Too much of everything

Great Film overall

As Good As It Gets

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

When a stripper by the name of "Angel" (Michelle Foreman) is raped and murdered, "Detective Cody Sheenan" (Kay Lenz) goes under cover and auditions at the strip club in the hope that she can find some clues that will help capture the perpetrator. Backing her up is her partner "Detective Heineman" (Greg Evigan) who keeps his eye on her and makes no secret of the fact that he enjoys her topless performances. Anyway, as far as the merits of the movie are concerned this particular one appeared to just meander from one scene to another and lacked cohesion, passion, eroticism and suspense. Along with that there seemed to be too many characters without any development and simply weren't necessary for the movie. Likewise, the ending was totally bizarre and unrealistic. Even so I liked the performance of Kay Lenz and Norman Fell (as the nightclub owner named "Ray") and because of that I have rated the movie a bit higher than it probably deserved. Slightly below average

What happens when you hire a competent female writer/director to make a low-budget T&A horror-thriller with a strip club setting? You get compromise, and a kind of tug-of-war effect between exploitation and realism. While this one has a more-than-generous amount of T&A and violence, it should also be given credit for delivering a gritty, credible and often unflattering look inside a strip club and the women who populate it. The dancing is explored for all its worth and from all possible angles; exploitation, entertainment, eroticism, even as art. Some of the dancers view their occupation as being a way to express themselves through dance while others think of it as just a paycheck for another night's work. A few are lesbians, some have drug problems, most have criminal records and a few even seem like reasonably well-adjusted women who find stripping unpredictable and exciting.The club itself is so atmospherically represented that you can almost smell the cigarette smoke in the hallways. The door of the girl's dressing room, the congregation place where the girls change, bitch about customers, reflect on their lives and pasts, etc., has "Women" scratched out and "Sluts" amusingly spray-painted over it. Much of the dialogue between them is laced with cynicism, no doubt based on a life's worth of problems, failures and disappointments. All of the girls are given just enough personality to be likable and what seems seedy at first eventually turns into a somewhat accommodating place for outcasts of all types once the heroine of this film gains employment as one of the dancers.The heroine is question is a reserved tomboy policewoman played by Kay Lenz, who goes undercover at the club when a serial killer begins targeting the strippers. Sure, we've seen this exact same plot many times before (at least I have), but this movie takes it a step further. Not only is Lenz trying to crack the case but her character is learning and opening up in the process. This assignment allows her an outlet from the male dominated police force and the opportunity to explore her femininity and sexuality. She also discovers an odd kinship and inner working between the women and gets a little too involved on a personal level. It's an interesting role and Lenz (a sorely overlooked actress over the years) is great in it. And yeah, she does several nude scenes and looks great doing so, but it's a thoughtful, very good performance that doesn't rely on her couple of nude scenes to be memorable. Norman Fell also has a great supporting role as the no-nonsense club owner, who's every bit as dry and world-weary as his girls.The biggest gripe I see about this film is that there are too many dance scenes and they're too long. This is no doubt just filling producer Corman's quotient of T&A for direct-to-video profit. Well fine, we get the naked girls and get the stripping. Plenty of each. What I don't see usually pointed out is that the dance scenes themselves are entertaining. They usually incorporate some interesting props (motorcycles, fire, a giant spider web...) or have a specific theme and with the lighting mixed in, it does come off as performance art at times. In addition, you can tell the women hired in these roles are actually either professionally trained dancers or actual strippers (or ex-strippers) because their stage performances incorporate flips, splits and a flexibility that requires dance training. The soundtrack is full of dated 80s-style rock, usually with a female vocalist, but it's tolerable. The biggest gripe I had with the film is that the slasher movie plot seems almost an unnecessary afterthought. I was far more interested in the everything else that was going on that I almost lost complete interest in who was actually killing the strippers.Without question, Katt Shea Ruben is one of the most talented writer-directors Roger Corman employed in the 80s and 90s. She was one of the few with the ability to transcend the formulaic material and anemic budgets to create films that are distinctive, thoughtful, personal and interesting. And like many other notable cult/underground directors, she has never, and may never, receive much recognition or attention, and that's a true shame. I especially recommend her films DANCE OF THE DAMNED (1988; an intriguing and original vampire film which has sadly slipped into obscurity over the years) and STREETS (1990; a grim drama/thriller starring Christina Applegate). While STRIPPED TO KILL might not be as impressive as the aforementioned films, and a bit more weighted down and padded out, it's still a bright starting point for the director and well worth checking out.

Stripped to Kill starts with stripper & lesbian Angel (Michelle Foreman) telling fellow stripper & lesbian Roxanne (Pia Kamakahi) that she needs to tell her Brother that they are an item, Roxanne is hesitant as her Brother Eric is very attached to her. Angel receives a phone call from Roxanne later that night asking her to meet her on a bridge, once there Angel is attacked, raped, has petrol poured over her & set alight. Detectives Sheenan (Kay Lenz) & her partner Heineman (Greg Evigan) are witness to the incident but the killer escapes. When questioned Angel's fellow strippers are reluctant to speak openly to the police so there is no option but for Sheenan to go undercover in Angel's strip club, the Rock Bottom, as a stripper herself. Her partner Heineman is in the audience every night looking at the acts & keeping an eye on Sheenan (it's a dirty job but someone's got to do it). Then another stripper named Cinammon (Carlye Byron) is found brutally murdered, Sheenan & Heineman fear that a serial killer may be on the loose...Co-written & directed by Katt Shea I thought Stripped to Kill was a pretty dull murder mystery. The script by Shea & co-producer Andy Ruben would have been far better as an hour long TV program rather than a 90 minute feature film, the central idea is alright & the actual twist ending when the killer is revealed is quite clever, fairly unexpected & pretty satisfying but there's just too much padding. My overall impression of Stripped to Kill is that there was a 30 minute murder mystery in there at best with the rest of the running time being eaten up with strip club routines which become boring & tedious, I can't believe that I just described women going topless as boring & tedious but that's how I felt after the fifth one. They are overlong, their boring & not very erotic either, in a time when anyone can download all sorts of porn on the internet the acts in Stripped to Kill are really tame. Eventually the constant strip scenes get in the way of the film proper.Director Shea doesn't do anything particularly great but Stripped to Kill has a pretty sleazy atmosphere set in strip clubs & all the main character's are strippers, although few in number the murders are really quite brutal & effective. The films look has dated badly with a late 80's vibe to it, lots of bad music, hairstyles & clothes. There's a slit throat but otherwise there isn't much gore. There are plenty of topless ladies but no one goes full frontal or anything like that.Technically Stripped to Kill is OK, it's competent enough & it's generally well made throughout. The acting was OK, everyone played their parts well enough.Stripped to Kill was an average murder mystery that at it's heart has a decent story with a nice climax but the constant strip club routines became boring as did the really bad music that accompany them, worth watching but nothing particularly special. To add to his seemingly endless list of credits Roger Corman executive produced.

Those of you (And myself included) that enjoy sleazy and low budget exploitation films will find it difficult to ignore this little gem. How can you not be interested in a film about strippers, murders, and a well known actress cast in the lead that also strips? Admit it, you can't! Story is about Detective Cody Sheenan (Kay Lenz) who along with her obnoxious partner Heineman (Greg Evigan) accidentally come across a stripper being burned to death but the murderer gets away. The dead stripper works at the Rock Bottom strip joint and Heineman gets an idea of convincing Cody to go undercover there and find out what she can. Cody can't dance and is not sure about her fellow cops looking at her topless but she decides to do it. Heineman makes sure that she wins amateur night that enables her to get hired by the club owner Ray (Norman Fell) who gives her an opportunity despite her terrible dancing. *****SPOILER ALERT*****Cody gets to know each of the girls and the dead stripper turns out to be the lover of Roxanne (Pia Kamakahi) who is also a dancer there. After time passes Cody starts to perfect her dance routines and actually becomes pretty good. Unfortunately her superiors tell her to stop but she doesn't want to because it seems to have liberated her and also she feels that she is getting closer to finding the murderer.This film is directed by Katt Shea Ruben who is competent at making entertaining low budget efforts but one of the flaws in this film is the amount of dancing that takes place. Every stripper in this film has her routine shown and it's not cut down in length at all. Each of the dances goes on and on for countless minutes. This film was co-produced by Roger Corman and it never ceases to amaze me how Corman can get a popular actress in his projects and get them to take their clothes off. To this day people are still talking about Angie Dickinson's nude scenes in "Big Bad Mama". Kay Lenz gets topless here in a few scenes and she's absolutely beautiful to look at but she's also a very good actress even in low budget junk like this and she's pretty good here. One thing that I did not buy was the forced romantic angle of the film between her and Evigan. He comes across as a big sleaze bag and he actually lies to Lenz about her assignment to go undercover and get topless which turned out to be for his own benefit. She was never assigned and she got topless for nothing! Some partner! I don't want to knit pick too much on a film like this because it's too easy so I'll just mention again that Lenz looks great and does a good job and Fell is fun as the grouchy club owner. This film also has an ending that you won't see coming so there is enough going on here for me to recommend it.