Director: Alex Nicolaou
Cast: Eve Mauro, Jonathan, Erickson Eisley, Leroy Patterson
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The latest release from Full Moon Pictures (famous for the Puppet Master and Demonic Toys series), Alex Nicolaou’s Zombies vs. Strippers starring Circus-Szalewski (The Rockville Slayer, Cup of My Blood) as down-on-his-luck club owner Spider, and Eve Mauro (Land of the Lost and a shit ton of TV appearances) as his best girl, Sugar Hills, is actually not a bad little addition to the clichéd “Blank vs. Blank” horror genre.
Zombies vs. Strippers succeeds where many toss-away flicks like it fail; they save some coins by keeping most of the action in one room, the tiki-themed strip club inappropriately named the “Tough Titty” (which is obviously more suited to a biker bar, just saying) and used that to hire decent talent who are able to carry the movie while still being in on the joke. The two leads, Szalewski and Mauro, do a bang-up job as “Spider” and “Sugar”. Mauro’s spotty at first but give her a chance, she seems to get more comfortable with her part as the movie progresses and her weird “Stripper on the Edge of being a Drunk Has-been” shtick fleshes itself out more (pun was totally unintentional, but if you know me you know I love a good bad horror pun so it’s staying).
They’re joined by Brad Potts (Water for Elephants) as motorcycle riding/zombie killing badass “Red Wings”, and newcomer Brittany Gael Vaughn as the token black stripper, aptly named “Vanilla”. When Vaughn first appeared on-screen as one of the worst stereotypes of blaxploitation I’ve seen in a long time I wanted to immediately write her off with an eye roll, but she stayed in character throughout and obviously had a lot of fun playing the sassy and tough Vanilla.
Really that was the key to this movie being successful: all the actors genuinely look like they’re having a great time. It’s total cheese, the soundtrack is a kick ass nod to surf music and at times seems out-of-place, the special effects are a little on the lame side, and none of the actors will be auditioning for the Royal Shakespeare Company anytime soon but they’re still 100% committed to their parts without ruining Zombies vs. Strippers by taking themselves too seriously. It’s almost like your best friends got together and decided to make a zombie movie in their basement, except your friends can actually act and run a camera, and have great taste in music.
My only real gripe about this film is the total lack of decent tits! What the fuck? It’s got “Strippers” right there in the title and I get the A & B cup team. Okay there was only one A-cup, but of course she’s the one that constantly takes her top off. If I had to watch one more guy pretend to get distracted by this chick who’s built like a ten-year old boy I was going to scream. The only other girl who seemed to have no problem running around with her titties hanging out had the worst boob job I’ve seen in a while. Not to mention she was so thoroughly soaked in spray tan that her nipples were the exact color of her stretch-mark covered boobs, turning her into some weird Barbie looking thing that just didn’t work for me. Grand prize for best tits of the night goes to Vaughn, her little slow-motion strip tease in the middle will be providing all of you with pause-worthy jerking material for weeks to come. Ha! Gross.
