Blu-ray Review: Strippers vs. Werewolves

There are some movies whose titles tell you pretty much all you need to know about the story. This is one of those movies. The title Strippers vs Werewolves just about sums up what this movie is about. It is not trying to be clever, it is not trying to trick you into believing it is something that it is not. You see this title, you know what you are getting. Beyond that, the title indicates, at least to me, something cheesy and fun. Sadly, the movie I saw had the cheese but lacked the fun.

As the movie opens we are taken directly to one of those private dance rooms in the back of a posh London strip club. A club patron is getting a dance from a stripper dressed as a schoolgirl. As the dance goes on, the man gets more and more excited to the point his inner wolf reveals himself. The man is, indeed, a werewolf. The stripper screams and stabs him in the eye with a silver pen she had in her pocket. He screams and falls over dead.

Strippers vs Werewolves wastes no time getting right into the story. After that opening kill, news travels back to the remainder of his wolf pack and they want revenge. Back at the club we learn that this is not the first Ike the club owner has encountered the furry beasts.

The bulk of the film has the werewolves tracking their dead friend while the strippers try to prepare for the battle. There is further complications as one of the strippers is dating one of the werewolves, granted neither knows what the other is. Everything leads to a big climactic fight between the two factions.

I found the movie to be a bit on the slow side, too much talk and not enough action. The tone shifts pretty wildly too, one scene will play for laughs while the next is super serious. It is not an unheard of mix on this type of film, but they are rather jammed together in jarring fashion.

Strippers vs Werewolves looks cheap. Sure, it s a low budget affair, but it does not even look to cover up the fact. On top of that, the acting is poor all the way through. The makeup has a few moments where it looks all right, but it too is more bad than good.

To be fair, it is not all had. There is an attempt to give he various characters their own personalities and build up a story beyond the primary thrust of the plot. It is not enough to save it,but it is nice to see an attempt at giving us interesting characters.

The best part of the movie, besides the too frequent stripping scenes, is the all too brief cameo by the one and only Robert Englund. He appears as an elder werewolf and absolutely owns his moment. It is also jarring as it is the best acted scene in the movie and sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the movie.

Audio/Video. The movie is presented in a ratio of 2.35:1 and generally looks petty good. The movie appears to have been shot on digital video and while detail is solid, the overall picture lacks much in the way of depth. While the look does nothing to hide the low budget nature of the production, it never really distinguishes itself either. It is a fine presentation of mediocre content.

The audio is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track hat, much like the video, does the job but fails to distinguish itself. Dialogue is clear and music comes through nice and clean. But it doesn't have a lot of punch. The strip club scenes are the high points, as the track is pretty immersive and makes nice use of the surrounds for ambiance.

Extras.

• Producers' Commentary Featuring Jonathan Sothsott and Simon Phillips. The track has its moments, but generally feels like a couple of guys wishing they made a better movie. I wish they did too.
• Strippers vs. Werewolves Undressed. A making of featurette complete with cast and crew interviews and clips from the film.
• Original trailer.

Bottomline. I wanted fun and what I found was mostly boredom. There was some attempt at making the movie interesting by trying to flesh the characters out, but that just distracted from giving us the promise of the titled.

Not Recommended.


Article first published as Blu-ray Review: Strippers vs. Werewolves on Blogcritics.