Sex, The Walking Dead, and Existentialism: Zombie Strippers!

Inspired by the Absurdist Comedy, Rhinoceros, Zombie Strippers! barrels out of the gate with guns blazing and does not let up until the final tasseled pastie has been torn from the rotted bosom of the last flesh eating pole dancer.

Filled with over-the-top political satire(IE, anti-Bush sentiment) , lousy one-liners, and scads of philosophical rants, Zombie Strippers! begins at a military lab where scientists are working on a potion that will bring dead soldiers and others back to life to help fight the many wars that are now raging thanks to George W's fourth term in office. Through a series of foul ups, a swat team solider, who is now infected with the zombie virus (or whatever the hell it is), finds himself in an underground strip club called Rhino's where he eventually spreads his illness (note that the hapless soldier's name is Byrdflough) to the club's number one bump-and-grinder, Kat (Jenna Jameson). But see, here's the thing. When women get infected, they seem to still be able to function, talk and reason ... yes, they still crave human flesh like any good zombie, but they seem to be able to handle their zombie mode better than men, who just become your basic lumbering ghouls. Oh, and one other thing, once a stripper becomes a zombie, she becomes a better dancer and the clubs patron's go wild for her!

Soon the club's owner Ian Essko (Robert Englund) realizes that a living dead stripper means big bucks. Of course there is the small problem of what to do with the guys who end up getting more than a lap dance from the girls ... happily, a makeshift prison in the club's subbasement serves as a holding area for these zombie johns.

As the other girls question if they should join the ranks, and make big bucks (yes, it's a philosophical struggle for these gals), even our young heroine, the perky Jessy (Jennifer Holland), who hails from Sartre, Nebraska (can you stand it?) and only wants to strip so she can pay for her grandmother's operation; has a long dialogue as to whether she should join the fold, or hold out.Oh, did I mention that the film even references, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre? It's one of the real laugh out loud moments ... for those of you seeking special effects, you won't be disappointed - keep your eyes peeled for Jameson when she uses a certain part of her body to shoot billiard balls at a zombie foe. Where's this woman's Oscar?
Yup, all in all, Zombie Strippers! delivers. So good it's bad, and so bad it's good, this is the movie that Showgirls wished it could have been!

Jive Turkey

The Cyber Horror Elite's Top 50

Much work went into compiling the top 50 list over at The Vault of Horror. Take a second and check it out, and then join in the conversation by leaving a comment.


LINK TO THE LIST

Lessons Learned from Untraceable

* Kill a kitten on-line, and the world will beat a cyber-path to your door.

* Diane Lane deserves better than this mess.

* It sure does rain a lot in Portland, Oregon.

* Colin Hanks is kind of cute in a nerdy sort of way.

* Death by multiple sunlamps looks pretty uncomfortable.

* Billy Burke is HAWT!

* FBI agents prepare for all kinds of things ... except checking for the killer in the back seat of the car!

* As long as the baby-face bad guy, who probably weighs 95 pounds soaking wet, has a stun gun, he can overpower men double his weight and height.

* Net Neutrality will lead to on line torture porn.

* Sulfuric acid will melt the skin off your bones, but leave underwear untouched.

* Revenge is a dish best served on the net.

Happy Birthday Ms. Curtis

The Scream Queen turns 50 today - the same age as your humble host of this little blog ...



I still recall that cold December afternoon back in 1979 when I sauntered into a matinee of a little independent horror film called, Halloween, and was instantly mesmerized by the movie's forlorn heroine, Laurie Strode. All floppy hair and knee socks; smarter than her peers, sort of gawky and yet graceful at the same time, and full of silent longing ... Remember that scene while she's walking down the street singing softly, "I wish I had you all to myself"? Yeah, I totally got that.

It might have been about a year later, when I saw The Fog. Granted, Jamie Lee's character, Elizabeth, was not the heroine, but my buddy (who I saw the film with) and I joked that when she takes a ride with the truck driver played by Tom Atkins and talks about her string of bad luck, she should have said something about that lousy baby sitting gig she had a few years back ... No longer, virginal, Jamie Lee's Elizabeth now gets to have sex, and still survive the horrors that befall the seaside community of Antonio Bay.In Prom Night, Jamie Lee played the disco dancing Final Girl, Kim. Sadly, even though I am a gay man, I could not relate as I suffer from terminal white man's syndrome aka: two left feet. Still it was fun to watch Jamie Lee in this goofy thriller. All I remember from Terror Train was that for some strange reason, I thought that David Copperfield was kind of hot.
Bad wig aside, it was great to see Jamie Lee return to Haddonfield for Halloween II. What a shame that the movie, ultimately, was a piece of crap ... her brother? Oh please, then why did they use Mr. Sandman in the soundtrack? Be that as it may, I did enjoy seeing Laurie again, and when she finally came out of her coma-like-phase, she did kick some ass. Everybody knows what happened next: she went legit, she showed her tits ... seriously, Jamie Lee's acting and her Hollywood pedigree paid off ... Trading Places, A Fish Called Wanda, Blue Steel, True Lies ... and finally, another return to the story that started it all with Halloween H2O; Laurie Strode living as Keri Tate - a woman dealing with post traumatic stress and dealing with it by drinking, taking a lot of prescription drugs and being a control freak. Man, I so loved her in this movie. Especially when she finally faces her fear, grabs that ax and stalks purposefully into the night screaming, "MICHAEL!" Once more, I totally got that.

Yeah, there was that stumble with Halloween: Resurrection, but let's pretend that never happened.

Happy Birthday Ms. Curtis , and many happy returns of the day. Thanks for the screams.

All men are dogs anyway...

...so why not take a chance on Sam Merlotte who runs that honky-tonk out in Bon-Ton.  Sam's a self made kind of guy who would face down a blood-sucker as well as fetch a stick for you...

 ...I like a man who's faithful and loyal, the kind of guy who'd bark at you one minute, and then lick your face and sleep at the foot of the bed the next ...

 ...wouldn't you just love to rub his belly when you came home for work? 

Love and kibble, that's what lusting after a shape-shifter gets you.

Two Left Feet: Dance of the Dead

OK, first things first.

Dance of the Dead is not a good movie, in fact it's not even an OK movie .. it is, however an interesting little piece of independent film making that is just chock full of homages to far better pictures. And frankly, that's what makes it something of a treat to watch.

In the films first few minutes, not only are we put in mind of Cemetery Man, but also Carrie. Later on the viewer will, no doubt, be thinking about Return of the Living Dead (when some of the zombies cry out for , “braaaiiinnsss”) ... and so it goes.

That said, I really wanted to enjoy this one, a tale of reanimated corpses who (thanks to a nearby nuclear reactor) crash the local high school's spring dance. Of course, hilarity ensues, the nerds save the day, and the one kid (who sort of looks like one of the lost Jonas Brothers) gets the girl.

Two things that are learned from Dance of the Dead are:

1: Zombies will stop attacking the living when serenaded with an Emo-like version of Pat Benatar's “Shadows of the Night” (this will also allow our hero and heroine to dance romantically like Fred and Ginger).

2: Zombies do have a sex drive, and will literately eat each other's faces off when consumed with living-dead-lust.

One last homage really caught my eye; at film's end with the high school being blown to kingdom come, the hero and heroine engage in a passionate kiss, much like a similar scene in that classic tale of teenage rebellion, Rock and Roll High School.

Dance of the Dead was written by Joe Ballarini and directed by Gregg Bishop ... wait until it shows up on cable.

Dancing Zombies and a Sweaty Idol

Inspired by what he saw in the dance clubs of Tokyo (young men and women dancing alone and watching their reflections in the club's mirrored walls), Billy Idol penned Dancing with Myself, a kicky little pop song that got a lot of play on progressive radio stations back in the early 80's.

The video for the song is a whole other story. Directed by Tobe Hooper, Dancing with Myself features a post-apocalyptic party complete with new-wave zombies, husband's dancing with sledge hammers behind their wives, and, if you look close enough, you might even spot a left over prop from Hooper's opus, The Funhouse.

Oh, and yeah, Idol looked pretty hot back then.

Lista del Top Ten

B-Sol over at the The Vault of Horror asked fellow LOTTD's for "a list of what you consider to be your top 10 best horror films ever made." And that got me thinking ... which I don't do very often.

Be that as it may, I came up with the following.

***

10: Looking for Mr. Goodbar: Technically, not a horror film. And yet, this is one of the few movies I've ever seen that scared the hell out of me. Since it was based on the real story of the life and death of Roseann Quinn ( a New York City teacher of deaf children by day, a bar cruising wild woman by night), the horrid ending of this film stayed with me for years.

9: Carnival of Souls: A movie that traumatized me as a kid.

8: Night of the Living Dead: Ditto

7: The Haunting: Awesome piece of film making. Of course, I am talking about the original, not the dreadful remake.

6: Dawn of the Dead: Any movie that can combine, gore and social commentary is aces in my book. Again, I am talking about the original.

5: Carrie: When the Cinderella story goes wrong ... always loved this movie.

4: Sisters: My fave DePalma Hitchcock ripoff. Seriously, this is one hell of a great film.

3: Rosemary's Baby

2: Halloween

1: The Exorcist

Horror Movie DILF: What Lies Beneath

Name: Dr. Norman Spencer

Location: A lakefront farmhouse somewhere in Vermont.

Occupation: Genetic research scientist / College professor.

Family: Wife, Claire. Daughter, Caitlin.

Why is He a DILF?: Because he's a mean old daddy bear with a fuzzy chest, and a twisted mind. Outward appearances seem to portray a smart, sensitive man with great tastes. However, his inner self is a beast prone to killing the young co-ed he was having an affair with, gas lighting his wife, and then eventually trying to kill her! But heck, why look at the negatives ... Dr. Spencer is one hawt older dude, and if you are gonna' lust after a psycho, at least make sure he's rich and sexy.

WOOF WOOF, Dr. Spencer.

Played by: Harrison Ford.

A Few Words from Patick Bateman

Do you like Phil Collins? I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that, I really didn't understand any of their work. Too artsy, too intellectual. Kind of like this voting thing, I mean what's that all about? I'm supposed to chose between that old guy, or the young handsome guy in the nice suit ... it's a no brainer ... but back to Genesis: It was on Duke where Phil Collins' presence became more apparent. I think Invisible Touch was the group's undisputed masterpiece. It's an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time, it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums... Just like voting! I mean really! Stand in that booth and cast your ballot, and you'll understand ... but back to Duke; Listen to the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument. Uh, take your clothes off and lay on that bed... In terms of lyrical craftsmanship, the sheer songwriting, this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Speaking of professionalism, let's face facts, it's been a long time since any of that has been on display at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave; Take the lyrics to Land of Confusion. In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority... OK, that's all I've got to say for now, so if you're not going to vote, just stay there on the bed and keep your eyes closed, I'll be back in a minute.

Mrs. Iselin With an Alternative to Voting on Tuesday

Why don't you pass the time with a game of solitaire?