Horror films have a long tradition of ludicrous titles leaving little to imagination and describing exactly what to expect from the film. Zombie Strippers, Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes and now
Big Tits Zombie, released on
DVD this month is a Japanese horror in the tradition of grind house, sexploitation films. Written and directed by
Takao Nakano, whose previous credits include Sexual Parasite: Killer Pussy, Sumo Vixens and the ExorSister movies. Big Tits Zombie is based on Rei Mikamotos infamous manga
Kyonyu Dragon. When exotic dancer Lena Jodo returns to Japan she finds herself a temporary job dancing at a run-down strip-club in a deserted suburban town. One afternoon at the club Lena and her fellow strippers, Ginko, Maria, Nene and Dana discover a hidden door in their dressing room leading to the clubs basement. There, they unearth a mysterious well and a rare copy of the Book of the Dead. Reading aloud from the tome, they inadvertently summon the dead back to life and soon Japan is overrun by rampaging, flesh-eating zombies.
Opening with a quote from Sergio Leone and with numerous references to Quentin Tarantino from music cues to the inclusion of Lenas skimpy outfit obviously modelled on Uma Thurmans iconic yellow jumpsuit from Kill Bill, the film makes no attempt to hide its influences or mask the fact that it has clearly been made on a shoe-string budget. The film has few locations with much of the action taking place inside the strip-clubs dressing room, basement and what looks like an abandoned restaurant is used during the final showdown. Big Tits Zombie is very much in a similar vein to films from the world of Tromaville, films such as
The Toxic Avenger, '
Rabid Grannies and
Class Of Nuke Em High. As is the case with Tromaville it seems that the whole film is based around a concept for the films title with the main focus being on adding in as many scenes of cheap gore and nudity with minimal attention paid to the story and acting. With that in mind there is very little point in criticising the acting ability of anyone involved or picking holes in the plot, particularly when the cast is made up of Japanese porn stars and models. Despite its mercifully short running time of 73 minutes the film starts slowly and only really picks up any pace towards the final 20 minutes. The majority of the zombie make-up is pretty poor with a number of them wearing what look like zombie helmets rather than directly applied prosthetics. As zombies are hacked up by the chainsaw and samurai sword wielding strippers the CGI enhanced blood splatter sprays across the screen. The gore is gratuitous in the extreme and ranges from the usual scenes of zombies eating the guts of screaming victims to a novel way of serving human sushi from a dismembered womans body. The films most startling scene features a zombie with a flame throwing, fire breathing vagina.
The DVD release is being marketed as being in 3-D but dont be mislead, James Cameron has nothing to fear. The majority of the film is in standard 2-D with a total of 7 scenes in 3-D requiring red and blue anaglyph glasses. Before each 3-D sequence an image of the glasses appears in the top left corner of the screen with a 5 second countdown to give you time to put on your glasses. Some of the scenes last no more than 30 seconds while others run for several minutes. As well as the zombie killing, there are scenes of nudity and female sumo wrestling, all in 3-D. The main problem with the anaglyph glasses is that it takes a while for the eyes to adjust to the 3-D image so when the sequence lasts less than a minute it does not really work so well. However, if the whole film had been in 3-D it would have been an even tougher watch. The film will no doubt generate interest from its title alone as well as curiosity from fans of the original manga. The film doesnt pretend to be anything more than a trashy, pop-culture referencing genre piece. It is fun in places with so bad its good cult potential but the 3-D proves to be a pointless gimmick.
'Big Tits Zombie 3D is available now on DVD'.