Peelers

First things first - thanks to this abortion I am never again watching a movie unless it has at least 200 votes and more than 50 reviews.

I like indie horror, there is something quite satisfying in knowing filmmaker has managed to come up with a good/great movie on shoestring budget. I have enjoyed many of them over the years.

This however, is impossible to enjoy, or even watch unless you're stoned/drunk out of your mind or just plain dumb. Low budget is no excuse for truly awful acting, unlikeable characters, poor effects and a story that could be written by a 8 year old with high fever.

Directors previous effort, Skew, is nothing short of a masterpiece compared to this one. Younger viewers will probably "enjoy" lots of flesh as it all goes down in a stripclub. But the girls are fugly and no amount of naked boobies and asses can save this wreck from bottom of a barrel.

Main character of "Blue Jean" has about as much charisma as those stripper poles. Two "facts" about her are funnier and more entertaining than anything in the movie - she is "classically trained actress" (maybe in softcore porn) according to IMDb. And she supposedly "beat out over 200 other actresses for this role", something that is almost impossible to believe. I simply refuse to think that there were over 200 other girls who were less talented than her :) But hey, maybe there really were a few hundred 5 dollar strippers auditioning for the role and only 5% of them spoke English. That is the only possible explanation.

Here is a funny "coincidence" - as of 05.04.17. every single person (except 1 out of 19) who gave this movie positive feedback has written only one review and one vote on their profiles. And guess what, its of this movie. I guess nothing beats closest family and friends.

It was three things that made me pick up "Peelers" and give it a chance. The first thing was, of course, that it is a horror movie, and I am a huge fan of the horror genre and always have been. Secondly, then the movie's DVD cover did look rather interesting; I mean, a dismembered leg hanging on a dancing pole above a body on the floor. Thirdly, I noticed the word "infected" in the synopsis, so chances are that this was a zombie movie of sorts, and I am, after all, a huge zombie aficionado.

"Peelers" starts out quite nicely at a good pace and throws the action, and then it trails over into the intro which is accompanied by a rather interesting choice of music. So yeah, I will say that "Peelers" is off to a great start. However, after a somewhat impressive start, the movie slows down in pace and falls prey to the usual prolonged setting up the mood and setting over an extensive period, so it takes close to half an hour of the movie before it starts to pick up pace and become interesting.

The movie does fall prey to the stereotypical approach of pointless nudity that is often seen in horror movies. Sure, as the movie does take place at an adult dance club, but still... It hardly serves any purpose to the movie, aside from catering to a pseudo-perverse aspect of the horror genre fans - if one finds this to be appealing, of course. And there was, naturally, an abundance of dance scenes with scantily clad ladies, given the nature of the movie. Again, it serves no real purpose in order to promote the storyline. It is just eye candy, nothing else. I am not a prude and got no problem with nudity and the naked body, but when it becomes a nuisance and a drag to the pacing of a storyline in a movie that I sat down to watch, then it definitely becomes annoying.

I wasn't familiar with anyone on the cast list for "Peelers", and I do like watching new faces on the screen. And admittedly then people in the movie were doing good jobs with their given roles and characters. The acting was good and they did have some interesting characters and dialogue to work with from writers Lisa DeVita and Sevé Schelenz.

There is actually a good amount of blood and gore to be seen in this movie, which definitely was somewhat of a factor that sort of made it up for all the pointless nudity and wasting of screen time with dancing and other such things that hardly served any purpose to the movie.

Another thing that "Peelers" suffers under is the stereotypical approach of having filmed everything in the dark. So many of the scenes were filmed with an annoying lack of light, which meant that a lot of detail were lost and it was just downright frustrating to sit and watch one dark scene after another. This was especially annoying because if they had opted for brighter and better lighting then the movie could have been so much more fulfilling to watch.

And much to my disappointment, then it turned out that "Peelers" wasn't a zombie movie, but it was more of deranged maniacal killers on the prowl.

"Peelers" was a horror movie with the right intentions and the right ideas, but unfortunately those things were lost along the way as naked women seemed to become the main focus of the movie.

On the final night this strip club's open, the owner gets more than she bargained for. Infected patrons come in for more than naked women, nasty beer and bear which is served on the menu. Besides bear, Peelers serves up a healthy mix of boobs, blood and hilarity. At first glance Peelers seems like another cheap thrills, boob filled, horror film. While all of those things are true, it also successfully pulls off comedy in between it's many kill scenes. Something most movies fail at doing.

With a set-up similar to From Dusk Till Dawn once they get to the bar. The overall pace of the movie is closer to Feast. The comedy is definitely crude and immature and won't be for everyone. If you like John Gulager movies and you're ready for some fun, Peelers packs a lot of enjoyment.

Peelers suffers from the traditional low budget horror condition of bad acting, corny dialogue and a weak premise. Horror fans should expect this from any low budget horror film going in. Where Peelers succeeds is they don't take themselves too seriously.

After a couple of hilarious stripper dance scenes, I was waiting to see what they did with the pregnant stripper. If I have any issue with this cheap thrill ride, it's that I didn't get to see the comedy, that scene would've provided. Opportunity wasted and all for a Winnie the Pooh scene. They lacked contact during their kill scenes as well. They could have used a Tom Savini helping them out but at least they didn't go with enough animated effects for it to ruin anything.

Peelers tells the story of a zombie-ish outbreak in a strip club and despite being cliched it's passable stuff.

Though advertised as a horror I have to say it's arguably a comedy horror, some of the jokes are far too silly for it to be otherwise. This does screw up the tone a tad because they are few and far between, but it doesn't damage the movie thankfully.

The last time I watched a Canadian zombie comedy it was Ahockalypse (2018) which was a fair bit better than this. Not saying Peelers isn't a good movie, it just plays everything so safe and doesn't really have its own identity.

Think of all the tropes you're used to seeing in zombie movies, Peelers grabs them with both hands and grips them tight for the full 90 minute duration.

The cast, unknowns but they do a good enough job especially our leading lady. The effects, passable. The script, not half bad. But the movie itself again just comes across too color by numbers and won't deliver any surprises.

Passable stuff and a decent enough watch for zombie movie fans.

The Good:

Wren Walker

Has its moments

The Bad:

Very little originality

This film has been popping up around horror circles so I'll admit i was intrigued...people who had seen it mentioned that it was kind of like a zombie movie but not, so then I was little less intrigued (i've seen enough zombie movies) but I had the lucky opportunity to see this film at the Shock & Gore fest in Birmingham and it was definitely worth it.

It's not a zombie movie per se. There are some similarities, but these guys put a little twist on the genre and it's a really interesting take on the whole thing. Would love to know if this is a commentary on a certain heated global topic but I don't want to give anything away so I will leave it at that and guess that perhaps the filmmaker is sending out a message maybe thru film. Which is the beauty of filmmaking. You tell a story and reveal a truth now and then. But I digress.

This film has really good pacing. Never once was I bored, nor did I roll my eyes. It kept me engaged at all times and I really loved Wren Walker's performance as the lead. She was smart, caring, funny, tough and vulnerable at the same time, a leader and talented. All the things that make a person, in this particular case, a woman, beautiful.

There are definitely some things (i.e. stripper stunts) that were...interesting to say the least and some really great kills, espeicially for a low budget film.

I'm more of a cricket man myself but the baseball element throughout was a nice touch. Whenever you put little touches of sport in an otherwise non-sport movie, there's something about that that I like. I don't know what it is.

Overall, had a fun time and will definitely look forward to seeing this one again.