Jay Lee tries his damndest to take porn star retiree (how long will that last?) Jenna Jameson and posits her as the next B movie scream queen a la Linnea Quigley or Debbie Rochon and I have to set it straight that Jameson will not be the next anything in horror. Any and all attempts to gain some sense of pop culture standing, beyond being a famous porn star have been fruitless and quixotic (her comic proved that). However, as a person who was excited about and interested in seeing “Zombie Strippers!” Jameson isn’t that bad here and that’s because Lee doesn’t ask much from her beyond name recognition.
There’s a very thin line between porn star and stripper, so it’s not really a demanding role for Jameson who plays head zombie and alpha bitch Kat. You’ve heard it all before, and you’ve seen it all before. A secret experiment goes awry, a military crew is sent in to exterminate the threat, the raid goes wrong, the outbreak ensues, and we bow down on a local Nebraska strip club, where the infection has leaked onto a horde of local strippers. For a portion of the time, “Zombie Strippers!” tends to be a very decent and creepy little zombie indie with some consistently clever direction courtesy of Lee who can often alter the tone of serious horror to tongue in cheek dark comedy with rarely a hitch in the film’s narrative.
When the infection from a horrified soldier begins to slowly turn all the vivacious strippers into flesh eating zombies overnight, this allows for many clever sight gags and running jokes from Lee who gives the beautiful cast of strippers many chances to ad lib, and allows them dive into their zombie personas with demented zeal. “Zombie Strippers!” is much more of a derivation of “Return of the Living Dead,” while in the mean time sparking some commentary about the ever demanding sex industry, and the lengths its performers will go through to stay young to be accepted in their chosen profession. The problem is that it’s just not a lot of fun watching a horror movie where even the cast seems to be aware of the whole notion that Zombie Strippers are ludicrous and idiotic.
So they’re constantly indirectly laughing at us, and winking to the screen with smug self-awareness, putting a damper on any gags such as the woefully unfunny establishing story about the future government run by Bush on his fourth term, and Vice president Schwarzenneger. Hilarious. The highlights though are Robert Englund, as germpahobe and exploitative club owner Ian who markets on his undead dancers, while Roxy Hart is very sexy as zombie recruit/goth Lilith. “Zombie Strippers!” isn’t perfect, with a climax that drags on, and a zombie war that misses the mark on every level, but for a good enough time, it’s worth the watch. Sadly, Jay Lee’s “Zombie Strippers!” isn’t the balls to the wall dark comedy it pretends to be. On screen, it’s simply a very flawed merely serviceable horror entry, with occasional laughs, and some damn fine zombie T & A.