PREMIERE'S REVIEW (posted 4/15/08)

Zombie Strippers, a Joe Bob Briggs-worthy piece of nudie-horror camp opening this weekend, is in no danger of being accused of false advertising. Director Jay Lee clearly viewed the film's title as a challenge to be risen to, delivering not just another zombie-splatter pic but something that occasionally plays like the wet dream of a necrophiliac. The picture flaunts extended Skinemax-style stripper shows in which the dancers happen to be visibly, progressively rotting and the strip club patrons don't seem to mind at all. Whatever planet these dance sequences are happening on, their cuckoo surrealism is the movie's saving grace; watch in embarrassed fascination as the dramatic gears of the inept, schlocky plot grind to a halt and give way to these unapologetic ghoul-porn reels, with the camera doting on every curve of the softly swaying dead while their customers, all big bellies mashed against the stage and fists full of dirty money, cheer for their favorite high-heeled corpses. A perfect 100 on the vomit meter.

34 year-old Jenna Jameson, recently seen on Broadway in Uncle Vanya, (okay, no), plays Kat, the queen bee of the stripper hive, naturally hated and envied by all; nipping at her six-inch heels are Jessy (Jennifer Holland) a standard-issue "survivor girl" type, Lillith (goth rocker Roxy Saint), a tattooed wastoid whose gag is that she seems like a zombie at the outset, and another half-dozen interchangeable pairs of breasts. They operate under the supervision of the club's manager, Robert "Freddy" Englund's Ian Essko (he's absurd, get it? Cue cricket sounds). As the main villain, Essko's character flaws include unbridled racism — ordering his Mexican handyman around with a sarcastic hat dance and threatening to replace him with "another one from out in front of Home Depot." He also claims the movie's only good line: after Kat is attacked by a zombie who kicks things off by slipping into the club, leaping at her and tearing her throat out, Essko calmly appraises the situation and then instructs one of his bouncers to "get that asshole out of here."

The attacking zombie is set up in a prologue worth mentioning only for its breathtaking shot-on-video ugliness, which could never be confused for "so bad it's good." Having escaped from a secret corporate lab that looks suspiciously like a grade-school hallway, the zombie is pursued across town by a handful of mercenaries who haven't been provided with real-looking guns, squibs for those guns or even vaguely appropriate attire — somewhere along the way the hot blonde in their unit even changes into a bikini top — why not? Before you know it, Kat has been jumped by the rogue flesh-eater, at which point the movie finds a way forward by grafting certain tenets of movie vampirism — the post-bite transformation into an enlightened, beautiful being, the sense of superiority over the living — onto the ill-fitting zombie template. When Kat rises again, she may be blood-soaked, disfigured and rapidly decaying, but hey, she's still Kat — being dead must be the new cool thing! "I wish I were dead" is the general, pouty reaction from the stripper peanut gallery.

Jameson's body, arguably the movie's central subject judging by screen-time devoted, is lithe but lived-in and noticeably diminished by a plastic surgery indulgence that ends up paying dividends for the movie; taking the stage for her first dance after reawakening as a zombie, the strobe lights hit her frozen, vaguely feline face in just such a way as to sell a visualization of fresh death that's better than Jay Lee could have possibly anticipated. Locked into an authentic-looking rigor mortis grin, she hugs the pole, tosses her hair with abandon, shows what her doctor gave her and begins to select eager dopes from the crowd for private room lap dances they'll never return from. That last bit is mildly intriguing — is it possible that this "boobs and blood" fiesta of a movie has something to say about the uneasy relationship between a sex star and her inevitably creepy fanbase? Did Jameson warm to this particular project for cathartic reasons — a chance to bite down and tear out a few pounds of flesh for indignities suffered on her long march to the top?

— Ryan Stewart