” — by a few legally permitted products available for sale in my home state. So about an hour ago, I ate roughly 48 CBD gummies I purchased at a gas station operated by a guy named Hacksaw, which I suppose is enough to get me in the spirit of things, ain’t it?
The flicks starts off with this parody of Halloween ’78, with this one guy in a bad wig trying to stuff this off-brand Gremlin back into a magical Ouija Board. Then this voodoo queen shows up for no reason whatsoever and sucks him into the board game, too. Then we fast forward 40 years to modern-day Las Vegas, where we’re introduced to the film’s three heroines — Frankie, Madison and Dallas — who say things real people never say like “totes potential” and “I think it’s spooky AF” a lot. Then this guy named Claude shows up and shows off a bud of super-duper-mega-weed called “The Golden Nug.”
Huh … for some reason, I am just dying for some Flamin’ Hot Funyuns right about now. That’s odd.
Oh yeah, the movie. Then the cast puts on a buncha’ Dracula costumes and then a whole buncha’ ravers dressed up like giant babies and Puppet Master characters show up and start doing some really lame dancing and there’s this one guy live-streaming the soiree while interviewing adult film starlets who just happened to show up.
OK, stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Cleopatra, a generic witch and two vampires walk into a Dispensary …
So apparently, they’re doing a scavenger hunt to find the mega-super-duper-mega-weed, and that’s when the voodoo queen from earlier re-enters the picture and tells them how much fun it would be to play this one Jumanji variation, and as expected, all of that supernatural tomfoolery ultimately results in a Rastafarian marijuana ghost jumping out of the board game and causing these evil Muppet monsters to start running around all over the place.
Wait, hold on a sec … I just felt the sudden urge to eat five Totino’s microwavable pizzas in one sitting. Give me a few minutes for my intestines to recover.
So, uh, from there the mayhem comes at us fast and frantically in Weedjies. One guy gets chewed to death in a swimming pool and then these two guys dressed like hot dogs almost have their junk bitten off by a punk rock goblin and this one particularly unlucky Scotsman gets his throat ripped out while he’s taking a dumper.
And the worst thing about these foul, doobie-loving demons? They have the audacity to eat up all of the cake without leaving any for everybody else. Ripping people’s throats out is one thing, but where I come from you better have the decency to share your desserts.
Speaking of desserts, I really need to go to the store and buy 15 packages of Little Debbie Donut Sticks — and listen to Phish. And vote for Jill Stein. Weird.
So, uh, the rest of the movie is pretty formulaic. Our heroines run around trying to stab bicycling mini-werewolves to death with magical board game pieces and the floating Rastafarian zombie head keeps making goofy jokes and at the end of the day, I guess everything goes back to normal — or norml, in this movie’s case.
So am I the only one who sees the resemblance to Ice-T’s character in Tank Girl here?
What’s that? Oh, sorry, I was too busy making a Slim Jim and Doritos burrito to get around to hitting the highlights. Anyhoo, we’ve got seven dead bodies. No breasts or buttocks, of either the male, female, or Muppet monster variety. Two exploding heads. Arms roll. One bicycle chase. One electrocution. Gratuitous Halloween decorating montages. Gratuitous vampire booty dancing. Gratuitous Howard Stern Show cast member cameos. Gratuitous monster urination. Gratuitous mime subplot. Gratuitous diarrhea sound effects. Gratuitous toilet humor (literally.) Gratuitous Ray Charles impersonations. Werewolf fu. Amulet fu. And, of course, the thing more or less responsible for this movie existing in the first place — some SERIOUS hydroponics fu.
Starring Victoria Strange as Dallas, Brett Hargrave as Madison, Johnny Lee as Claude and Yo Ying as Frankie, who officially deserves an Oscar for being able to say the line “You just got Ozzy Os-burned!” without having a cringe overdose right there on the set.
Directed by Danny Draven and writer by the three-headed straight-to-streaming hydra of Charles Band, Shane Bitterling and Brockton McKinney, whom apparently smoked a LOT of kush to come up with such splendid bits of dialogue as “blood be their munchies” and “hey, anybody got a banana?”
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can take one gander at the trailer for Weedjies and immediately know whether or not it’s up your alley or something you definitely don’t want to hit. Personally, I thought it was a mixed (dime) bag, but the effects are decent, the acting is above-average and some of the jokes made me chuckle. Ultimately, Weedjies is a movie that aims low and feels very predictable, but you really can’t fault it for mostly succeeding at what little it sought to accomplish.
Just don’t go into it thinking you’re getting Harold and Kumar Meet Trancers and you won’t be disappointed … that much.
Wicked Rating: 6/10
Director(s):Danny Draven
Writer(s): Charles Band, Shane Bitterling, Brockton McKinney, and a ton of indica (uncredited)
Stars: Victoria Strange, Brett Hargrave, Johnny Lee, Yo Ying
Release: Oct. 21, 2019
Studio/Production Co.: Full Moon Features
Language: English
Length: Approximately 85 minutes
Sub-Genre: Muppet Monsters, Stoner Comedies, Evil Board Games
