I’m gonna tell you right now that I don’t care what anyone says; not any of the critics, not any Spill members or crew...I really liked Zombie Strippers. A lot. Yes, you heard me right. Zombie Strippers. Starring Robert Englund and Jenna Jameson. Good. Yes. You’re still not getting it, are you? Ok, from the top…

George Bush has taken over the country with his company “W Industries” and things have gone to shit, as you might imagine. The military, involved in wars in every corner of the globe, has become thin to the point of nonexistence. In steps big science who comes up with a formula to create super-soldier zombies. You can guess that things don’t exactly pan out.

A small crack military team is called in to clean up the mess inside the scientific complex where things have gotten gooey but one bitten soldier, the noob, natch, not wanting to get shot, escapes to a local underground illegal (Bush made all public nudity a crime) strip club. The dancers dance and fight amongst each other and argue philosophical ideas (just wait) and they work for the scheming and venereal disease-phobic Ian Essko (Englund). When the soldier turns zombie and kills Jenna Jameson, they’re at a loss at what to do. Seemingly luckily, Jenna returns to life and gets on stage where she does the best dance of her life, er, death, if not an awfully blood-drenched one. Her only fee? She takes a patron backstage for a ‘private dance’ but even a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there could see what happens next. A quick phallic lunch (and then the rest of him) and Jenna calmly goes back to her dressing room.

A panic ensues amongst the staff. Greedier heads prevail though when it’s pointed out to Essko how crazy the crowd went for undead Jenna and the only cost was having to hide zombified remains of the victims in the basement. So, one by one the strippers go zombie as they look on with jealousy the way the crowd adores the dead dancers. But, as the club’s DJ points out, something’s gotta give.

How do I describe how this works? Here’s my best try. “Zombie Strippers” is an absurdist comedy that uses the club as a metaphor for America, mixing philosophical and social commentary humor with “Airplane!” style placement and acting. Oh yeah, and it’s got enough boobs and gore to please the most deranged, the sickest, the...oh hell, Co-Host. While it might be difficult to find that audience that finds ontological humor mixed with headless porn stars to be charming, we are out there.

Sure, right from the get go you notice: terrible acting, cheap sets, B-A-D acting, anti-right wing and corporate mindset puns that never stop...I found myself wondering, where the hell are they going with this? The film is actually based on a French ‘theater of the absurd’ play by Eugène Ionesco (who Englund’s character is named after) from the fifties called Rhinocéros although in the loosest possible sense. It feels like one of Woody Allen’s short stories from “Without Feathers” (STRIKINGLY different from his films) mixing pop culture with deep thought and being completely absurd (there’s that word again) just in the act of doing so. Zombie Strippers never stops even for a minute firing all it’s guns: the bizarre humor, the strange intersection of laughs from strippers pondering existence, and lots of really hot chicks getting naked and dead. What can I say, I’m a low-brow thinker. I like to read Nietzsche while sipping my Lone Star.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Wow, 36 Minutes of deleted scenes? Well, not really as probably about half of that is footage that was in the film but with moments cut in that are new. The only real essential bit comes at the end as we see the fate of the ‘good girl’ and her boyfriend that really should have been included to keep with the film's socio-political leanings. There are also two featurettes, one on the ‘how the hell did we come up with this and what does it all mean’ track and one showing off the work that went into the admittedly impressive gore effects.

I can’t bring myself to recommend this movie to most people. Most folks won't like it. If you’re a big horror buff, the humor will likely serve to make you scratch your head. If you’re the type who digs existential humor, unless you understand what Jean-Luc Godard was trying to get at, you might find the indulgences of sex and violence to go past your threshold for tolerance. See, if you thought I was talking about the captain of the Enterprise there, this movie probably isn’t for you. If you’re some weird amalgam of both, than you’ve found your Friday night rental. Almost everyone in the film and everything that happens in it is a metaphor about our society and it’s the beating your head in with it that is the reason it’s all funny. While they’re saying it, they’re not taking it but so seriously either. This IS a comedy. Or, you know, you could just watch the boobs. It always comes back to the boobs.

Click Here to Buy "Zombie Strippers (Unrated Special Edition)"