Friday, April 18, 2008

Movie review: Zombie Strippers

By Alex Bentley

Zombie Strippers

In the not too distant future, a secret government chemo-virus gets released into conservative Sartre, Neb., and lands in an underground strip club. As the virus begins to spread, turning the strippers into 'Super Zombie Strippers', the girls struggle with whether or not to conform to the new 'fad' even if it means there is no turning back.

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on Zombie Strippers

I know what you’re thinking – I actually went to see a movie called Zombie Strippers? Well, come on, with a name that evocative, who wouldn’t want to see Zombie Strippers? Wait – don’t answer that. Not since Snakes on a Plane has a (mainstream) film had a title so straight-forward that you know exactly what you’re going to get before you even step into the theater. Where Strippers departs from Snakes, though, is that it’s actually Grade A B-movie shlock, whereas Snakes was just pretending to be. In this respect, it actually has more in common with the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double-bill Grindhouse -- with probably about one-tenth the budget.

Even Freddy finds it difficult to face down a zombie stripper.

Strippers also avoids the flaw that has infected too many recent zombie movies: the apparent desire to take themselves too seriously. Social commentary from zombie films was fresh 40 years ago; doing it now just seems stale and repetitive. Instead, Strippers delivers some funny, if not terribly insightful, political satire, taking dead aim at the Bush administration. Such dead aim, in fact, that it avoids another pitfall of zombie films: not explaining why zombies exist. In this case, W Enterprises (headed by you-know-who) has developed a way to reanimate dead flesh, ostensibly so the military’s supply of soldiers will be never-ending.

Of course, something goes terribly wrong, and the infection spreads from the secret lab where it was being developed to a nearby illegal strip club. Why is it illegal? Who knows? Who cares? What does matter is that strippers, led by Kat (Jenna Jameson, branching out from straight-up porn), get bitten and turn into zombies, and that, naturally, they become better and more popular strippers once they become zombies. The fact that patrons of the club keep disappearing when the girls take them in the back for lap dances doesn’t bother them one bit.

"They're zombies!" "No, they're strippers!" "They're zombie strippers!"

Heaps of blood, gore and nudity follow, punctuated by the occasional apropos-of-nothing references to Treasure of Sierra Madre or The Warriors, or another toss-away slam of Bush. None of the acting is great -- veteran horror actor Robert Englund (Freddy from A Nightmare on Elm Street) is most egregious in this respect, hamming it up mercilessly as the owner of the strip club.

But the fun of Zombie Strippers is in the idea that nothing in it is supposed to be good. Heads explode with cartoonish zest, one stripper becomes jealous of the zombie strippers, despite the fact that they’re, you know, dead (or undead, if you will), and Bush is starting his fourth term in 2012 with vice president Schwarzenegger – if it’s not obvious that these things are meant for laughs and not serious scares, then you’re just not paying attention.

There is a world of difference between, say, Diary of the Dead and a film like this. One film wants to have it both ways, exploiting the masses with cheap thrills while trying to comment on society’s ills. The other, better film embraces exactly the type of film it is and shows it off for all to see. Zombie Strippers may not be art, but it provides a lot more entertainment for your dollar than other so-called horror films these days.

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• Arts > Movies / Film > Independent Films