Zombie Strippers (2008)

3 Stars (out of 4)

Pole Food

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Zombie Strippers is an honest-to-Pete "B"-movie that should have been forgotten and ignored on video, but some brave souls decided to give it a theatrical release. It's most welcome. It takes place in a jaded world where zombies are old hat, but are at least interesting as a novelty. A government facility that experiments on zombies accidentally lets an infected man go, and he runs into a nearby strip club. He attacks the lead stripper, Kat (porn star Jenna Jameson), and she turns into a zombie too. But instead of going on a mindless rampage, she continues dancing and her onstage performance becomes more popular than ever. Better yet, lucky customers get to go backstage with her after the show (wink, wink). Sleazy, greedy club owner Ian Essko (Robert Englund, from, obviously, A Nightmare on Elm Street) decides that dealing with a few zombie customers is worth the extra profits. Soon other strippers -- including goth girl Lillith (Roxy Saint) -- deliberately decide to turn into zombies to improve their own performances. Newcomer Jessy (Jennifer Holland), a naïve, religious farm girl, must decide right from wrong while cornball military men try to save the day. Written and directed by Jay Lee (The Slaughter), the film jumps from good jokes to bad jokes, ridiculous supporting characters (Russians and Mexicans) to gratuitous nudity and comical violence. It even takes on politics, though it doesn't exactly satirize as much as it blatantly calls the current administration a bunch of idiots. Jameson looks great and is very sexy, Englund chews the scenery, and it's all a lot of fun. I would recommend it more enthusiastically except that it commits the cardinal sin of "B" movies: it goes on too long. (Englund's character is named after the "Theater of the Absurd" playwright Eugene Ionesco.)