Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Let me start out by saying I can’t believe I’ve seen a movie called ZOMBIE STRIPPERS, put out by Sony Pictures actually on a movie screen. I couldn’t believe it when the email came in from the local rep about the press screening and I couldn’t believe it when I sat in the theater waiting for it to start. I also got a kick out of seeing local critic, Marjorie Baumgarten, who writes for the Austin Chronicle, come in right before it started… being that her appearance meant I wasn't the only critic to actually show up and watch the movie.

When the movie was over, as is usual at press screenings, I was asked by the rep what my thoughts were. I told her that it was exactly what you’d think a movie called Zombie Strippers would be. In the 25 minutes it took me to drive home that quote went to Sony and I had a quote approval waiting for me in my email.

I told them go ahead with it. It’s not a compliment. They must have been really eager to have a quote, no matter what the context.

I could only guess that Sony is locked into some binding legal contract whereupon they have to put this film out in theaters instead of throwing it straight to DVD… either that or they want to bring a return to the glory days of genuine B-movies hitting theaters.

Unfortunately with the advent of video cameras, the art of making B-movies disappeared. Some people can use video and make it look amazing… look at 28 DAYS LATER or ONCE as examples of low-end video’d movies that work. But then look at Sci-Fi Channel, late night cable and the endless shelves at Blockbuster and see the tens of thousands of other examples of shoddy cheap movies.

In my years spent at the Alamo Drafthouse I’ve fallen in love with shoddy low budget ‘70s and ‘80s movies. They’re still movies, requiring a bare minimum of professionalism to put on the screen. Look at the campy shit I love… SLEEPAWAY CAMP, KILLBOTS (aka CHOPPING MALL), NIGHT OF THE DEMONS… the list goes on and on.

If you look at those films, as cheesy and lowest common denominator as they are, they still look like movies. Most low budget stuff stopped looking like movies in the mid to late ‘90s… there was a shift from B-movies and direct-to-video.

Or maybe it’s all just nostalgia.

Anyway, that’s a lot to say ZOMBIE STRIPPERS is a movie that is a curiosity at most. The quality of the production isn’t theatrical, but I still have to like that there’s a movie hitting some cinemas called ZOMBIE STRIPPERS starring Jenna Jameson that is filled with gore, tits and slapstick humor.

Of course most of the humor is of the “hey… haha… yeah, isn’t this shitty? You know, the movie you’re watching right now… that you probably paid for… we know it’s shitty, too… but look! Tits! Rotting tits!” Or maybe writer/director Jay Lee really thought he was making a good, deeply satirical movie, drinking from the same Kool-Aid cup that Dr. Boll does. I don’t know.

The basic plot begins with a squad of badass elite army people being hired to clean up an underground lab of its zombie infestation. Actually, let’s go back even further than the through-line of the plot. We really open with a newscast informing us that Bush has dissolved Congress and is taking his, I believe, fourth term as President. The world’s fallen into anarchy, we’re at war with a few dozen countries now, etc, etc.

The corporation infested with zombies was researching a way to make the unkillable soldier… we haven’t heard that one before. Oh, and it is also run by Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld whose faces are etched into a door at the very beginning.

We’re informed that the virus instantly turns males into braindead cannibals, but if a female is infected she retains her identity.

So, we immediately begin this movie with hamhanded political satire, some of the most horrible try-too-hard badass dialogue from the either non-actor or soft-core porn actors in camo and then we get neon green hallways. See, it’s green because it’s scary.

One of the army dudes is bitten and flees, somehow finding his way through these cement corridors into an underground strip club run by Robert Englund.

I’m still not quite sure why this club is underground or why it’s in such an obscure and hard to find location, but whatever. There are strippers and they will eventually become undead. That’s all that matters.

The film does not shy away from the boobs or gore. In fact, some of the zombie make-up isn’t half-bad. There’s one particularly good prosthetic when one of the horny guys gets a private dance and has his jaw ripped from his face.

You see, the strippers retain their personalities, grudges, speaking ability, etc.

Robert Englund goes nuts in this movie. He really throws it all on the screen. There are quite a few moments where his director didn’t protect him in the edit and he really goes embarrassingly overboard, but you gotta give the guy his credit. He didn’t take the paycheck and give a half-hearted performance… in a movie called ZOMBIE STRIPPERS. I’d love to see Englund become a well-used character actor again and not just end up in these cheap-o schlockfests.

I’m not really a porn expert, (surprising, I know), so I can’t tell you if Jenna Jameson looks hotter or acts better here than in her other efforts, but for those pervs, she does get naked and shake her big fake tits a lot. She’s the alpha female zombie and has such respectable scenes as shooting ping pong balls out of her (off-camera) zombie cooter at the catty newly zombified stripper trying to take the queen zombie stripper role at the club away from her.

When those ping-pong balls merely bounce off the face of her rival, Ms. Jameson moves up to pool balls… which, when shot out of her still off-camera zombie cooter take off another zombie’s head before sending the rival zombie stripper flying across the room and into a wall.

I know this movie sounds awesome and if it would have been mostly stuff like zombie ping-pong/cue balls scenes it really would have been a good movie. But you have to get through what feels like 2 hours of well-intentioned but painful attempts at character building and some of the most horribly delivered dialogue of anything to ever see the silver screen.

There are moments to enjoy in the movie… in the “rent it and get drunk with the roommate” kind of way, but not nearly enough to make it worth suffering through the rest of the film.

Alright, got more stuff to get ready before I sleep tonight. Keep an eye out, squirts!

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com