As the title implies, this really is a movie about zombie strippers. With that being the case, the movie really is as absurd as the title sounds. And yes…I love it! I have not been this excited to watch a Blu-ray again since my initial viewing of another future cult classic film, in my opinion, Doomsday. Zombie Strippers is a 2008 comedy horror film, written and directed by Jay Lee. The movie features legendary horror star Robert Englund and ex-porn star, the Heartbreaker, Jenna Jameson. These two really need no further introductions. Ultimate Fighting Champion Tito Ortiz also stars as a bouncer in the film. If you can lower your standards a bit by making it past the first fifteen minutes of this film and don’t mind excessive gratuitous nudity, then you will be in store for a very fun and titillating time. After awhile you just become so numb from the nudity that it feels alien when the girls are clothed. We had some great conversations about this film today around the office water cooler.
The film opens with a news montage explaining that the movie is set in the near future. Make sure to pay close attention to the scrolling text at the top of the screen as the montage plays or you will miss some very hilarious tidbits. A couple of my favorites were one-liners like “Brangelina adopts Ethiopia” and “the Saudis buy the White House.” The news montage goes on to explain that the Bush administration has just been elected to a fourth term, shut down the Congress, banned public nudity and is simultaneously engaged in wars with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Venezuela, Canada and Alaska. Since the many wars have claimed enormous amounts of American lives, a secret laboratory in Nebraska, controlled by W Industries, has developed a virus able to reanimate dead soldiers and send them back into battle. As a nod to the Resident Evil trilogy, the virus leaks out and contaminates tests subjects and scientists alike within the laboratory. A group of Marines, known as the Z Squad, are sent in to destroy the zombies and contain the situation. However, when you see the appearances of these Marines, you won’t bestow much faith in them. During the process of raiding the laboratory, one of the Marines is bitten by a zombie. Fearful of being shot dead by his comrades the bitten soldier flees the scene and ends up in an illegal strip club named Rhino, where he eventually dies and awakens as a zombie.
The Rhino is managed by owner Ian Essko (Robert Englund). Kat (Jenna Jameson) is the star attraction at the Rhino. Naturally, the other strippers are very jealous of the attention Kat gets from the nightly crowds. The one fateful night, while Kat is dancing on stage, the infected Marine ends up biting and infecting her. To everyone’s surprise, Kat reanimates as a zombie while they are all discussing how to handle getting rid of her dead corpse. Ian lets Kat go back on stage and shockingly she becomes a more popular attraction as a zombie than she ever was as a human.
If the competition wasn’t fierce enough before with Kat and the other strippers, they now find themselves choosing between becoming a flesh eating zombie in order to compete or to stay human and take a back seat to their zombie predecessors. As always, zombies must eat fresh. During private dances, the strippers end up eating and killing their customers. Ian locks up the reanimated patrons in the basement cellar but the zombies eventually escape and overrun the Rhino. At the same time, the strippers are fighting each other for ultimate supremacy. You think you have seen it all until you see zombie strippers battle each other. Just wait until you see the ping-pong and billiard ball shooting scene. I think I might have actually found the first scene I ever wanted to use the Blu-ray bookmarking feature for.
We eventually find out that the zombies were originally allowed to escape by the Bush administration as they hoped a zombie outbreak would distract America’s attention from the many waging wars and poor economy. It doesn’t sound too far fetched now does it? I am just kidding of course. I am just reminded of another one-liner from the movie. The Marines open up a small scroll and it is scribed with the words “Osama attacks America.” The one soldier asks what that means. Someone answers that it means if one ignores the warning signs long enough, eventually bad things will happen. I may have messed the verbiage up a bit on that one, but I am sure you get the point I am trying to drive home. With that being said, how can one not like Zombie Strippers? In addition to the non-stop gratuitous nudity and zombie blood, guts and gore, we have a very deep underlying political message seeded here. And you probably did not think that was possible from a movie title like this. I do have to admit that I am thankful I was brave and did not give up on the first fifteen minutes of the film as I would have never known what I was missing. The first fifteen minutes of the film felt like a really bad B-movie that I wanted to turn off, until we got into the strip club scenes, and I found myself as giddy as a school boy enjoying the fun ride, hoping it would never end.
Video
Sony Pictures brings Zombie Strippers to the Blu-ray format in a 1080P MPEG-4 AVC encode with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Despite being brought to Blu-ray with the visual encode of choice, the video suffers throughout with that low budget B-movie quality kind of feel to it, although be it, this was done intentionally. It is not that the video transfer is terribly horrible, but it lacks the detail, sharpness and 3-D pop that most modern day movies bring to the Blu-ray format. The film definitely shows its low budget video roots, but at the same time it looks great on the Blu-ray format with the mood and aggressive lighting used on the sets. I found the picture to be soft in a couple of scenes and traces of noise is evident in the blackest of scenes. In all honesty, none of these flaws really take away from the overall enjoyment of this film and the source material provides the desired B-movie campy look and feel the producers were originally trying to achieve.
Audio
Even though Zombie Strippers packs a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless surround track, don’t expect any high impact cardio work outs for your sound system. While the audio never sounds completely terrible at any point, it just lacks the dynamic sound you have come to expect from today’s modern day Blu-ray releases. I strongly believe that the audio track is a bit weak mostly due to its overall intended campy B-movie experience. The dialogue can sound weak at times, but overall it was very dependable and clear without ever requiring me to strain. It is the sound effects, such as the military gunshots, that sounded very tiny, phony and unimpressive. Rear speakers are utilized well at times with random sounds coming out of nowhere that kind of surprise you in a good way. What I did like the best was the ambient effects like hearing the music coming from the other side of walls, the echoes buzzing around the club from the MC’s announcements and the impressive heavy metal stripping score that would make Marilyn Manson very proud.
Special Features
Zombie Strippers arrives on Blu-ray with a decent amount of Special Features for a low budget film but the only downfall is that they are all presented in Standard Definition. That always makes me a disappointed consumer, but on the other hand, I just remind myself that I bought it for my enjoyment of the movie and not for any extra bonus materials. With that being said let’s take a look at the “zombilicious” treats Sony has served up for us.
The Special Features included on Zombie Strippers are as follows:
- Audio Commentary – This is actually a pretty entertaining commentary with writer/director Jay Lee, Robert Englund, Jenna Jameson, and Joey Medina. It’s always great to hear an ex-porn star’s take on things.
- The Champagne Room: Behind the Scenes of Zombie Strippers / The Dressing Room: How to Glam a Zombie – (SD) These two featurettes last a total of 13 minutes and explore the film’s themes, costumes, and makeup effects.
- Deleted Scenes – (SD) There are 39 minutes worth of deleted scenes that also include optional commentary with Jay Lee and Robert Englund.
- Titillation and Sass: The Zombie Strippers Pop-Up Trivia Track – This is an engaging factoid trivia track that pops up randomly to discuss on set props, trade secrets and more while viewing the feature film.
- BD-Live – This Blu-ray contains BD-Live functionality, but at the time of writing this, there are really only a handful of trailers and previews you can download. The only exclusive content for Zombie Strippers is a 2 minute preview of what the trivia track viewing option looks like.
- Trailers – (HD) There are 1080P trailers for Resident Evil: Degeneration, Hancock, Felon, 88 Minutes, The House Bunny, and many more.
Final Thoughts
If you made it this far in the review I encourage you to read on and let me drive the winning run home. Perhaps Zombie Strippers could have been produced on a much larger budget with a more horrific tone, but what fun would that be? With a name like Zombie Strippers it has to be outrageous and comedic in nature. This movie, much like Doomsday, has a little bit to offer everyone. For the horror fans, you get your zombies, blood and gore. In addition, the men get an abundance of gratuitous nudity in glorious 1080P, which is sure to not disappoint. We also have a very aggressive stripper score for the rocker in you, if you so chose to bang your head. With a deep underlying political theme we get a little taste of what a dictatorship in America could be like. So I guess you can say there is a lot going on here in the short 94 minutes of screen time. I would also assume there is really no reason now why you would not want to watch Zombie Strippers. There is something in it for every genre of fan as I come back full circle to my original point stating it is much like the expansive genres found in Doomsday. In all honesty I was just hoping this movie would be as eccentric as a Rob Zombie presentation. Instead I got a whole lot more and I could not be happier with this B-movie!
I would not say rush out and buy this movie unless you just have to have it because of the title, like me, but give this one a rental at your next earliest opportunity. I mean c’mon…just think how good it will feel to go to work the next day and chat it up with co-workers asking them if they ever saw a movie called Zombie Strippers. You will be the big hit of the office that day, or…
