The Movie:

Full disclosure: I haven't seen Aiden Dillard's 2006 Meatweed Madness, and while it's probably not essential that you do to understand the film (relatively speaking), it probably couldn't hurt as there appears to be some continuity in regards to that earlier picture.

So yeah, Aiden Dillard made a film a few years ago called Meatweed Madness and shortly after followed it up with this sequel, Meatweed America, a movie filled with enough sex, drugs, and wackiness to send any puritanical viewers running to the hills. As over the top as anything else Troma has put out (and that's saying something), this isn't a movie that's in the least bit concerned with appeasing a mainstream audience so much as it is with flipping them off.

The plot, such as it is, follows a young woman named Jessie Bell (Carey Sveen) who lives at Meatweed Manor where a white Rastafarian patriarch named Lord Meatweed (Dennis Palozzolo) runs the house. Jessie wants nothing more than to move to New York City, and Lord Meatweed is a bit hesitant to let her go. Around the same time that the two are discussing this, a remote control airplane flies into the house undetected and delivers a videotape. Lord Meatweed wastes no time throwing it into his VCR and up on the projection screen we see a message from a terrorist calling himself Bin Smokin (Peter Stickles) who wants revenge against Lord Meatweed, who some time ago cut off and smoked his foreskin.

Shortly after this, a nun with breast implants named Sister Mary and a penchant for foot worship shows up with her hot assistant and a not so hot guy in drag in hopes of joining Lord Meatweed in some experimentation and mind opening exercises. Unfortunately, Bin Smokin and his Jihottie warriors are Hell-bent on working the divisions that exist between the southern branch of the Meatweed clan and their kinfolk to the northeast. Jessie eventually makes it to New York where she meets up with Duke E. Meatweed where she's talked into posing for a painting for his cigarette company's advertising campaign by a woman called The Hempress (Debbie Rochan). But will Bin Smokin throw a wrench into all of this? Not if Sister Mary can help it...

Chock full of sex, violence, real piercings, drug use and puking, Meatweed America is on its own level of strange. There's a plot here, though you've got to wade through a whole lot of insanity to get to it. The film is made up of a cast of primarily amateur actors, so the performances aren't even close to good, but it's obvious that Dillard isn't so much concerned with that or with the story as he is in creating shocking set pieces and memorably trashy moments. On that level alone, the film is a pretty raving success, but for a lot of people that won't be quite enough to seal the deal.

Now, you can certainly argue that with a film like this the plot and the acting aren't what matters, it's the intent, the insanity of it all, and yes, the shock value and there's something to be sad for that. There are a lot of moments here that are laugh out loud funny and a few more that are pretty impressive from the 'gross out' standpoint. Dillard's definitely got a knack for pushing buttons and creating memorably ridiculous set pieces as the film is full of them, but without a stronger plot to tie it all together the film just isn't as good nor, more importantly, as interesting as it could and should have been.

Video:

Meat Weed America looks okay for a low budget picture. It's obviously been shot on consumer grade video but the disc is fairly well authored and the picture is at least consistently clean. There are spots where things look too harsh in terms of the lighting and this sucks a bit of the color out but it's not like this is going to change your opinion of the movie or affect your viewing experience at all. Honestly, the film looks about as good as it has to, maybe even a bit better considering the source material and all.