I didn't expect much from Chopper Chicks in Zombietown. Actually, that's a white lie. I did expect something from the thing, at least something that did not take itself in a SECOND as really being serious. It's not to say that this isn't a flawed movie, or with inanities that could make someone who wants total coherence, fully plausible characters and, say, a 'message' have an aneurysm. It's got the word camp almost inherently in its consciousness. I wondered halfway through (having a tape and not DVD) what the trailer must be like. How do you string together scenes of take-no-s*** lesbian bikers (some at any rate, others you-know-what), cheapo zombies, blind orphans, a dwarf, an incoherent mad scientist, and effects and side characters with only face-value interest? The movie itself plays out like, basically, a biker movie with zombies, where plot- though there- never gets in the way of a trashy killing scene, and establishing shots of the dead ones put to weird carnival music (kazoo included).
To describe the different character relationships would be moot; all need be known is that one biker is domineering/cowardly, another very attached to his man (Billy Bob Thornton, yes, ol' Billy Bob) up to a point, and one that doesn't get past any point becoming, basically, zombie bait. It is of note that the man who starts up the zombies in the town, played by the great Return of the Living Dead alumni Don Calfa (included with fully weird eyes and a hick accent amid his Frankenstein mode), basically can't seem to control these things, even as the townspeople almost don't give a damn ('eh, they're family' they say). In the end the Cycle Sluts end up saving a bus full of abandoned orphans (what they're doing out there don't even ask), and finally muster past the reluctance to save the town. It makes me grin seeing the back of the cover, perhaps in an all too ironic way, at seeing this movie compared to Seven Samurai, even just in "shades" as the critic says.
Along with being camp it's really an example of flawed but pure exploitation film-making. And coming from Troma, a film company that will churn out almost anything in similar capacities that porno movies do, it's definitely not a bad entry. The biker chicks are convincing enough, even as writer/director Hoskins does a flair for the dramatic (i.e. long close-up on the lead biker chick as she prepares to flame up some zombies in the big brawl in the streets), and the oddities help bring so much to laugh at, unintentional or not, that it's hard to find stuff wrong with it on such so-bad-it's-good grounds. It's far from being exactly memorable as a genre film, but for its time it does deliver some stupid fun, with a 60's or 70's biker movie formula wedging in room for both cool and ludicrous living-dead movie set-ups. In short, a terrific premise given decent treatment, no more or less (well, maybe less depending on your point of view).
To describe the different character relationships would be moot; all need be known is that one biker is domineering/cowardly, another very attached to his man (Billy Bob Thornton, yes, ol' Billy Bob) up to a point, and one that doesn't get past any point becoming, basically, zombie bait. It is of note that the man who starts up the zombies in the town, played by the great Return of the Living Dead alumni Don Calfa (included with fully weird eyes and a hick accent amid his Frankenstein mode), basically can't seem to control these things, even as the townspeople almost don't give a damn ('eh, they're family' they say). In the end the Cycle Sluts end up saving a bus full of abandoned orphans (what they're doing out there don't even ask), and finally muster past the reluctance to save the town. It makes me grin seeing the back of the cover, perhaps in an all too ironic way, at seeing this movie compared to Seven Samurai, even just in "shades" as the critic says.
Along with being camp it's really an example of flawed but pure exploitation film-making. And coming from Troma, a film company that will churn out almost anything in similar capacities that porno movies do, it's definitely not a bad entry. The biker chicks are convincing enough, even as writer/director Hoskins does a flair for the dramatic (i.e. long close-up on the lead biker chick as she prepares to flame up some zombies in the big brawl in the streets), and the oddities help bring so much to laugh at, unintentional or not, that it's hard to find stuff wrong with it on such so-bad-it's-good grounds. It's far from being exactly memorable as a genre film, but for its time it does deliver some stupid fun, with a 60's or 70's biker movie formula wedging in room for both cool and ludicrous living-dead movie set-ups. In short, a terrific premise given decent treatment, no more or less (well, maybe less depending on your point of view).