Peelers - Movie Review

Details: By Loron Hays; 06 April 2017

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Hey batter batter batter! Swing batter!! Or is that, as Garth and Wayne used to suggest, schwing?! With the amount of boobs and blood on the screen in this homerun, it’s hard not to see this tale of horror as anything but a win for the home team. Peelers, with one confident strut after another, gives us an infected look at the whole zombie craze and, ultimately, makes a bit of movie magic and mayhem along the way.

Exploding off the screen in a mess of guts and tits, Peelers is a CGI splatter-fest for the zombie killing S.O.B. in us all. It’s unapologetic in its raunchy delivery and, if the audience is wild enough, will totally earn its own cheer section from the living room sofa. I can think of no other zombie film in the past decade that has successfully combined baseball, strippers, and oil-lust with the infected zombie sub-genre and produced something as memorable as this sleaze-fest.

Directed by Sevé Schelenz and written by Lisa DeVita, Peelers is an independent movie with a whole hell of a lot of bloody T&A on its mind. The beer guzzling and tequila shots are expected, considering that this film’s sole location is a small mining town’s strip club, but the backstory and the performances are not. At almost every turn, this low budget flick surprises with developed characters, good acting, and an inherit sweetness that is as authentic as homemade apple pie.

And the women of the club - Tina (Victoria Gomez), Baby (Nikki Wallin), Carla (Kirsty Peters), and Frankie aka “Thundercunt” (Momona Komagata) – are a good combination of bimbos and badass babes, all ready for whatever the night brings. They give the film a unique injection of spunk before and during the sudden and unexpected attack of infected zombie-like patrons.

Peelers is not for flinchers. The gore, as some tricked-out oil causes a group of laborers to turn into body munching zombies, is extreme. It is also not for the forgiving as to turn the other cheek in this monster medley is to get your face ripped clean off. It is a fun and brutal film that delivers quite a memorable finish as it spins its own mythos about this outbreak of oil-dripping sickos.

Ultimately, the film centers on Blue Jean Douglas (Wren Walker). She is trying to leave town for good and has just signed away the ownership of her club to some stuffed shirt. The opening of the movie is actually the closing of her strip club, but the last night in business is going to go down as the wettest and the wildest. And I’m not talking about the wet t-shirt contest. Bouncer Remy (Caz Odin Darko) confesses his love for her and then all hell breaks loose. Her fellow strippers are in danger and, as one of them is preggo eggo, the ragtag group of survivors must come together and try to save what and who they can.

The jokes are plenty and so is the suds-soaked fun, matching “chug for chug” all the nipples and extra long kill scenes that the creators of the gem give us. While I could nitpick this flick to death, I won’t. It’s completely off its rocker and you just have to go with it; lean into that joke and laugh damn it. Imagine it: a skin-obsessed horror flick with substance. Who’d a thought it possible?

Peelers premiered at Shriekfest in Los Angeles and had quite a fantastic festival response. It opened in Canada just last month, too. With no theatrical release planned in the near future, the film – which is destined to be a cult classic – is now available to watch in the US on VOD platforms. A blu-ray release, with behind the scenes bonus bites, is being planned for the near future.

Peelers rocks!

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MPAA Rating: Unrated.
Runtime: 95 mins
Director: Sevé Schelenz
Writer: Lisa DeVita
Cast: Wren Walker, Caz Odin Darko, Madison J. Loos
Genre: Horror
Tagline: You may not get the happy ending you were looking for.
Memorable Movie Quote: "Tonight we're celebrating. It's the cowboy's birthday."
Theatrical Distributor: Uncork'd Entertainment
Official Site: http://www.peelersthefilm.com/
Release Date: No wide theatrical release
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: March 28, 2017
Synopsis: A small town strip club owner must defend her bar, her strippers and her life when violent infected patrons show up on the final closing night and all hell breaks loose..