ZOMBIE STRIPPERS!

In a not-too-distant future, American soldiers begin to dwindle due to too many deaths in the Middle East war and too few new recruits. The American government then decides to bring the dead back to life with a newly experimented virus to send them to fight in the field: strong, loyal, and brainless soldiers! The virus, however, has a flaw: it primarily acts on the X chromosome, working almost exclusively on women, who show a glimmer of consciousness, while the reanimated men are completely uncontrollable and merely aggressive. After an accident, some soldiers are forced to intervene in a laboratory where they work on the reanimation of corpses, but by mistake, a person infected with the virus manages to escape the building and takes refuge in the Rhino, a strip club adjacent to the laboratory, spreading the contagion among the strippers. Initially in a state of panic, Ian, the owner of the venue, then realizes that the audience appreciates the performances of the zombie dancers very much and tries to profit from the situation, despite the dead beginning to noticeably increase in number. There are films for which one must be absolutely predisposed to watch, films that would need a warning at the beginning, or rather, on the DVD cover that alerts the viewer to the immense stupidity they are about to watch. "Zombie Strippers!" is one of these films, but fortunately, the title alone is quite indicative... because the film offers zombies and strippers, blood and breasts, and willingness. But "Zombie Strippers!" is not part of that mess of productions that are sunk by involuntary ridicule and early amateurism; it is rather a stupidity made with intelligent complacency and great verve, one of those films that you follow from beginning to end with a little smile on your lips, one of those films that once finished you would be willing to watch again. Jay Lee, director, screenwriter, and cinematographer of this "Zombie Strippers!", immediately sets the tone and from the prologue demonstrates his intentions by immediately throwing the viewer into a buffoonish context, deliberately over the top and blatantly devoted to mockery. The apparent target is the Bush government, as even in the fake news-style prologue, the warmongering politics of the US president, here in his fourth term (!!!), and flanked by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the vice presidency, are ridiculed. The film, in its first part, is filled with rather funny satirical jokes aimed at the desacralization of the government and the army, but after the bare minimum of "cutting" irony and a useful contextualization to characterize places, spaces, and events, it immediately takes the path of the show for men only. And so, once inside the Rhino, one can witness a long series of more or less integral stripteases featuring statuesque, preferably siliconed young women led by the ex-porn superstar Jenna Jameson. This striptease and lap dance part is the most static (narratively speaking) and repetitive part of the film, representing its center, until the entrance of the zombie strippers, who continue to undress as no one would have imagined a zombie could do, but also bring on stage a lot of splatter and action. From this moment on, Jay Lee seems to want to replicate the lesson taught by Rodriguez with "From Dusk Till Dawn," showing a group of charismatic humans barricaded in a nightclub together with a pack of monsters, with epic clashes and excessive splatter effects. Although Lee does not reach the Rodriguezian perfection, especially due to evident professional shortcomings and a visibly poor staging, he still does a good job and between effective jaw dislocations, eviscerations by biting, demenial skits, and ping-pong (first) and pool (after) balls shot from the vagina, there is really fun to be had. In the cast, besides the highly publicized and slimmed-down Jenna Jameson, appears the veteran Robert Englund in a role very similar to the one he played in "Masters of Horror" "Dance of the Dead," but unlike Hooper's bland film, here Englund has the opportunity to let loose, and his slimy and greedy owner of the Rhino is perhaps one of his best "original" performances since "The Mangler." What represents the limit of "Zombie Strippers!" is probably Jay Lee's inexperience (or inability... you decide) to handle everything alone in a job definitely too big for him. The direction has no particular touches of personality; in fact, it often appears insecure and clumsy, especially in the action scenes; the screenplay, apart from the interesting and original starting context and some brilliant dialogues, turns out to be rickety in the narrative evolution up to a rather approximate ending. Even some excesses of demeniality could have been less crude, above all the bad cartoonish acceleration effects poorly attributed to the performances of the zombie strippers. But in the end, in front of a film that is definitely "irresistible" like this one, one can also overlook the nevertheless evident defects, turn off the brain, and wriggle like in a Tex Avery cartoon. They are zombies! They are strippers! They are zombie strippers!