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What came first, the stripper or the hooker? No, it’s not a trick question, hookers came first. That factoid is on my mind because we have two choices in the sexy female versus zombie genre: Zombies Zombies Zombies and Zombie Strippers. This week I decided on a movie I randomly picked up on a whim, Zombiesx3, which promised an “extended 3D opening” and an ending that I had to see to believe. In a way, I guess the advertising was right – I had to see it to believe that a movie with such an easy to nail premise could fail so horribly.

Zombies Zombies Zombies follows a cliché group of strippers who match “wits” with a cliché group of hookers and a cliché pimp – a pimp so cliché, in fact, that his nickname is “Back Hand Vegas” and he constantly threatens to backhand slap people. Anyway, after doing a crack substitute that was accidentally contaminated with a cancer cure that reanimates those it kills, the zombie virus spreads like hepatitis through this small group. Of course it comes down to some strippers with hearts of gold and names of locations (Dallas, Dakota) fighting off a horde of zombies in a mild, almost-kind-of entertaining climax.

Kills

Zombie movies can be difficult to tally kills on, as the dead return often to die again. In terms of humans who go down on screen, we probably see like 8-12, and they come back to life to die once again. There is a sufficient amount of carnage going on, but it’s often light weight and poorly executed.

Ills

There are of course plenty of bites, attacks with machetes, even some ice skates. An arm gets ripped off, a dick gets bit off, a lot of shotgun injuries, and eyeballs are poked out and bitten out. There is one really cool chainsaw gag, that is campy, but fun. There is some CGI blood and the ending is full of piss-poor CGI that takes the edge off the violence.

Lust

There are some pretty ladies in this film and they’re dressed as strippers but mostly keep their clothes on – big mistake, right? We do see boobs a couple of times and there is a good strip dance that features some boobs and a nice lingerie covered ass. That said, this is entirely disappointing in terms of nudity.

Learning

Mostly I’ve learned that I need to stop randomly buying low budget horror movies. This movie didn’t teach us much, other than don’t do crack, so I will use this space to give you the best line of the movie: Them bitches is crack whore zombies. That is obviously from the pimp character, who also goes on to later say: I’m tired of these mother fucking zombies in this mother fucking strip club, proving that this is the Zombie equivalent of Spoof Movie.

Review

The movie opens with a scene featuring Tiffany Shepis (who never appears again) that is so bad it made me ask “Is this a joke?” Thankfully, it was a joke, as it was a movie-within-a-movie moment. My fears were allayed for about 10 minutes before I soon began thinking that yes, this was indeed a joke. In one exterior scene, there are a myriad of sound problems, from bad ADR to a broken background track that is noisy and uneven. The lighting is akin to pointing the headlights of a car at what you want to shoot and the only thing more lifeless than the script is the acting. The actors don’t stumble through scenes, that implies movement. They stand and deliver their lines, like a line of Union boys volleying their muskets, though with less creativity (loading and shooting a musket is not a creative activity in the least). There is a Kevin Smith knock-off, which I just need to throw out there. The violence is laughable, as most “hits” don’t come within a yard of connecting and often times the blood is entirely the wrong color. That isn’t to say the movie isn’t without laughs – there are, literally, three points at which it is acceptable to laugh. The ending, while not shocking or “must see” is somewhat innovative in terms of dealing with zombies, but infested with poor CGI, awkward acting, and lackluster direction. If you want to watch this, you’re a masochist. I am almost tempted to say it’s so bad it’s worth watching, but I don’t think I can in good faith. Avoid this movie like a stripper’s used underwear. Oh, and PS: The “extended 3D” opening doesn’t work all that well either, so it’s just prolonging the pain.

Did you see this movie? Why?