Coroner’s Report: Zombie Strippers
Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 21, 2008
For the select few of you who noted my absence last week, I apologize. I had flashbacks from Zombies Zombies Zombies and fell into a dizzying depression that I was forced to give an F to a movie about zombies and strippers. As you may have guessed, I was a bit hesitant to step back into zombie stripping territory after contracting a bad case of “shitty-movie-itis.” I none the less swallowed my fear and a few beers and popped in Zombie Strippers, a B-movie zombie flick where the B stands for boobies.
This Academy Award Nominated film is about a strip club that gets a bad case of the zombie herpes from an infected soldier of the “Z-Squad,” an anti-zombie task force that specializes in plastic guns and bad acting. The sleazy strip club owner (Robert Englund) soon finds that his clientele go nuts over zombie strippers and is soon encouraging his hoes to get bit and make him some money. He wisely stores the zombies in his basement rather than killing them, because nothing will go wrong. Until it does.
Kills
As with any zombie flick, there are a lot of kills. Most of the violence is directed at zombies, but I’d say there are probably more than 18 kills in the films and another dozen or more zombies given the ol’ head smash routine.
Ills
Jenna Jameson eats a dick. There, I said it. Not the first time someones wrote that about her though. She also shoots ping pong balls and pool balls out of her vagina. Yeah. Then there are some guts being ripped out, skin torn off, arms yanked out of sockets, gunshots to the head, a dozen bites, a lot of throat bites, severed heads, and a head ripped in half. Another CGI zombie is vaporized by a machine gun and some guy gets his tongue eaten. Lots of blood and violence, so that was good.
Lust
Finally a movie about zombies and strippers shows some stripper nudity. Jenna Jameson appears fully nude and later has a tremendously awesome strip dance. Most of the other girls reveal their boobs too so there is no shortage of breasts to be had in this film. Plus, even when clothed, most of the girls are wearing bikinis, more or less.
Learning
Always kill zombies rather than trying to store them or keep them captive. They will get out every God damned time, I am telling you.
Review
Zombie Strippers is, for better or worse, everything you would expect from a straight to DVD film of that title. It is not good by any means, but it’s not offensive. That said, the first 15 minutes were borderline unwatchable. I remarked to a friend – “I need to stop buying DVDs.” It was that bad. It starts with a lame-ass attack on the Bush administration, dating the film and making the writer look about as intelligent as a pile of horse manure. Then there is a meaningless and virtually useless action sequence, where the soldiers are dressed cool, but the effects suck. At this point, I’m ready to quit. Then we get our first glimpse at a real monster – the plastic surgery template that is Jenna Jameson. Thankfully she takes her clothes off very soon and two large breasts distract me from the urge to cut myself. Seriously, this chick is trailer-skank hot, but has a face like an extraterrestrial. She just doesn’t look real. Her and the other girls are passable actresses, as most of what they do involves their exposed breasts. Acting wise, they’re pretty horrible across the board and none of them required black contact lenses to have that dead look in their eyes.
Robert Englund is in full effect and having what looks to be a blast. He was genuinely enoyable. His Mexican side kick had a few laughs in him too; after the nudity, they’re the best part. There are some costume continuity errors and a lot of dialog that tries to be really clever but comes off strained, though that’s at least 45% because of who’s delivering it. All this negativity aside, when the film is good, it’s good. There are some enjoyable parts with naked ladies or the few moments when the humor hits the right note. When the film is bad, it’s so bad you need to see it just to believe what the hell is happening. But there is that third level, mostly relegated to the first 15 minutes, where the film is so horrible that it is just plain horrible.
Tito Ortiz, Jenna Jameson’s real life boyfriend and UFC fighter, has a funny cameo as a bouncer who abandons his post almost immediately. Moments like that, and Robert Englund and boobies, make this film a mixed bag for me. It knows what it is and strives to be a B-movie, but often misses on that fun, campy vibe that is so essential. It’s like Zombie Strippers alternates between being a joke and being a zombie film, most often not quite doing both adequately at the same time. But, as I said, it’s what you expect from this kind of film and is a million times better than Zombies Zombies Zombies. Though I do take issue that the guns are clearly fake, no one knows how to handle them, and everyone keeps racking the action on a plastic shotgun every time they deliver a line.
Watch Zombie Strippers for the sexy zombie striptease and for a few laughs, both intentional and unintentional, but don’t expect it to become a stalwart of your horror collection. One rental will do you, unless you have a zombie porn fetish, which this film may help satisfy at moments. A decent effort that stumbles through but ends up competent enough for me to have enjoyed myself for various reasons through most of it and only hate very little of it.
What are your thoughts on Zombie Strippers? Either the movie or the naked undead.
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