Seeing porn queen Jenna Jameson naked is absolutely nothing new. Seeing Jameson naked and as a vociferous, flesh-eating zombie, however, is probably something you haven’t seen before.
In Zombie Strippers, Jameson plays Kat, a star stripper at strip club Rhinos in a near future in which President George W. Bush has been elected to his fourth term; the United States is engaged in wars with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Venezuela, France and Canada, among others; and all forms of public nudity have been banned. A secret government re-animation chemo-virus (Resident Evil much?) is somehow released into conservative Sartre, Neb., and everyone in the lab – including the test subjects, who are homeless people and other members of the outskirts of society – gets infected and turned into zombies.
A group of vigilante-like super-soldiers are called in to clean up the mess but soon find themselves set up, and one of them gets bitten. The now-infected soldier, fleeing from his comrades in order to escape certain death at their hands, ends up at Rhinos.
But as soon as the movie starts getting good – pointed jokes at Bush and an insightful look at the conservative turn our country is taking; what more could one ask for? – Jameson (and her enormous fake breasts) shows up.
Enter approximately 10 minutes of Kat, first clad in a scanty stripper outfit and later topless, writhing around on the pole and showing off her assets (expected pun intended). She’s obviously the favorite among club regulars and the most hated among the other girls, and after she’s bitten by the infected soldier and turned into a zombie, the trends continue. Audience members see her frenzied dancing as sexy and cutting-edge, and the other girls, lured by the attention, want to be just like her.
But after the film centers its focus on the strippers, their petty fights and the carnage they create while eating their victims (one horny audience member who thinks he’s receiving a private lapdance actually gets half his face ripped off, leaving his jaw hanging), the film never truly gets back to where it began.
Instead, the plotline delivers an interesting look at our culture’s obsession with sex and competition. It’s not a bad idea – it’s just that writer and director Jay Lee (Distrust) uses a mind-numbing amount of nudity. We see Kat’s breasts. We see Lilith’s (Roxy Saint) breasts. We see Jeannie’s (Shamron Moore, Pledge This!) breasts. We see Sox’s (Penny Drake, The Cook) breasts.
In fact, the only people we don’t see topless are Berengé (Jeannette Sousa, iCarly), the only stripper at the club who doesn’t want to be turned into a zombie after Kat does, and the religious Jessy (Jennifer Holland, House of the Dead 2), who wants to use stripping as a way to make money for her grandmother but can never quite work up the nerve to take her clothes off.
And there are subplots galore, such as the hatred between the washed-up Jeannie and the now-popular Kat and the tension between the virginal Jessy and her horny boyfriend. But the best secondary story line involves Ian Essko (Robert Englund), the owner of the club, who could care less about how many people become zombies from his strippers, as long as more people – and more money – find their way to his club.
Englund, who made his name in Hollywood as Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, is perfect for the role. He’s conniving, heartless and money-grubbing; when his impish little face lights up at the thought of how rich he will become, you can’t help but think of Krueger licking little Nancy (Heather Langenkamp, The Bet) through the phone in Nightmare.
Overall, the film is a B-movie through and through – the amount of gore is astounding, the zombie make-up is impressive and the image of zombie Kat propelling both ping-pong and pool balls out of her vagina at rival Jeannie is wholly disgusting – and it succeeds in that respect.
But the social commentary it tries to deliver, such as a criticism of the Bush administration and a critique of American consumerism, capitalism and sexual obsession, falls somewhat flat. And Jameson’s acting? Let’s just say she should stick to porn.
roxanadbk@gmail.com
RATING: 2.5 STARS OUT OF 5
