| Hot Wax Zombies on Wheels | |
|
|
|
| DVD |
Scares/Laughs  |
Skin |
Gore/Violence  |
Movie Overall  |
|
||||
|
|
1999 Starring: Don't let the title fool you for a minute. While there is hot wax and a few "wheels", the zombies have no makeup except for an oil treatment that some of the actors received to give them that freshly hot waxed look. The basic premise of this film sounds promising enough, but as it turns out, there is no gore, and the zombies only want to remove unsightly body hair and then have sex. Like I said, it sounds promising enough, but this movie tries and tries and just seems to never be able to quite deliver. An S&M biker chick, Yvonne Wayne (Gwen Somers) moves into the small fishing village of Daneport, Oregon and opens a hot wax salon where "the first treatment is free, and guaranteed to last 6 months." One of the town rules for the town of Daneport is displayed on the screen at the beginning of the film and it states: "All single women over the age of 40 shall meet on the wharf the second Tuesday of each month for the arrival of the tuna fleet. Lipstick and deodorant recommended." So we get the idea that this is a small town dependant on fishing for it's income. Yvonne crashes a town council meeting which for some strange reason is located in a walk in freezer, and opens her cape to reveal her lace up bustier and lots of leather and skin. The men in the meeting immediately grant her a permit to operate her salon and the women in the meeting, while horrified, are powerless to stop the granting of the permit. The heroine of this story is a town council member, Sharon (Jill Miller), who also owns the town lingerie store. Her boyfriend is the town barber and their good friend is a guy who hangs out and looks dumb. Besides that the town is a bunch of oddball characters highlighted by two boat captains who sit around on benches, whittling away the hours and passing off every nautical cliche the writers could come up with. What happens next is of course people start to go to the salon for hot wax treatments. The hot wax treatments somehow change the citizens of Daneport into sex fiends who are now repulsed by body hair. Hair on the head and facial hair are okay, just not on the arms, legs, chest, etc. Sharon starts noticing how horny (and shiny) the townsfolk are becoming and before too long she figures out what is causing the strange behavior and recruits her friend to help take on the salon. Along the way her already horny barber boyfriend becomes a hot wax zombie as does Sharon's mother. The two sea captions burdened with endless cliche's know what evil doings are afoot however and they know how to defeat the hot wax zombies and save the townsfolk: The shavings from all of their whittling on yew trees de-zombiefies those afflicted with zombieism. Whew! Once Sharon becomes armed with this knowledge, she embarks on a campaign to rid the not only the town, but the entire world of the dreaded hot wax zombies. So she and her former friend and now new lover (Tre Lovell, a National Tae Kwon Do champion) hit the streets on their motorcycles and head towards Hollywood where the hot wax zombies have set up a shop. They crash the building and start spraying their yew shavings with the gas powered leaf blowers they have rigged up for the occasion and save all of the victims in the building. But the leader of the organization, Yvonne, manages to escape and leaves the film wide open for a sequel. Groan. This movie tries to be a campy mix of a Troma movie and the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but doesn't succeed on any of it. The gags simply are not funny and the lack of any blood or gore make for a boring ride. The few topless scenes are not even that sexy (save for one, when a girl gets her first hot wax treatment in bed). Now after tearing into the movie a bit I will give the makers of it credit for one thing, at least the movie has a more or less coherent story that moves along in an orderly fashion. This is saying a lot because most low budget films like this start just throwing scenes at you that have little to do with the story and a lot to do with the fact that the filmmakers thought they would be fun to include in the film. But, in the end, I was hoping for Chopper Chicks in Zombietown and ended up with a goreless, unfunny, Troma film. Sigh. The movie is presented in full frame and and most of the colors come across just fine, if not a little flat. The sound is Dolby Digital 5.1 and is a little uneven on the volume in parts. The extras on the disk include bios for all of the principles in the film and a gallery of stills. There is a also a full length commentary by the director, Michael Roush, Jill Miller and a couple others that is kind of fun and a good lesson on how to film a low budget movie in your house. So if you are looking for a bad, bad movie to tear apart with your friends one night and don't need much more than a few topless scenes to hold you over, this movie just might work for you. Besides that, I don't recommend it for anyone. I was bored most of the time and it was all I could do to not hit the fast forward button. |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
25 April 2003 |
