Zombie Strippers Review

Written by: SalomeSlaughter   

Could have been worse, could have been better. Zombie Strippers marries standard movie cliches to overenthusiastic camp, and while the over-the-top political satire that begins the movie is hilarious, most of the jokes end up falling flat, with Robert Englund as the purple-suited standout exception.

A military squad is sent to clean up a zombie outbreak in an incompetent government lab, a scared private gets bitten during the sabotaged operation. Spooked, he hides in a strip club where the strippers wax philosophical and \the new girl wants to dance to fund her Nana's colostomy. Robert Englund does a brilliant turn as the gun-happy club owner, who sprays Lysol whenever his dancers get too close to his silk suit.

Once the soldier dies, he can't help but take a bite out of Jenna Jameson, the Nietzsche-quoting stripper queen. You'd think being a zombie would kill her marketability, but the more rotten she gets, the more money she makes -- enough money to convince Robert Englund that a couple lapdance casualties in the basement are a reasonable hazard of doing business.

This is all setup for the middle hour of the movie, which flails with repetitive and tame strip competitions, racial stereotype humor, and philosophy jokes that fit in about as well as the Brokeback Mountain cowboys in a Tyler Perry movie.

Those of you who are bored by the recent PG-13 teenybopper Hollywood fare: Be careful what you wish for. There are breasts that wouldn't move if you punched them, a fluid-filled zombie "face dance", and straight-up genitalia. There's really no avoiding it, since Jenna Jameson quite literally has no meat on her bones. I'm not sure what's less believable: that Jenna's character reads Man and Superman, or that she chows down on human flesh. I don't believe Jenna has ingested so much as a french fry in the last ten years.

While the CGI gore is so terrible that it stops being funny, the prosthetics and makeup create some top-notch horror-comedy gore. That and Robert Englund provide some much-needed punch when the movie drags. The satire stops being hilarious when it moves from political jabs to inadequate Harold-and-Kumar humor and "gee, isn't it funny when strippers try to talk philosophy". Intentional camp has its place so long as the jokes stay fresh, but Zombie Strippers tries to keep your attention by doing the same jokes over and over, just more ridiculous and unsuccessful with each repetition.

Zombie catfights are one thing, but a zombie ping-pong show, now that's just uncalled for.