CHOPPER CHICKS IN ZOMBIETOWN (1989)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

Given the title alone, one might hope that CHOPPER CHICKS IN ZOMBIETOWN would prove a rousing "so bad it's good" gonzo flick. And writer-director Dan Hoskins (who has only one other credit on IMDB) supplied all of the ingredients. But the resulting "dish" feels undercooked.

Take as contrast another "motorcycle mamas" flick from the same year, David O'Malley's EASY WHEELS. Though the gang of femme-bikers undertake a weird mission-- abducting infants to found a Lesbian Nation-- they have a common cause, because they're all lesbians opposed to "heteronormative" society.

In ZOMBIETOWN, though, only the leader Rox (Catherine Carlen) is a self-described "dyke," and the other five members of "the Cycle Sluts" are only linked in having tragic backstories of some sort, which are implicitly the reasons they took up life on the road. One may loosely assume that Rox came across all of them and invited them to join her merry band. But since Rox is not sleeping with any of them, and treats them all with contempt rather than feelings of deep sisterhood, one wonders why Rox bothered in the first place.

Despite the primacy of Rox in the hierarchy, the movie centers upon her "number two" girl Dede (top-billed Jamie Rose, three years after headlining the teleseries LADY BLUE). The film opens on the Sluts motoring their way through the American Southwest and deciding to stock up on supplies in the small town of Zariah. Dede doesn't want to visit Zariah, and it's soon revealed that it's the home town she ran away from, complete with her early reputation (she was the town's homecoming queen) and her former husband Donny (an early non-starring role for Billy Bob Thornton). In addition, most of the residents hate the bikers on sight and want them to leave, though one of the younger babes manages to arrange an Afternoon Delight with a local boy.

But both the Sluts and the solid citizens are placed in mutual peril when the mad mortuary owner (Don Calfa) and his dwarf assistant lose control of the revivified zombies that Mortuary Guy has been using to work the local mine. The zombies begin besieging the town, and when they're not doing the Romero schtick of eating brains they run through the motions of acting like they're still alive. 

The Sluts have the chance to simply get on their bikes and ride away,. However, one of them surrenders her life to oppose the zombies. This is Jewel (Vicki Frederick), whose backstory implies that she may have had a child by her own dad. Her deflected maternal instincts on behalf of living people cost her life, but her sacrifice places the rest of the Cycle Sluts in the position of becoming reluctant heroes. They also end up rescuing a bus full of blind orphans (just to hit all the hero-cliches) and enlisting the help of the mad scientist's dwarf. He too has a sad backstory, since the scientist promised he could make the little guy regular-sized. He supplies the heroines with another Romero-derived nugget: that the zombies stop moving if you punch, shoot, burn or bludgeon their heads off.

There's not nearly enough action to allow ZOMBIETOWN to compete even with EASY WHEELS, much less even the original, cheaply-made NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. But there are some decent zombie-clobbering scenes and a fair number of jokes land. Rose and Carlen are the only perfomers who get any decent acting-scenes or action-scenes, including the obligatory "catfight for supremacy." 

The feminist elements in the script are somewhat undermined by the tongue-in-cheek attitude, but, when all's said and done--

Still better than THE MARVELS.