Chopper chicks in zombietown

Chopper Chicks in Zombietown...the title pretty much tells the story itself. We've got motorcycle babes, townsfolk, a busload of blind orphans, and a dwarf all fighting zombies in a run-down mining town. It's utter ridiculousness. But it's utter ridiculousness starring Billy Bob Thornton, Don Calfa, Lewis Arquette, and Howard the Duck himself, Ed Gale. That's a great cast for a goofy B-movie. I can't believe Billy Bob is in this, but then again, you gotta start somewhere. We aren't dealing with genius material here, but what do you expect from a Troma flick. You expect numerous silly gags which usually aren't funny, gratuitous nudity, and gore. You will get all of this, but there is a strange lack of nudity (except on Calfa's part). And with this title it's just expected. The movie didn't quite live up to my expectations (Joe Bob Briggs recommended it and he's never steered me wrong until now) but it's growing on me. Actually, I think I'm forcing myself to like it to justify the thirteen dollars I spent on the DVD. If you like your flesh-eating films serious, then stay away. If you're more into over-the-top humor and horror, you should probably still avoid it.

Note to genre buffs: I came to the same conclusion of an earlier reviewer that this film is a comedic combination of O'Bannon's Dead and Buried and Hammer's Plague of the Zombies.

Just looking over some of the other reviews, and if I may humbly suggest, I feel like maybe you're missing the point. It dosen't say "Citizen Kane" anywhere on the box. It's "Troma" for God's sake, what do you expect?

This is just a big, dumb, loud, stupid movie. But how can you not like a herd of zombies chasing down an ice-cream truck filled with raw meat? Or a bus load of blind kids who act like real people instead of just some sympathy factory? If nothing else, the pure inventiveness of simply stapling a zombies mouth shut (He can't eat you if he can't open his mouth) is one of the best things I've seen in ages!

The plot is, at best, thin. Most of the acting is so wooden the actors/actresses should be sprayed for termites. A group of thirteen-year olds with a $50 budget could do better special effects.

But...this film always makes me smile. It succeeds wonderfully in what it was made to do. That is, be an exploitation/horror/comedy/b-movie joyride. Just check your brain (and your good taste) at the door.

Not bad, at least for a Troma production, but far from great or even remotely memorable. That's pretty much the consensus on "Chopper Chicks in Zombietown" and I have very little to add to that. I expected something far worse, that's for sure, but I really can't say that I intend to recommend the film to anyone else. A bunch of wannabe rough and tough biker chicks, respectably calling themselves the Cycle Sluts, passes through a secluded little desert called Zariah with a population of 127. They stick around for some reason, presumably just to shock the hillbilly locals with their bad girl attitudes and parade around in leather pants. Five miles further down the desert, however, a wacky mortician is developing a serum to bring the dead back to life. Basically, this nut creates zombies by drilling a hole in the cadavers' heads and filling it up with radioactive goo before lowering some type of antenna in their brains. He doesn't do all this for the sake of glory or money, but just because he's completely crazy and that are his own words. Suddenly, a truckload of zombies break through the door of an old abandoned mine and slowly begin to wander their way to town. From then on, you would expect an exciting zombie showdown horror movie, but no, understandably it takes an enormously long time for the zombies to reach Zariah. Also, whenever they are shown dwelling through the desert, a really absurd little country and western tune plays. Meanwhile, back in the town, the biker chicks are adapting to small town life. As to be expected in an all-girls society, there's rivalry, jealously, arguing and eye-scratching aplenty as well. When the zombies *finally* come marching in, the townsfolk actually hire the biker chicks to exterminate them, because the walking corpses are all deceased family members and/or highly respected former community members and killing them would be just too painful. That's actually one of the few really interesting little twists in the plot. The comical parts in the script are not exactly funny, with the exception of the zombies attacking the bus of an orphanage for blind children, but the zombie action (at least when it finally kicks in) is quite cool. Referring back to the part with the blind orphan kids, I really laughed hard with that. Defending themselves from danger they cannot even identify, one of the kids says: "Great… Blind, no parents and now this happens!". The evil mortician has a creepy dwarf as an apprentice and the isolated desert setting definitely contributes a little something. Unfortunately, however, the film is generally lacking. For example, it takes the chopper chicks ages to establish that it takes destruction of the brain in order to effectively destroy a zombie. I guess they were too busy being tough all those years and never watched a horror movie before. There exist very few good reasons to seek out this obscure 80's film, expect maybe to witness one of the first roles of Billy Bob Thornton as one of the chicks' hard- drinking rednecks. Watch Billy Bob getting beat up by a biker girl!

GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE!

IF you don't then you are either going to be killed by:

A. Lesbian bikers B. Flesh eating zombies C. A bus-load of blind orphans!

This movie says something that I've been saying for a long time, there simply aren't enough movies about a gang of gay bikers (bikettes?) who have to attack a load of Zombies who could possibly threaten a whole town, not to mention the busload of blind orphans.

If you liked TROMA'S other masterpieces such as TROMEO AND JULIET, or THE TOXIC AVENGER, this may be more to your tastes. Obviously, if you liked this movie then you should check out the other two that I just mentioned.

It's funny, if you can watch it in the right spirit.

There are some movies that have a novelty that is undescribable. Chopper Chicks in Zombietown is definitely one of those movies. Although the movie is not necessarily intended to evoke laughter, it does so with relative ease. This is one monster movie that won't have its audience engaging in "let's wake the dead" scream fests (no pun intended).

One liners are essential to this movie's hilarity. "And for the record, I'm the dyke. Blow me." "If you were supposed to do normal things, God would have made you look like a normal person" (in reference to the ubiquitous midget...a necessity for a funny movie!). And of course, a slide whistle theme song brilliantly used during the zombie scenes is essential as well.

So, watch the movie. Be entertained by its outlandishness. Or rent it just because of the title. After all, that's why I rented the movie in the first place.