ZZZ


Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 6:3	Budget Medium

Intensity

Stupidity:Nudity Ratio

6:3

Budget

Medium

Are you kidding me? Two Zombie/Stripper movies in one year! Oh, yeah! Life is good.

As the movie opens we see a coach and his student (Tiffany Shepis in a cute little ice skater costume) emerge from the arena. They notice some odd people lurking about. Almost immediately the Coach realizes that they are the results of a mutated virus that the army was using to create a super soldier. During the ensuing fight, Tiffany uses the ice skates to slice and dice the zombies while informing them that "You zombies have fucked with the wrong ice princess". Sigh, I love this girl. Just as things are about to get interesting, the camera pulls back and we see that we are actually watching a movie on a TV with a little blonde girl wearing 3D glasses. Her uncle sends her to bed warning her not to tell her Mom that he let her watch a zombie movie. As the credits roll we find ourselves in a lab where a scientist is working on a cancer cure and occasionally helping out a buddy by supplying him with a crack-like drug to help him wean off the hard stuff. The scientist accidentally spills some of his cancer cure onto the crack. We then head to a strip club populated by rather uninterested males and strippers with rather a lot of clothes on. (Perhaps there is a connection there).The drug turns the local hookers into zombies and their bites also turn their customers into zombies. Soon the strippers are fighting for their lives. A trip back to the lab to talk to the scientist ends up with the mixed result of getting the cure, but unfortunately it has been injected into one of the guys. Now when a zombie bites the guy, it blows up. Eventually Dakota, Dallas and Harley emerge from the club alive.

Hmm, Romero? This does not bode well.

Tiffany Shepis and her Black, 6 foot tall, ice skating coach.

And here is Tiffany kicking ass in a short skirt again.

I know what you're thinking. A movie set in a strip club with only a 3 on the nudity scale?!? Yes indeed. We have yet another movie where the lead actress plays a stripper and never takes her top off. Sigh. I guess the producers decided to go light on the nudity and got the best combination of pretty girl/decent actress they could. Lyanna Trumaneng is gorgeous and an okay actress, but I would have liked to see a more physical actor in the role (okay and maybe a little more nudity). At various times the movie goes off on tangents with several of the girls getting good monologues, in particular Jessica Barton as Dallas gets some well written lines. And at it's core, that is what makes this a good movie. The main girls all start off as cliches, but they grow as the movie progresses. At first you wonder why the girls would hang out together, but eventually you start to feel like they could be friends. When you are making a horror movie you want to include bickering amongst the cannon fodder to keep the tension high. In inept hands this usually leads to a lot of yelling. In some cases ("The Graveyard" for example) you don't believe these people ever could be friends. Early on Dallas gets a great monolog where she states that she doesn't like stripping, doesn't like the people she strips for but she does it because she makes more money than what she went to school for. As she winds down she admits that she doesn't much like herself for wanting the money enough to do a job she hates. Even though she remains a bitch throughout the film, she is at least a sympathetic bitch.

Oh good! The doctor's cancer cure is green. Has this guy never seen a zombie movie?	Yikes! Another one! Seriously dude. Green drugs are not good for you.
I'd have thought even crack whores would know better, but obviously not.	Of course, the cure for the problems caused by the green drugs is an injection of purple drugs.

Oh good! The doctor's cancer cure is green. Has this guy never seen a zombie movie?

Yikes! Another one! Seriously dude. Green drugs are not good for you.

I'd have thought even crack whores would know better, but obviously not.

Of course, the cure for the problems caused by the green drugs is an injection of purple drugs.

The gore starts out mostly off screen. We get some suggested violence and a couple of gallons of red liquid sprayed on walls and people. As the problem becomes more defined and our heroes clearly identify the zombies as a very real threat, the violence and CGI escalates. Soon we have shotguns, weed whackers and chainsaws in the hands of the good guys. Again this is where more physical actresses would have helped. Where is Zoe Bell when you need her?

Notice that our hero is waving around a wad of one dollar bills. That'll get a girl's attention.	A zombie hooker. This does not bode well.
He seems rather proud of something.	Okay, so we all saw this one coming a mile away, it is still funny.

Notice that our hero is waving around a wad of one dollar bills. That'll get a girl's attention.

A zombie hooker. This does not bode well.

He seems rather proud of something.

Okay, so we all saw this one coming a mile away, it is still funny.

At first I thought the movie had skipped the Black guy dies first cliche, but then as I was going back to get pictures for the review I noticed that Tiffany's ice skating coach was Black and he was the first person to get chomped on by a zombie on camera. Granted that was in the movie within the movie, but I think it still counts. I imagine this bit of casting went like this:

Director: Who do you like for the ice skating coach?

Casting agent: He's a coach? I know this six footer with broad shoulders and a deep voice.

Director: Umm. Have you ever seen a male figure skater?

You know, these guys don't look like they are enjoying themselves.	Well, let's see. Yes, they are in a strip club and Dallas Skye is the featured dancer.	However, this is as close to naked as Dallas gets in the entire movie which pretty much explains the bored look on the bar flies.
There is a lot of ensemble shots where you can see lots of characters all focused on the person talking. Again the director kept the actor's voices in check and there was not a lot of pointless yelling and screaming.	Harley's first day on the job. She is not very graceful.	Dakota may be a bitch, but even when the club is being attacked by zombies she has time for a quick lap dance.

You know, these guys don't look like they are enjoying themselves.

Well, let's see. Yes, they are in a strip club and Dallas Skye is the featured dancer.

However, this is as close to naked as Dallas gets in the entire movie which pretty much explains the bored look on the bar flies.

There is a lot of ensemble shots where you can see lots of characters all focused on the person talking. Again the director kept the actor's voices in check and there was not a lot of pointless yelling and screaming.

Harley's first day on the job. She is not very graceful.

Dakota may be a bitch, but even when the club is being attacked by zombies she has time for a quick lap dance.

Why set this in a strip club? Clearly you are not trying for a PG-13 film here; there are plenty of F-bombs and red blood. For some reason the rating board is fine with green blood being splattered about, but red blood gets you an R. The nudity that is in the movie could be easily cut out and has a tacked on feel. Seriously why not set it in a fast food joint or a tax office? Obviously the producers wanted strippers in the description of the movie but didn't really want to make a stripper movie. None of the girls can really dance and the only dance featured is played for laughs. Still the movie is strong enough that setting doesn't really matter. To be fair not many movies that feature cops or cowboys or race car drivers really depict them well. Even films like Fast Company don't spend a lot of time showing racing or even showing racers in a good light. Okay, so that is the second time I have referenced other reviews that I have done. Sorry about that. Still, if you pick a subject that you know something about and then find a Hollywood movie about that subject I can guarantee that you can spend most of the movie nitpicking. I just know that somewhere out there there is someone who watched "Fried Green Tomatoes" and was disappointed with the amount of movie time spent in the kitchen cooking.

The Hookers. They don't make it.	The pimp and the ex-stripper turned hooker.	The strippers. Harley spent the entire movie with a vacant wide-eyed look on her face.
Dallas recaps the movie for the professor.	Then she defends herself with a chainsaw (which she cannot start by herself).	Finally she uses the stripper pole to fight off the zombies. Oh, well it is not like anyone was using it to dance with or anything.
When the first zombie hooker explodes, the bouncer gets sprayed with blood. Like a lot of the movie's jokes this was played low key. Most of the gore had a little visual joke accompanying it.	When the zombies bit the guy who got the injection of purple serum, they exploded. Normally combing purple and green will get you a muddy gray color, but here you get cheap CGI.	The morning after. There is a bit of clever dialog here where the girls repeat their conversation from when they walked out the doors before the zombie attack.

The Hookers. They don't make it.

The pimp and the ex-stripper turned hooker.

The strippers. Harley spent the entire movie with a vacant wide-eyed look on her face.

Dallas recaps the movie for the professor.

Then she defends herself with a chainsaw (which she cannot start by herself).

Finally she uses the stripper pole to fight off the zombies. Oh, well it is not like anyone was using it to dance with or anything.

When the first zombie hooker explodes, the bouncer gets sprayed with blood. Like a lot of the movie's jokes this was played low key. Most of the gore had a little visual joke accompanying it.

When the zombies bit the guy who got the injection of purple serum, they exploded. Normally combing purple and green will get you a muddy gray color, but here you get cheap CGI.

The morning after. There is a bit of clever dialog here where the girls repeat their conversation from when they walked out the doors before the zombie attack.

So is it worth seeing. I think so. It hits more than it misses. Even if the girls don't get naked much, we are still talking about two Playmates and a hot rod model. The writing is pretty strong and the pacing is good. Like most movies where a significant portion of the cast dies off, there is no whining. Our heroes concentrate on staying alive, they take the death of their friends with short angry bursts of emotion but get over it quickly. Unlike the Zombi movies of the 80's that were written in an attempt to scare people but typically were so bad they were funny, this movie is meant to be mostly funny with some scary bits.

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