2009 (UK)
Contains
spoilers.
Now you either get
the juvenile, quirky, twisted and very British humour of Zombie Women of Satan
with its ridiculous story, over the top characters, amateurish production and
immature banter and effects or, like most the reviewers of IMDb etc, you don't.
Co-written,
directed, produced, promoted by and starring Warren Speed as Pervo the clown,
Zombie Women of Satan is a satirical exploration into the dehumanising effect
of cult worship and a sociological study of morality and what people are willing to do and sacrifice in order to protect the ones they love. Or
depending on how you look at it, it was an excuse to tell a story of a bunch of
misfit burlesque performers fighting hordes of scantily clad zombies and tell
as many knob gags and poo jokes as they could get away with. I'm leaning
towards the latter.
Headed by the group's compère Johnny Dee Hellfire
(Seymour Mace) the ragtag burlesque troupe and the heroes of our story, Flesharama are a motley assortment
of miscreants. Johnny and Pervo are joined on and off stage by rock chick Skye Brannigan (Victoria Hopkins),
Zeus the mighty and flatulent dwarf (Peter Bonner), burlesque dancer and ever vain Harmony Starr (Kate
Soulsby), and mute chainsaw wielding giant Damage (Joe Nicholson).
Always desperate for
publicity, Johnny Dee arranges an interview for the troupe with rising internet phenomenon Tycho Zander (Christian Steel) at his rural retreat
where unbeknown to Flesharama, Tycho's father (Bill Fellows) and sisters have
been conducting secret experiments to find a cure for their foul mouthed
zombie-mother's (Kathy Paul) condition. Offering sanctuary, underwear and
physical affection, Tycho has become a bit of a cult leader and has amassed
quite the house full of scantily clad pretty girls for his father's literal
disposal, and with the troupe's arrival the stage is too well set for something
not to go seriously wrong.
Cue the action. A
small oversight spreads the demon mother's disease to the girls and before
anyone knows it the farm is swarming with dangerous snarling flesh hungry and
rather feisty semi-naked zombie chicks.
Flesharama find themselves in the centre of the maelstrom, not only fighting to
survive but unexpectedly on a rescue mission after discovering Skye Brannigan's
sister is being held after falling for Tycho's promises.
The battle for
survival is over the top, ridiculous and delivers all the blood, banter, gags
and boobs you'd expect to see from a film with 'Zombie Women' and 'Satan' in the
title. Speed has crafted a character driven narrative with good confident
pacing and uses an assortment of dramatic, shocking and comedy horror and
action scenes to let the rich assortment of misfits shine. The mix of incredibly diverse and damaged personalities are allowed to interact with a
surprising amount of depth and complexity, with entertaining witty and dare I
say intelligently written dialogue throughout; the constant toilet-bowl jibing between Pervo and Johnny
Dee is a particular highlight.
For a b-movie with a tight budget and limited resources the cinematography shows
some real flare and vision and whilst the special effects, make-up and zombie splats are over the top and hammy it doesn't detract from the film, it adds to
its charm. With the gags coming thick and fast Zombie Women of Satan knows
what it is and never ever takes itself
seriously. I honestly don't know what people who heavily criticised the film
thought they'd be getting especially considering the cover and title, but Speed
set out to create a daft fantastical low budget zombie comedy and succeeded
majestically. They wanted this to become a cult classic and whilst polarising
opinion, I'm very much on the side that says Zombie Women of Satan achieves it, 7/10.
Steven@WTD.
No comments:
Post a Comment