Zombie Strippers (2008) – They Want To Eat You

Zombie Strippers review:

“They’re Strippers!”
“No they’re Zombies!”
“They’re Zombie Strippers!”

So says the cast of this Jay Lee horror/comedy. Starring the gorgeous Jenna Jameson and Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, Zombie Strippers is, from start to finish, a trashy, sexy, bloody mess of fun.

Lee, usually a director of films you would see at Sundance, decided it was time to make a film that would appeal to a wider audience, and make him some cash at the same time. When he managed to snag Jameson for the lead role, Sony opened the purse strings and everything fell into place.

The story takes place in the near future. George Bush has been re-elected for a fourth term, along with Arnold Schwarzenegger as his VP. The U.S. seems to be at war with everyone, including Alaska for God’s sakes.

With soldiers dying at an alarming rate, the military creates a virus to reanimate dead soldiers (hmm, where is Dolph and Jean-Claude?). When it becomes unmanageable, they call in the A-Team, no sorry, the Z-Squad to eliminate the threat. Unfortunately, one of the squad members, Byrdflough (Zak Kilberg), is infected and escapes notice.

When Byrdflough flees the facility, he winds up in an underground strip club, where he bites the lead dancer, Kat (Jameson). Instead of transforming into a mindless monster, Kat remains relatively the same as her former self, except for her insatiable appetite for human flesh (which she abates by selecting men from her audience).

When death-loving Lilith (Roxy Saint) sees Kat enjoying being dead, she willingly becomes a zombie herself by allowing Kat to take a chunk of her. Both Kat and Lilith continue dancing and when the club’s patrons go crazy over the change, Ian (the club owner played by Englund) sees dollar signs. He allows the girls to continue to dance and feast and then cleans up the mess afterward, caging the reanimated corpses in the basement.

Sox (Penny Drake) becomes zombie stripper Number 3 when she confesses her love for Kat and also allows herself to be bitten as Lilith did.

Kat has a rival, the jealous and egotistical Jeannie (Shamron Moore), who believes she should be the headliner of the club. When she dances and is ignored for being alive, she lets her pettiness get the better of her. She seeks out Byrdflough, who after biting Kat, was captured and locked up in a side room of the club. Byrdflough bites Jeannie and now there are four zombie strippers.

Gaia (Whitney Anderson) becomes the fifth and final zombie stripper when she goes to the basement and becomes a happy meal to the undead jailed there. When she reanimates, she lets her fellow flesh-eaters out of their cage and now the zombies outnumber the humans.

Zombie Strippers Trailer:

Ian, along with Cole (the DJ/announcer played by Calvin Green), Paco the custodian (Joey Medina), and the remaining strippers and their manager fight off the marauding undead, at least for a little while. Meanwhile, Kat and Jeannie have it out on the stage with ping pong and billiard balls.

Lilith and Sox bring Ian to an end, but after he reanimates he is captured by Lieutenant Ryker (Jen Alex Gonzalez) of Z-Squad and is taken away to be used in scientific experiments. Gaia feeds on stripper manager Blavatski (Carmit Levité) and rips open Cole’s skull and munches on his brain. Cole and Blatvatski are dispatched later by Sassy Sue (Laura Bach) of the Z-Squad who arrive to contain the outbreak.

Paco comes to his untimely end after deciding to take on a group of zombies single-handedly and fails. Kwan (Jessica Custodio), of Z-Squad, has the pleasure of dispatching Lilith and Sox after they had finished with Ian. Rincon (Billy Beck) puts two blades in Kat’s skull to finish her off and finally, Major Camus, leader of Z-Squad, blows the heads off Jeannie and then Berenge (Jeannette Sousa), Berenge being the intellectual non-conformist of the strippers.

The film ends when head scientist Chushfeld (Brad Milne) picks up a garbage bag with a zombie head inside and is bitten, leaving the impression that the outbreak will continue and a second Zombie Strippers movie may happen sometime in the future (director Jay Lee, while interviewed by Tyler Shainline of horroryearbook.com, indicated he would be interested in the project if Sony came calling).

Packed with gore and boobs, with parody and satire throughout (see Paco and the Juan Valdez donkey, as well as Kat, post-infection, finally comprehending Nietzsche, as two of many examples), Zombie Strippers leaves little to be desired by the fans of this type of film. Our rating reflects this reality.