Chopper Chicks In Zombietown

U.S.A. / 1988 Directed by Dan Hoskins Starring Jamie Rose Catherine Carlen Billy Bob Thornton Color / 86 Minutes / Not Rated Format: DVD (R0 - NTSC) Troma Team Video

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I positively loathe Troma movies.     Well, most of 'em anyway. Whenever someone deliberately sets out to make a 'So Bad It's Good' film they generally blow it. This is the Curse of Troma, and after three decades at it they still haven't learned. It doesn't help that Messrs. Kaufman and Company have a sense of humor that makes Howard Stern look like Calvin Trillan. (All right, I'll admit it — I do occasionally crack a smile at the fart jokes.) It's an inexplicable example of arrested development, for despite having made countless low budget exploitation pics over the years these folks seem permanently stuck in a 9th grade 'bathroom stall scrawl' mentality. Films like The Toxic Avenger and Class Of Nuke 'Em High may have been fun when I was fifteen and blasted out of my gourd on Wild Turkey and/or Columbian Gold, but once I actually grew up I could see them for what they really are: just plain stupid. Insultingly stupid. So I don't waste my time on them. And that's why to date only one Troma flick, Troma's War, has been reviewed in the pages of EC.     However, not all the films released by Troma bear the insidious personal imprint of Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz. Many were produced independently only to be picked up by Troma for distribution. (Along with not having Kaufman credited as the director, one can easily distinguish these acquisitions by the fact that they're not set and/or shot in the New York-New Jersey area.) One such 'non-Troma' Troma film is Chopper Chicks In Zombietown, of which I had some fond, albeit hazy, recollections via a few USA Up All Night showings some 10 or 12 years ago. Seeing it again after all this time, I now realize that I must've been really blitzed when I watched it. Because it's lame. Not nearly as lame as it would've been had the Kaufman-Hertz cabal made it, but lame nonetheless. It certainly fails to live up to the tantalizing promise of its title, that's for sure.     The "Chopper Chicks" of the title are a gang of Harley-riding tough gals who style themselves the Cycle Sluts. In the course of their nomadic roaming, the Sluts roar into the small desert town of Zariah looking for meat — of both the edible and screwable kind — but instead run afoul of a mad scientist (Dan Calfa) who's been bumping off the local citizenry and turning them into flesh-eating zombies. For reasons never made clear he's been using the reanimated corpses to work an abandoned mine five miles outside of town. (The mine is supposed to contain some kind of radioactive substance harmful to humans; thus the zombie workers are more suitable for extracting it. What this substance is and why the mad doc wants it is never explained.) The zombies are accidentally released and slowly make their way towards the town, shuffling along to some truly godawful "funny" music — complete with slidewhistle — that even the director admits he hates. Meanwhile the Sluts rub the townsfolk of Zariah the wrong way, especially Rox (Catherine Carlen), the gang's foul-mouthed, hard-ass leader and self-confessed "bull dyke". It's revealed that one of the Sluts, redheaded DeDe (Jamie Rose), was once Zariah High's Homecoming Queen, with a redneck husband (Billy Bob Thornton) she walked out on six years ago. So angry conservative citizens force the gals to hit the highway. Only a short distance from town, however, they come across a busload of blind orphans, including a very young Hal Sparks (Queer As Folk), being menaced by the zombies. The kids are rescued but not without cost — one of the Sluts is killed in a ridiculous sacrifice play. Eventually the ladies wind up defending the town against the encroaching zombie horde, aided by the mad scientist's much-abused whipping boy assistant, a dwarf named Bob (Ed Gale). Lots of stupidity ensues.     It all sounds better on paper than the actual results on screen. This is a very low budget film, so I'm prepared to cut it some slack regarding production values. (Most evident in the shoddiest-looking "fake" house — eventually blown up, of course — I've ever seen.) But the movie is badly stitched together when it comes to transitions between major scenes. (Oh, she escaped. Didn't see that...) You'd think it wouldn't be all that difficult to keep a film that doesn't have much of a plot at least semi-coherent. While poor narrative structure is the major strike against Chopper Chicks the inexplicably embarrassing performance of Calfa, so terrific in Return Of The Living Dead, doesn't help matters. (Yes, some of the jokes fall really flat, too, but most comedies suffer from this.) Unbelievably, there isn't a single frame of female nudity in the whole show... I realize I had pretentions of highmindedness in my opening comments but, by God, an exploitation pic with a title like this should have at least one good tit shot in it! (The only naked flesh on display is a brief glimpse of Dan Calfa's droopy butt. What's up with that?) Fortunately there are a few good elements to point out... The film is by no means a total loss. Some of the scenes are funny, as when the indignant townspeople confront the Sluts ("You've had sex!" the shocked ringleader cries after sniffing the gals), and Sparks is a hoot as the sardonic, smart-ass (and Uzi-wielding) blind kid. The cast's real standout, Catherine Carlen, is great as the tough-as-nails Rox, sinking her teeth into the role with gusto and swearing like a sailor the whole time. She even gets through a potentially embarrassing scene — with surprising panache — that has her singing along karaoke-style while humping a jukebox. And speaking of music, there are some terrific rock 'n' roll 'bar band' tunes on the soundtrack from the likes of Alex Chilton, The dB's, and Tav Falco.     With or without the Troma imprimatur, Chopper Chicks is one of those flicks that's much better if you start out half drunk before you watch it and keep steadily imbibing throughout. This time around I went in totally straight. Should I ever decide to take it off the DVD shelf for another spin, I'll know to get the party rollin' early.

The Chopper Chicks In Zombietown DVD is crammed with the usual assortment of Troma garbage which passes for "Extras" so I won't even bother detailing all of them. Most annoying is the painfully unfunny introduction by Lloyd Kaufman, which can only be skipped by going to the Chapter Selection menu. If you play the movie from the Main menu you'll just have to suffer through it. (Hit that Fast Forward button!) The only bonus features of any real value are the 7-minute featurette Remembering Zombietown, containing video interviews held in 2002 with Calfa, Rose, and Carlen (who's completely unrecognizable now), and the audio commentary by writer-director Dan Hoskins, which is one of the most sloppily edited tracks I've yet heard. Trailers for Chopper Chicks, Toxic Avenger IV: Citizen Toxie and Angel Negro (The Black Angel) round out the set.     As for the film itself, it's presented fullframe — the way it was shot — and is a bit grainy but otherwise okay. Aural quality is fine. (Dialog is clear and the tunes sound good.) The packaging art/blurbage gives prominence to Billy Bob Thornton even though he's only a minor supporting player. 4/10/03

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