Zombie Strippers - 1 out of 5 Stars

I watch a lot of movies, a LOT of movies, and a majority of them are not really that good; The Doom Generation, Bloodrayne, Moulin Rouge, The Room, Fatty Drives the Bus (sorry Mick Napier and Joe Bill) just to name a few. So I like to think that I am open minded about movies, I will try to watch the whole thing. I will even try to look through the special features to see if there is anything redeeming there. Most of the time, I find the interviews with the cast and crew to be hilariously out of step with the piece.

On several occasions, I have had the luxury to watch movies that are really bad. I can only really call them movies because they were placed on celluloid. The movies themselves are scripted horribly, acted just as well, oddly lit, but almost always captured on high quality HD or film stock. These movies have their saving graces, whether it is a slightly comical side character, gratuitous nudity or gore. It is a chore to get through the whole film, and I usually will run and recommend these movies to specific people. It follows the age old mantra - "I had to suffer through algebra in high school, so you will have to suffer through algebra in high school."

But the real fun in these movies comes from the behind the scenes features and interviews. Watching as these "actors" speak so highly of what the had just created, as if it were Spartacus or Ben Hur. They will speak of the socio-economic ramifications of their film, of the political satire that they succeeded in relating, it's High-Art conceptual spirit. When I hear this, I always think to myself, "Were they shooting another movie when they gave this interview?" Because there is no way that there was any of that in the movie I just watched.

Case in point: Zombie Strippers. Take a pseudo-intellectual writer/director/producer/editor/etc. with a penchant for philosophers and old school French playwrights, add classic character actors Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) and Jenna Jameson (Porn), one location, and have all of the characters spout off Nietzsche as they are doing various activities that have nothing to do with pondering your existence. You have to make sure, though, that these actors only say the words, not feel them or understand what they are spouting. And make sure that there are (not so) subtle homages to all the philosophers and heady thinkers throughout the entire film, in characters and places names.

Watching this movie was like getting mid-range adult film actresses to do their dirty business while reading from Beckett. I'd call it "Fellating for Godot"