Stripper Zombieland

'STRIPPERLAND': Three Stars (Out of Five)

Another spoof of a spoof! 'STRIPPERLAND' is a very low budget ($500,000) spoof on 'ZOMBIELAND'. The premise is basically the same as 'ZOMBIELAND' except instead the world has been taken over by zombie strippers, rather than just regular zombies. It was co-written (with Brad McCray, Shawn Justice and Tyler Benjamin) and directed by Sean Skelding and features a cast of mostly unknowns (with the exception of a few brief cameos by the likes of Daniel Baldwin, Boyd Banks and Lloyd Kaufman). The movie is pretty bad but it does have some good laughs, nice performances and a few decent zombie scenes.

The story revolves around a young man (Ben Sheppard) who's managed to survive in a post-apocalyptic future due to his book of rules of course. He explains to the viewers, as the movie opens, that a virus caused most of the world's female population to turn into zombie strippers, which began feeding on everyone else (although they're unlike any other movie zombies being that they can be killed by any shot to the body and not just one to the head!). Very early on the young man hooks up with a tough loner (Jamison Challeen) passing through town and the two give each other the nicknames Idaho and Frisco. They then team up with two young women (Maren McGuire and Ileana Herrin) and the four make a plan to head to Portland, Or, the stripper capitol of the world (and there are continuous jokes about how many strippers and strip clubs there are in Oregon)!

The filmmaker Sean Skelding also helmed the movie 'I AM VIRGIN' in 2010, which is a low budget spoof on 'I AM LEGEND'. That makes a lot more sense to me! Spoofing a serious action / horror film like 'I AM LEGEND' and making it about the last living man (a virgin) in a world of sex-crazed vampires is a pretty good idea (although I've heard the movie is horrible) but spoofing an already very clever spoof like 'ZOMBIELAND' makes no sense. It is better than other spoofs of spoofs like 'SCARY MOVIE' or 'THE 41-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN' but it's still pretty bad. An argument can be made that it's 'so bad it's good' though. Like I said it's saving grace is a few good jokes, some nice performances and some cool zombie actions scenes (if you're a die-hard fan of zombie movies).

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Thank you very much - and I say this because this is based on Zombieland - and that is not just losely. Yes so the zombies here are female strippers. Sexist you say? No they talk about it in the movie in a very boring dialog scene, so it is all good.

Now I hope you got the sarcasm, but if not the rating should tell you how I really feel. This was really boring and while I acknowledge this is a low budget movie, the CGI is quite ok. It is painfully obvious, but you shouldn't expect any different. Lloyd Kaufman, whom I really like has a cameo that is not worthy of his comedic talent - and the movie overall is the same ... unfortunately

In the middle of a zombie apocalypse, a loser teams up with a lone hunter to head towards a rumored safe-heaven nearby, and when they meet up with a pair of sisters who are also seeking safety the group attempts to brave the zombie-riddled landscape to reach it.

For the most part, this is an enjoyable if potentially grating cash-in. What really makes this one enjoyable is when it focuses on a rather fine mixture of zombie mayhem and comedy. The opening attack in the supermarket or the first flashbacks to the attacks being shown on the news reports all give this a wholly enjoyable time. The action here is handled really well, not only the attack in the mall where they burst through the barricade to overrun the building to the exceptionally fun encounter at the casino with the mad doctor and his group of captive zombies. Alongside the high-energy finale of their series of encounters in the stripclub or their final encounter at the hands of the zombie horde in the middle of the infected creatures, the fact that the action here is all decidedly light and intended to be comical makes this an all-around easy digest alongside all the great gore makeup for the kills and zombie attacks. These here are what hold this one up over its flaws. There are some big issues here, starting with the film's outright inability to rip off its premise from another film entirely. This one takes the entire premise, of a young loser teaming up with a grizzled, hardened hunter to survive in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and later find a pair of women to share their journey with, which is taken straight on from that other film. Even side bits, like the loser living by a strict set of rules, the hunter with a traumatic family backstory that drives his quest to obtain a specific food important to him and the featured cameo here by a celebrity within the film world. That this is topped off by the addition of the two girls into the situation with much of the same resolution and outcome as the other film in its entirety simply causes this to reek of the outright pilfered material found here. This is made even worth with the additional facet that it's so brazen and forthright in doing this which really stands out quite dominantly on the whole, being so open about it and not doing much different to change things up. The other big issue here is an entirely wrong-headed approach to women that makes this one extremely cringe-worthy at times. There's a lot of talk here about the objectification of women through the idea of taking all women and turning them into sex-obsessed, flesh-hungry maniacs that have to chase after men in high-heels, skimpy lingerie and getting distracted by club music, especially due to a lack of information given for the outbreak. Nothing is given about why it only affects women or whether men could get infected, or even how the virus got loose to target them, leaving this section rather frustrating and troublesome. These here are what hold this one down.

Rated R: Extreme Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and Nudity.

This review will be short.

About the movie, it is basically a parody of Zombieland but this time the zombies are strippers. It is all in all a good movie with crude humor, nudity, a lot of blood and gore, weird dialogs and some bad acting. It has the same concept, the same search for Twinkie (not exactly Twinkie), the same search for lost family, the same SUV and the same four characters.

If you are only interested in having many laughs with a little or no sense then this movie is for you. I liked this movie because it is sometimes fun to watch pointless movies when you need a change.

There's very little to be gained from parodying a film that was essentially a parody in the first place, which is why Stripperland, a pitiful, cheap-assed send up of Zombieland, screams blatant cash-in rather than inventive spoof.

Strip away (pun intended) the dumb gimmick of a world over-run by all-female, sluttily dressed undead, and this IS Zombieland, minus the budget, the decent cast, the cool effects, the witty script, the amusing star cameo, and anything else you can think of that made that particular film such a blast.

What little genuine originality director Sean Skelding does bring to the table is imbecilic in the extreme, and includes such excruciatingly bad ideas as Linnea Quigley leading an army of OAP zombie killers, Thom Bray as a mad doctor intent of turning the zombies into obedient 'retro-wives', and Daniel Baldwin as rapper Double D performing to a crowd of scantily clad, dancing corpses in order to keep them from eating him!

The film's only saving graces are hotties Maren McGuire and Ileana Herrin as sisters Virginia and West, both of whom look great in next to nothing (shame then that for most of the film they remain completely clothed!) plus some enthusiastic old-school splatter (shame also then that the film relies so heavily on crap CGI for many of its effects!).