A zombie virus breaks out in the lab, and a team of military specialists goes in to take control of the situation, in Zombie Strippers. Of course, they do a piss-poor job and someone who’s been infected escapes and heads for the nearest illegal strip club, Rhino’s, owned by a fast-talking sleazoid named Ian Essko (Robert Englund).
The girls are a mixed lot containing a virgin from Sartre, Neb.; nasty rivals; one who reads Nietzsche (after she becomes the walking dead, she says, “Now this stuff makes so much more sense”) and star attraction Kat (Jenna Jameson). The male audience goes nuts for the girls after they become zombies, and the limbo bimbos turn into the super-strippers.
The picture was written, directed, shot and edited by Jay Lee, with dialogue assistance from Zarathustra. Supposedly inspired by Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist play Rhinoceros, in which everyone is eager to conform by becoming the title beast, Lee’s script is a grab bag of horror movie parodies — one zombie begging to be shot in the head is a dead-on poke at The Fly — and some kind of commentary on people who love the dead a little too much. As if that’s even possible.
Mostly, however, the whole thing is an upraised middle finger pointed at mainstream filmmakers who enjoy slumming by making imitation down-and-dirty exploitation movies while maintaining their memberships in the Cahiers du Cinéma fan club. You ain’t gonna catch Robert De Niro in the sequel to this puppy. —Doug Bentin