Any film that promises scantily clad zombie women, comedy and buckets of blood equals a great film in my books, so understandably I was quite excited at the prospect of Zombie Women of Satan, the brainchild of burlesque performer Warren Speed. In terms of what is promised, the film really doesn’t disappoint. We are treated to dozens of zombie women donning their best lingerie, enough blood to fill quite a few buckets, and enough comedy to stop you even considering taking the film seriously. Sadly, what may sound like an encouraging synopsis for veteran zombie fans loses its appeal very early on.
Considering the zombie film has been at the forefront of the horror genre for decades now, creating something new and exciting was always going to be a challenge. However, instead of rising to the challenge, Warren Speed has instead created a film as terrible as possible in the hope of passing it off as a B-movie parody. As a result, what we’re left with is a crude, poorly strung together film with production values that resemble something you could make in your own garden.
One thing that has to be said about Zombie Women of Satan is that it has ‘cult-movie’ written all over it. Scouring the Internet it I obvious that opinions of this film are very divided. In fact Zombie Women of Satan may very well be the perfect marmite-movie. Its definitely not to everyone's taste, but if you like a good old trashy B-movie fun with lots of laughs, topless girls, daft characters and a simple plot (baring in mind most of these aren’t necessarily done well) then this is for you.
This is a crazy film about a group of burlesque performers, a strange, perverse family leading a cult, and lots of female zombies – if it sounds mad that’s because it is. It definitely isn’t a film you should take too seriously (and why would you). The plot revolves around a band of unlikely heroes dispatching of monstrous women in a variety of gory ways, usually accompanied by a triumphant cry of ‘You bitch’. The misogyny leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, but that’s not even the worst thing about the film. Squeezed in between the expletives and sexual references are moments of over the top, unrealistic gore, crass slapstick and freakish incest. There was one point in the film that seemed to suggest rape was a subject of humour as one of the characters has sex with a zombie strapped to an operating table, having the entire ordeal filmed to show his deranged chained up mother.
Credit where it’s due though, there are points where the banter between characters Pervo The Clown and Johnny Dee Hellfire is pure genius. Both characters are universally obnoxious, and share a lot more in common than either of them would care to admit. The best humour that Zombie Women of Satan has to offer comes from when these two are at verbal blows with each other. And its at this point that the film can be seen for what it is, and that’s just a piece of fun, though you do have to be in a very special kind of mood to get the most out of it.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Its neither scary or horrific, and the gore and fx are incredibly unconvincing. A few golden pieces of comedy can be found if you don’t mind wading through all the crass, crude humour to get to it. Zombie Women of Satan does show promise though, and given a larger budget and a lot more time and dedication it could have made for one very entertaining horror-comedy. As it stands though it’s definitely at least worth a watch, and although it wont be everyone’s cup of tea, it does scream cult-following.
Reviews
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out of 5
