Despite all the subtext writer-director Jay Lee tries to squeeze into Zombie Strippers – involving everything from the Iraq war to the degradation of women in the sex industry to the psychology of sex workers themselves – it is still far outweighed by lengthy striptease sequences. In other words, there is an awful lot of objectification going on for a movie that considers itself subversively feminist. The grind-house plot involves a zombie outbreak at a secret government testing facility. When the carnage spills over to a nearby strip club, the bitten performers find that the more zombified they are – the more they’re reduced to mindless automatons – the more the men in the bar cheer. There is some sad truth in that, and porn star Jenna Jameson offers something of a self-critique as Kat, the headliner who finds career rejuvenation as a member of the undead. Yet Jameson is mostly there for the usual reasons, making this that most unholy of movie hypocrisies: an exploitation flick with a conscience.
