Zombie Strippers: Flesh wounds
INFO
Zombie Strippers
1 star. Directed by Jay Lee. Stars Robert Englund, Jenna Jameson. Rated R. Opens Fri., April 25. At Landmark Midtown Art Cinema.
One of the nasty treats from last year's schlock homage Grindhouse was the coming attractions for sleazy movies that didn't actually exist. The faux previews for films such as Rob Zombie's Werewolf Women of the SS were so funny, they made you wish the films were real.
But if Jay Lee's Zombie Strippers is any indication, a feature-length Werewolf Women of the SS might not be such a good idea. Writer/director/editor Lee's campy take on exotic dancers and necrotic monsters would make a terrific fake trailer, anchored by its outrageous title, but the joke decomposes after about 15 minutes.
Zombie Strippers gets a promising start for an ultralow-budget horror spoof. In a futuristic news parody, George W. Bush wins his fourth term and dissolves Congress as the United States wages war everywhere from Iraq to Alaska. Then it goofs on films like Aliens, as a squad of tough soldiers tries to shut down a zombie outbreak at a science lab. The blondest, bustiest soldier ends up in her bra after every melee, indicating the level of humor.
A zombie bites one soldier, who in turn infects the star ecdysiast, Kat (adult film star Jenna Jameson) at an illegal strip club – nudity having been banned by the Bush administration. Though undead, decaying and hungry for live flesh, female zombies here retain their mental faculties, while male ones become mindless ghouls.
You can't accuse Zombie Strippers of having false advertising in the title – it's a toss-up as to whether you see more unclad skin or shredded flesh. But you can accuse the film of being comedically tone-deaf. Robert Englund, aka Freddie Krueger, hams it up atrociously as the club operator who cashes in on the discovery that undead girls make better, more popular strippers, despite their tendency to devour their lap-dance customers.
There's a germ of an idea in the notion that the yahoos at the club prefer zombies as sex objects: The more dehumanized the women become, the more the men like them. Zombie Strippers could have explored this sex industry metaphor in a rewarding way, but opts for metaphysical comedy, including an elaborate tribute to Eugene Ionesco's absurdist stage play Rhinoceros. No, really. Englund is named "Ian Essko" and the club is called "Rhino's." In the play, residents of a small town turn into rhinoceroses in allegory of conformity. In the film, the ensemble of strippers volunteer one by one to be zombified for various reasons.
I suppose Lee deserves some points for winking at different schools of philosophy. Characters quote Nietzsche and Descartes, while French existentialists provide some of the key names. Unfortunately, the line-readings sound uniformly awful, the jokes are punishing and the grisly slapstick turns increasingly misogynistic. But perhaps I saw Zombie Strippers in the wrong frame of mind – i.e., nonintoxicated. I strongly suspect that the less sober you are, the more entertaining the movie will be.
COMMENTS
RE: Zombie Strippers: Flesh wounds
Posted by kbot on 04.25.08 @ 08:09 AM
This movie looks funny...