Play at your Own Risk – Zombie Women of Satan
We’ve all been in the same situation: a movie night, perusing through Netflix not wanting to see the same thing that you’ve seen a hundred times already. Sometimes all you have to go on is cover art and you wonder if it’s safe to play that film with the interesting cover art. Play At Your Own Risk: A Netflix Advisory is the column that will tell you whether or not it’s worth the risk on the most interesting cover art in the horror genre of the Instant Netflix library.
by Marc Patterson
It’s a dull, overcast Monday after New Years and I’m sitting around surfing the world wide horror web, bored out of my skull. I’ve got a boat load of stuff I could be doing… but apparently I’d rather be sifting through smut. Clearly. I mean, let’s at least be honest about that much, since I’m about to watch a film called Zombie Women of Satan.
As the twist of this column assumes – the whole damn point of Play At Your Own Risk is that we’re digging up films we know little to nothing about from the bowels of Netflix and then pulling the trigger and letting come what may. Think of it like b-movie Russian Roulette, except when we hit a loaded cylinder our brains don’t go splat against the wall. We just wish they did.
On this outing I’m breaking the rules a bit. Admittedly, I watched the trailer before I watched the film. But, to my credit that was something like two years ago. Nonetheless, the fact that I remembered the trailer says something. And since I’m now here facing down this film, well I’m not going to back down from this dare. So let’s roll it!
Okay, so when I started this film I wasn’t committed to writing this article yet, so I generously gave the film five minutes to impress me or I was going to turn it off. Remember, my expectations were set pretty low from the start. The title alone kind of puts viewers in check. I was looking for some lowbrow schlock. Guess what? I found it. It didn’t take me even three minutes before I got a little of this:
Fine. I’m easy, I’m sleazy and I’ll stick with it.
Zombie Women of Satan is a micro-budget zombie splatter-fest from the UK featuring a freak-filled variety show that’s touring their outrageous act about the English underground. When they get invited to be interviewed for Rock TV, which is some sort of internet television outlet run by a sex cult, (yes a sex cult) our band of merry misfits inadvertently enters a serious world of shite.
Hopefully you’re sensible enough not to watch a film titled Zombie Women of Satan for the story. Nonetheless, I’ll try to nicely sum up how things go…
After a fortnight, our troupe arrives at Rock TV’s broadcasting studio, which is headquartered on a farm that also belongs to some insane old geezer who’s experimenting on pretty girls in his basement. (As it turns out, everyone’s related). While the old man’s intents are never made quite clear, what we can aptly surmise is that he’s trying to create an army of big boobed zombies, or something like that. Maybe. When the lunatic’s daughter feeds all of the captive gals some kool-aid containing a secret elixir they turn into bloodthirty zombies and go apeshit wild. Nuff said. (Now this would have been an interesting twist for The Walking Dead – Hershell’s ‘Farmgirls Gone Wild – Zombie Edition’)
Then there’s a small sub-plot. One of the girls in the freakshow, the rockstar Skye, has a sister who has recently gone missing. She discovers that her sister is on the farm and is one of the soon to be zombies. So, you know – she’s got to go all hard ass and stage a military style rescue.
Basically, this flick gives you the minimal required about of plot necessary to keep everything moving from point A to point Z. In-between it fills every orifice with as many raunchy grotesqueries as humanly possible, and let me tell you – this one comes stocked with sick moments. There’s guts and arterial spray a plenty with everything from zombies that bleed out of their nipples to a bit of human on zombie fucking (is that technically considered necrophilia?), and (of course) our lead demented clown jacking off in the woods, because you can’t have a proper film without a clown jacking off in the woods. I won’t even get into the midget shit scene. Let’s just say that if you’re looking for chainsaw wielding clowns killing big busted zombies then you came to the right place.
So let’s break it down – Remember the review I wrote up of Bikini Girls on Ice, another titillating bit of b-movie trash? Okay, well everything that film did wrong Zombie Women of Satan did right. Zombie Women promised from the start to be a lowbrow, craptastic good time, exploding with cheap gore gags and bountiful nudity. It delivered on everything it promised. That said, while no points will be given for a rich plot, interesting characters, or good acting, I’m also not deducting points for coming up lacking. Zombie Women of Satan never promised to be that film.
My big complaint is that the proceedings took far too long to get underway. (The real action doesn’t start until about 40 minutes in or so). Up until then you have to tolerate an excruciatingly ill constructed first act that primarily consists of a hodge podge of scenes that don’t support the larger story, all complemented with poorly delivered jokes that fall horribly flat.
If you’re looking for trashy, classless cinema laced with rancid humor hardly fit for the nastiest toilet in the UK then you’ll likely want to give this one a spin. In a really fucked up sort of way, it was amusing in a twisted way that only the sickest of us midnight movie horrorphiles can appreciate. Oh, and in case it matters… these zombies run.
Trailer:
