Review: 'Zombie Strippers' Peels Off The Absurd

"Zombie Strippers" (R)(out of four)

Horror movie regular Robert Englund sums up the movie "Zombie Strippers" early in the film as Ian Essko, the proprietor of Rhinos, the strip club under attack in the zombie film.

"OK. Let me see if I got this straight. Our best stripper is a reanimated corpse, which feeds on the living flesh of the customers, who in turn, reanimate after death, even if they're just a (expletive) head. And you don't see this as a problem?"

The U.S. Army, short on recruits because of a multitude of wars including even Alaska and Canada, has developed a virus that will reanimate corpses so that dead soldiers can fight after they've been killed. In the forward-looking film, George W. Bush is in his fourth term as president, and the Bush jokes fly faster than a night with Jon Stewart. In typical zombie film fashion, the virus gets out, and a squadron called Z-Squad is sent in to eliminate the threat. After one of the squad gets bitten by a zombie and is feared he'll be eliminated, he ends up hiding out in an underground strip club. You can see where this is going.

The beauty of the slasher/stripper flick is its absurdity and its comedy. Writer/director Jay Lee is a man after my own heart for his cleverness. He even names his strip club The Rhino, and for any of you absurdist fans out there, you'll get that it's a nod to Eugene Ionesco's play "Rhinoceros." Not to mention that the name of the town where the movie is set is Sartre, Neb. Absurdist again? Indeed. Jean Paul Sartre was the master of writing about living in hell.

Lee also has his lead stripper, Kit (played by porn star Jenna Jameson, no less) reading Friedrich Nietzsche. Wonder why a stripper in an underground Nebraska club would be reading Nietzsche? One of the scholar-philosophers most memorable quotes is, "That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

And, lo and behold, that's what happens to Kat and the other strippers in Lee's twisted film.

After the Z-Squad member has taken cover in the underground club, he can no longer contain his zombie desires and jumps up on stage in the middle of super stripper Kat's routine, turning her into a psycho zombie. But the patrons can't get enough of the full-throttle dancer whose devil-may-care attitude sends them into a frenzy.

When the other strippers see Kat's zombie appeal to the patrons of the club, they make it a point to get zombified, except for a few holdouts (again a nod to the play "Rhinoceros.")

For anyone who takes "Zombie Strippers" at face value, it will be a colossal disappointment, but this film will achieve midnight movie cult status. The special effect makeup by Patrick Magee is worth the price of admission.

Throw in goth rocker Roxy Saint, who is already undead before she becomes zombified and who contributes some great music to the soundtrack, and "Zombie Strippers" is gory, trashy fun.

While the movie has a long way to go to be in George Romero's league, if you take "Zombie Strippers" the way it is intended, tongue-in-cheek, you'll have a real good time.