Too bad there's not an Academy Award for most honest depiction of a title as 'Zombie Strippers' would undoubtedly take home the gold. Yep, we got strippers, we got zombies and pretty soon, we have zombie strippers. If you think you know what the film will be about judging by the title, well you're right. There's no bait and switch here.
I doubt many will complain about renting or buying a movie called 'Zombie Strippers', seeing zombies strip and then complain about the subject matter but since I'm reviewing the film, I suppose that justifies a few complaints...maybe.
Based on a 1959 Theatre of the Absurd production called Rhinoceros from French playwright Eugene lonesco (no, really...wiki it), writer-director Jay Lee fashions a Z-budget amalgam of burlesque, horror slapstick and political satire with only the first two done somewhat competently.
The film starts off with a faux-newscast establishing the world of the film. George W. Bush has just been elected for his fourth term, congress was disbanded and Bush has wars raging across the world from the middle-east to Alaska (I wonder if Palin would be heading the troops up there?). With these wars resulting in a short supply of soldiers, the government develops a serum that would reanimate the troops after death to keep on fighting.
But this being the government, things goes awry and zombies take over the labs where a slick platoon is sent in to dispatch the zombies. One soldier (Zak Kilberg) escapes the labs with a bite, however, and finds himself at a hidden strip club (strip clubs are now illegal) where he bites and infects the clubs star dancer Kat (Porn star Jenna Jameson).
As with any place where women gather, allegiances and bitchy catfights have already been established and Kat - now a super-star zombie stripper much to the club owner Essko's (Robert Englund of Freddy fame) delight - starts to infect the other stripper gals where a full-blown zombie stripper club is formed.
Guys being guys, they find these wound-inflicted, blood-dried naked specimens extremely cool and the club becomes more popular than ever before.
Of course, even zombie strippers gotta eat so they feast on some of the patrons who in turn become zombies which leaves Essko to lock them up in the basement. All this zombieness can only be controlled for so long before all zombie stripper hell breaks loose which leaves Essko and friends to clean it up.
An amateurish, horribly-acted opening worried me but about fifteen minutes in, when the action moved to the strip club, the film picked up considerably.
The more contained surroundings and focus on make-up f/x, rather than the horrible gunplay action of the opening, worked in the budget's favor and the strippers are all given distinct, if superficial, personalities to follow which was an immense improvement over the handful of buffoons that made up the soldiers.
There's tons of nudity, both of the alive and undead variety, and a lot of the make-up f/x are well done for what seemed like a tiny budget. Anytime guns became involved and the resulting aftermath, though, and cheesy CGI was usually used which was in direct contrast to the in-screen gore.
No matter, the gore and nudity was prolific enough to please 'Fangoria' readers. The films shortcomings were mostly Jay Lee's insistence to try and add a bit of weight to the material where it was sorely unneeded.
The underdeveloped themes and contradictory messages reminded me of Uwe Boll's recent political satire debacle 'Postal' - a film I was hoping never to be reminded of again.
I'm all for a few choice zingers aimed at the times (heck, Romero started this whole need for something more in a zombie film) but if you're just going to throw some half-ass ideas in there, more distracting than anything else, then why bother?
That being said, the central cast that make up the strip club are quite solid and even Jameson, though clearly a porn star, gets to wrap her tongue around some meaty dialogue (erm...in more ways than one I might add...).
Englund is clearly relishing being around naked chicks all day and the whole central third of the film certainly delivers on the promise of the title.
The film is presented in a 2.35:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer that looks as probably as good as the film's source, shot in HD, could allow. The overall image looks a bit soft for a new release but I imagine this has more to do with low-budget post-production tinkering of the source than anything to do with the transfer.
The film has a dark, neonish palette as expected from a film set almost entirely in a dank strip club, so don't expect demo material but it's certainly close to the best it's going to look.
A Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless track is provided and frankly isn't great. Again, this is most likely due to the original sound mixing and design and nothing to do with the BD tech mix but there's no escaping the low-budget origins of the film if one were to listen to this track.
Special Features include an audio commentary with writer/director Jay Lee, actors Robert Englund, Jenna Jameson and Joe Median. A pretty lively track as expected, Englund and Jameson seem to be having all sorts of fun exchanging sexual barbs.
'The Champagne Room: Behind the Scenes of Zombie Strippers' and 'The Dressing Room: How to Glam a Zombie' are two short featurettes, we get 40 minutes (!) of Deleted Scenes that actually aren't bad. Exclusive to the Blu-Ray is 'Titillations and Sass' a pop-up trivia track and BD-Live functionality.
Most genre fans will be pleased with the disc and the movie doesn't skimp on the nudity and gore, I just wish it didn't try to aim for more than it needed to. It's still a fun movie, if not as fun as you might want it to be, so I would definitely recommend a rental first and go from there.
Zombie Strippers is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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