Review of Zombie Strippers! (2008) by Marcd. — 19 Apr 2008

[***Minor Spoilers***] I'm getting so sick of purportedly "edgy" comics like Bill Maher and the late night Comedy Central talking heads whose cutting edge humor consists largely of such tired and cliched drivel as "(Butt-head voice) Uh.

Huh... George Bush is dumb... uh huh...uh..." The first 5 minutes of Zombie Strippers is the freshest, funniest, most biting social commentary I've seen in while, laying waste to the current administration-at-large, Bush, Cheney, Rove, etc, but in a more incisive, intelligent AND FUNNY style.

I guess it would take a zombie movie (and/or a hardcore punk song) to really do it right. Now of course it's going to be the zombie-loving (and Jenna Jameson-loving) crowd which is going to want to see this flick, but I'd even recommend it to a wider action/comedy audience looking for some serious belly laughs.

Robert Englund is fantastic and hilarious in his role as the strip-bar owner. The military unit in the obligatory medical-lab-experiment-gone-wrong sequence brings something new to the table. The strippers and their dialoge are pitch-perfect, and the writer's send up of ethnic, social, and political stereotypes is refreshing.

I figured Jameson and the other strippers would be brain-dead placeholders in this thing, but they are truly fantastic. What made the movie so fun for me is that you're never so worried about the consequences of a massive outbreak beyond the strip club, and you're able to have fun with the petty jealousies between the strippers (who realize that only the zombie strippers are getting the love and $$ from the guys at the bar and, therefore, WANT to make the transformation), the creative zombie lap-dances, and the bar owner's obsession with the money-making potential of his "evolved" employees.

The scene with the flying ping-pong balls and pool balls just blew the lid off of my theater - I was roaring. And the final face dance.... priceless! I would say next to the remake of "Dawn of the Dead", this is one of the best modern zombie flicks I've seen in a long time.