Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! (2008)

Plot
An experimental drug goes wrong and turns people into flesh-eating zombies. A group of exotic dancers become trapped inside the club they work at and together they and the other survivors must find a way of keeping the zombies hordes out until help arrives.

Review
When two films featuring zombies and strippers fighting to the death are released within a month of each, then you know it's inevitable that people like myself will compare the two together. Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! fares the less well out of the two simply for the fact that doesn't have Robert Englund and Jenna Jameson in it (arguably the two, or should I say "three" reasons why Zombies Vs Strippers is a hell of a lot better). It also has a fraction of the budget which is somehow impossible given how low the budget for the other one was. Zombie Strippers had a sense of fun, goofiness and general winks to the direction of the horror fan boy crowd with it's cornball approach and laughable execution. Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! doesn't manage half as many laughs or naked women, or even zombies for that matter. It kind of kills the film when the only reasons to watch are for laughs, boobs and gore and this delivers little on all three. In the competitive horror-comedy market, there's no room for error or failure to deliver on promises.

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! just looks like an amateur camera crew went to the worst strip club they could find, picked the skankiest-looking women present and asked them to act out a few scenes with guys in zombie make-up. The women look dog-rough - the sort you'd more likely see hanging around street corners than expensive gentlemen's clubs. It's blatantly clear why the blonde chick was cast in one of the lead roles. She acts with her tits (although they are Oscar-winners!) but unfortunately for us, the film opts to keep her clothed. In fact for a film about zombies battling strippers, there's very little stripping. There's an assortment of characters that have to hole up in the club including the strippers, various patrons and a stereotypical pimp. A lot of time is given to these characters before the action kicks in but it's all rather pointless in a low budget film like this. If I'm watching a big budget mainstream flick, I like a bit of character development but in something as juvenile as this, I want to see blood, guts, boobs and action as soon as possible and not really given a rats ass about the characters. This is usually because they can't act for their lives and the ensemble cast here is no exception. I'll at least give the pimp some credit as he has some funny lines but it's scraping the barrel.

The film also joins the growing trend of straight-to-DVD horror films to use CGI blood instead of good old fashioned make-up effects. I hate this, I really do. Zombies Vs Strippers fell into this category too. Everything else effects-wise is going computerised but with something like blood and guts, it's just impossible to get it looking realistic enough on a computer. Give me the corn syrup and imagination over the computer any day. The CGI also looks rather old for some strange reason. You wouldn't think that filmmakers have had access to it for years now but with results like this, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was still in the developmental stage. Having said that, when physical effects are used, they look as rubbish as the CGI. I bet guys like Tom Savini wouldn't have had problems in this department. Bring him back and let him teach the next generation how to work with blood and guts!

Verdict
How many reasons out there to watch a film about zombies and strippers anyway? Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! offers up no answer to the riddle unlike it's better budgeted, better acted and all round better counterpart Zombie Strippers. Unlike that one which took levels of sleaze and cheese to new extremes, this one lacks the conviction to treat it's subject matter with the degradation it deserves! You're better off with those high brow strippers as opposed to being ripped off by these bottom dollar skanks.