(2008) **Otto: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it.
A Fish Called Wanda
Many men have made jokes over the years about reading Playboy, "for the articles." Know why nobody ever makes those jokes about Hustler? Because the articles in Hustler suck ass. It's all hackish political commentary -- poorly written, unclever satire and inflammatory talking points, catering to a meatheaded libertarian segment of the population who isn't reading it anyway because -- hey look, tits.People like that are going to love Zombie Strippers. And why wouldn't they? It's got zombies and strippers. It says so, right there in the title. Skeptical people (meaning, by and large, people who aren't reading this blog) might ask why I'm the least bit surprised that a movie called "Zombie Strippers," sucked -- truth is, I'm not surprised at all. I knew going in that the odds that it was going to be anything other that stupid, gory, and boob-filled were really slim. I'm not surprised. I'm disappointed.
I'm disappointed because there's absolutely a market for movies that are stupid, gory and boob-filled, but are actually good. And the reason I know there is, is that I would watch the shit out of such a movie. I'm disappointed the way I was when I realized that Trick 'r Treat wasn't going to get to call itself Trick or Treat, because it had already been scooped by another movie which had absolutely nothing to do with Halloween. The fact that Jenna Jameson and Jay Lee made a bad movie called "Zombie Strippers" means that now Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodiguez can't make a good one.
The story is that during the fourth term of the Bush Administration, we've committed ourselves to conflicts in so many parts of the globe that we've maxed out on our pool of able-bodied soldiers. Looking to stretch those resources a little further, scientists at CheneyCo Laboratories have developed a "chemo virus" designed to reanimate dead soldiers. There's a zombie outbreak at the lab, and one of the soldiers called in to quell the outbreak gets bitten, and eventually winds up in a strip club. He bites the star stripper, Kat, on the neck. She dies, and then reanimates, still with the powers of speech and with way better stripper skills. The crowd loves her. Envious of Kat's new popularity, the other strippers offer themselves up to be infected.
There's more [snicker] to the plot than that, but who cares? Much of the run time that I wasn't spending with my hands to my face and shaking my head, is devoted to pole dancing, which I have no particular problem with, except the dancers are noticeably more decomposed every time they take the stage. The decomposition doesn't seem to affect their dancing at all, and it turns out that fake tits hold their shape whether they're on a zombie or a pornstar.
But there's way too much running time spent offstage on the "plot" to make this anywhere close to satisfactory. The dialogue is schlocky. The performances by everyone not named Robert Englund are low B-level. Jokes seem to be limited almost exclusively to "the Bush administration is evil/stupid," and "strippers read philosophy." Every time someone opens their mouth to speak, it's a misfire. It makes getting through Zombie Strippers a struggle. It's not fun. And fun is exactly what 90 minutes of zombies and boobs should be.
