[BD Review] ‘Strippers vs. Werewolves’ is an Overproduced Mess
Reviewed by Michael Ferraro
Perhaps applause is in order for director Jonathan Glendening. His newest feature, the tantalizing Strippers vs. Werewolves, may be the most overproduced student film ever made. It features tons of tropes and stylistic editing choices even students from NYU would scoff at.
Case in point: the film begins as most films do, introducing characters and such. Only, instead of letting the film and characters speak for them selves, each character is introduced by their name (character name that is) being thrown onto the screen as they appear. It’s as if the filmmakers were already expecting you not to be paying attention to the film five minutes into it.
How can this be? Have they never watched a film before? Were they scared that audiences would expect a film with this title to not be taken seriously? They were correct about that latter question but still, people are going to expect some quality cheese when they pop this into their players. Instead, we get a humorless comedy, a thrill-less thriller, and some awkward editing. Hell, we sat through Zombie Strippers (and maybe even Zombies vs. Strippers) without question. Adding werewolves to the formula probably seemed like the right thing to do.
Strippers vs. Werewolves begins at the Silvadollas strip club, where business seems to be pretty good. Justice (Adele Silvia) is doing her job, pleasing a seemingly odd fellow in a private room, when he starts acting weird. For Justice, his craziness is at levels she isn’t quite used to, so she defends herself by stabbing the dude in his eye. We soon learn, however, that this guy, Mickey, is part of a violent wolf pack who soon learns of his death, and takes to the club in a violent fit of revenge.
The big plot twist? One of these evil wolves is engaged to sweet Justice. So will the clan ignore their brother and destroy these strippers? Of course they will (hence the title).
The Blu-ray contains a short behind the scenes extra and a pretty entertaining commentary with producers Jonathan Sothcott and Simon Phillips. I almost recommend you watching it with the commentary instead of by itself. Also, be on the lookout for a Robert Englund appearance (because if you blink, you might miss it).
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