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.

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.

This is the kind of film that televisions were designed for. Though the plot is a little slow at first, it soon begins moving at a comfortable pace. The plot is, well, 'minimilistic', and the zombies are hillarious, not least for the wonderous 'musac' that accompanys their movements round the town. The bicker chicks, are dealing with the zombies, the zombies are being zombie-like. Best watched after copious quantities of beer. A nice little moovie. I would recomend this moovie to anyone who wants to watch films of the living dead, zombies, vampires and the like. It won't fail to hit the spot.

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!

The Cycle Sluts roll into a small town to stop and get refuelled before hitting the road. Not only do they find that one of their number has a husband in the town (and was a home-coming queen in her day) but they also find that something is going on in the mine. A man has discovered valuable radioactive material in the mine and has been using zombies to harvest it. However when the zombies escape the Cycle Sluts might be the only ones able to stop them.

I didn't know anything about this film when I taped it. To be honest I was drawn to the title as much as anything else. I didn't expect a great deal from it, but my heart still sank a little when I saw it was a Troma flick. I have never seen a film from this stable that has risen above the low standards that have become synonymous with them. From the cheap, nasty opening credits through to the rubbish special effects and laughable `undead' this film is trash in every sense.

Sadly it hasn't got the sense to really send itself up in the way enjoyable trash usually will. Instead it just seems to wallow in it's own low standards with no desire to actually improve any part of it. The plot is meaningless and is made up of poor gore, no scares and no meaningful themes at all. Add to this a really cheap look, direction so poor that `lack of direction' is not so much a criticism as an aspiration and a total product that cries out to be labelled `banged out'.

Against all this, the acting of the leads isn't awful – they look good in comparison! The `chopper chicks' themselves are actually pretty cool and mostly pretty sexy/good looking – Gretchen Palmer being the cutest and most fresh faced (definitely not a woman who has ridden a motor bike across America!). The zombies are a total laugh – just walking slowly with basic makeup and groaning. The most notably actor (but not for his performance) is Billy Bob Thornton, who must look back on this now and thank God that he has risen above this type of work.

Overall, anyone watching Troma films should be ready for the low standards and lack of spark that generally come with them. I was ready for something poor but even still I was caught off guard by just how poor the whole thing was. Worth watching if you've never seen a Troma film, but other than that it's not worth the bother and is about as sh*t as you'd expect.