Zombie Strippers

 Zombie Strippers

Gratuitous nudity, gore, zombies, and a so bad it's funny script, sounds like the perfect recipe for a b-horror film.  That is exactly what we get in the 2008 campy horror film Zombie Strippers, starring porn super-starlet Jenna Jameson and Freddy Krueger himself Robert Englund.   Zombie Strippers is written, directed, shot, and edited by Jay Lee, and is inspired by the play Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco .  The film was distributed by Stage 6 Films, Triumph Films, and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. 

Zombie Strippers stars Robert Englund as a strip club owner Ian Essko.  The dancers at his club Rhino are Jenna Jameson as Kat, goth musician Roxy Saint as Lillith, Penny Drake as Sox, Jennifer Holland as Jessy, Shamron Moore as Jeannie, Whitney Anderson as Gaia, Jeannette Sousa as Berenge, and Carmit Levite as Madame Blavatski.  Johnny D Hawkes plays Davis, a friend of Jessy's that has a big crush on her, and wants her to stay pure and Christian and save her purity for when they get married, but he also wants to sleep with her.  MMA fighter and boyfriend at the time of Jenna Jameson, Tito Ortiz played the Door Bouncer, Joey Medina plays Paco the janitor,  and Calvin Green plays Cole the strip club announcer.  Brad Milne plays Dr. Chusfield who is responsible for letting the zombie virus out.  Then there is the Z-Squad, which is a military team brought in to take care of the zombie outbreak, they are Jen Alex Gonzalez as Lt. Ryker, Zak Kilberg as Byrdflough, Jessica Custodio as Kwan, Laura Bach as Sassy Sue, Catero Colbert as Camus, Billy Beck as Rincon, and Travis Wood as Oxnard.  The cast is cheesy, and plays up the campiness of the film well.  I don't want to say that anyone is really great, but I guess they are great at what they are doing. 

So...Zombie Strippers...  Well it lives up to its title I guess.  This is honestly an interesting film, because it is very much a social commentary on conservative America during the George W Bush regime, in a dystopian future where Bush was had stolen America and established himself as a permanent president, and had created a never ending war with pretty much the rest of the world, he had dissolved congress, and a company created by him and his administration are responsible for creating the zombie virus.  The conservative government had also banned public nudity and stripping, so the stripclub in the film is an illegal underground strip club, much like a speakeasy from the Prohibition Era.    The film also makes multiple references to existentialism, from Jenna Jameson's character reading and quoting Nietzsche, to references to Sartre and Camus.   It is honestly interesting that this low budget campy zombie film is subtly quite literary.   This is a film that could have very easily been an amazing prono with just a few minor changes, but instead it seeks to be a horror nudie film with a bit of intelligence hidden within, while on the surface coming across as just being stupid.   There are some great things, like how it makes a silent commentary about the sleezey, greedy club owner played by Robert Englund and how he is racist and places profits over people, which is something that the film seems to speaking out against.   This is really an interesting film.  On the surface it is bad, really bad...but if you start thinking about it, it is supposed to be really bad, that is part of the commentary that the film is trying to make.   I haven't seen this film since around 2009 when it was still pretty new, and I remember thinking it was so bad it was good, and now after all of these years and watching it again, I am starting to think it is so bad because it's good.   I think that many who watch this are only going to see titties and gore, and fair enough, because there is no shortage of either, however if you want to think, there are some decent social commentaries being made.  Beneath the poor production values, (purposely) bad acting, over the top cheesy campiness, copious amounts of gore, and being a soft-core nudie flick, this is actually a borderline intelligent film. 

This is a bizarre film, but one that I do think should be seen.  Definitely not a must-see film, but it might also be a bit more than you might expect it to be.  The cover of the film looks like a straight up porno, and the premise of the film just seems completely ridiculous, and upon a casual watching it just looks like a very low budget, terrible in every way b-horror film, but when you take a bit of a closer look you see that the film is more than tits and gorey violence, and that there is a literary fueled social commentary laced into this over the top campy b-film. So if you don't mind gratuitous nudity and violence, I recommend checking out Zombie Strippers, like a Transformer it is "more than meets the eye".   

Note:  There are a lot of members of the cast of the film, so sorry if I messed up at all on the names and roles of anyone (I'm doing my best here)