“Super soldiers? They’re more like genetically altered super zombies!” notes an over-acting character in a fake zombie-film-within-the-film at the outset, featuring a machete-wielding Tiffany Shepis and deliberately goofy and / or self mocking dialogue (“Zombies?! Who makes this garbage?”). Sadly the quality level of this intentionally trashy fake-movie is on a par with most of the movie proper and it’s never made totally clear why the guy watching the movie in question is doing so with a pair of FREDDY’S DEAD THE FINAL NIGHTMARE 3-D glasses!
This self-conscious no-budget flick would love to be a crowd-pleasing Z-movie for the Friday night six-pack crowd but is sorely lacking in charm or momentum. Rock-bottom production values can be transcended with invention and appealing characters but this lacks both, and winds up resorting to a spoof of the already slightly spoofy SNAKES ON A PLANE for a pointless, unfunny moment in which the script’s abrasive “Big Daddy” pimp character laments “I’m tired of these motherfuckin’ zombies in this motherfuckin’ strip club!”. Needless to say, he’s no Samuel L Jackson.
The premise has potential for B movie heaven : a doctor working on cell-recreating, cancer-curing RE-ANIMATOR-style green goo at a research centre is the one responsible for an undead epidemic when the serum gets out and infects folk in and around a strip-club named The Grindhouse. The strippers have a bitchy rivalry with the skanky local hookers, various male fantasies are catered for (schoolgirl outfits, nurse costumes) but the film is half an hour old before its chief gimmick is unveiled (crack whore zombies!) and even that proves barely worth the wait.
Along the way, there are amusing moments, the best of which is a cute spoof of keynote moments in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, with characters turning on the TV hoping for news of the escalating zombie crisis, but instead just getting cheesy weathermen and frivolous items on hotdogs. The girls are pretty hot though if you’re in this for nudity (hell it is a zombie stripper film designed to bide time while we wait for ZOMBIE STRIPPERS!) prepare to be disappointed by the underwhelming amount of boobies on display.
Prepare also for a dispiritingly tame first hour or so : although dick chomping and eyeball-plucking can be found in the early-going, too much of the initial zombie mayhem involves cut away’s to bright red blood splattering on pancakes and trailer walls. The energy levels pick up for a breezy final 15 minutes when the flick finally breaks out the garden implements (including chainsaws!) for a series of fun splatter gags, though even this diverting finale is marred by excessive use of cheapjack CG gore, resulting in lots of ropey looking full-body explosions alongside the much more welcome old-school make-up FX.
-Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
