Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Keira Brennan The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

RavenGlamDVDCollector Typically Roger Corman. A great title, promising subject, a brilliant poster, but ultimately, not remotely as good as you hoped it would be.Saw it during the early Nineties when it hit our video circuit. I am a South African, and pictures like this couldn't get past our Draconian censors (churchgoing elders, you know that painting, 'American Gothic'? Something like that!) during 1987.I have largely forgotten the movie, just remembered the title and that it had an eye- catching poster. Took me years and years to find it on DVD. Watched it this afternoon. It has good moments. But more bad moments.First off, strippers and slasher movies, aw for crying out loud, what a sick society! This is the only way to make it acceptable to feature a stripper movie? If they are brutally killed? I could give Freudian lectures on that one.There is some very nice bodies on the stage. As my regulars would know by this time, I go for classy, dainty chicks, long legs, nice hair, fine features, and some of those are here. Not all. But the DVD has kinda dull picture quality, image starts jumping twice for a while, and it all looks like it's been converted from a shoddy film projector to VHS to DVD, and without my prerequisite picture sharpness, I keep staring aghast at the image I paid Big Bucks for to have it imported from Amazon through local big shark WantItAll, and it looks like it has been through every drive-in theater in the Southern States. So I'm not thrilled at this moment in time. It must have looked a whole lot better back in 1987.My main point? Look at the title. Something much better could have been done. The kind of people who would unreservedly like this kind of movie, voyeurs who also like gore, is a very creepy group. I am that one kind of pervert, but definitely not the other. Perhaps if you had a story of girls that go missing at a strip club, and Detective Cody posed undercover uncovered, yeah. I am that kind of pervert, but all these violent deaths, bloody faces, burning bodies... Aw shucks man. Or, aw shucks m'am, for the director was (a just as bad) woman. Most people attending this show is there to see the girls, and (hopefully!) not to see the blood, so why couldn't they have been pandered to properly?SPOILER bit: I'll watch it again, but that guy couldn't have been his own sister. We saw him spying on her, and hugging her. Yeah, I watched a fuzzy movie and I am confused.

Scott LeBrun Somebody is murdering the sexy lady dancers at a low rent strip club in L.A. Ambitious undercover detective Cody Sheehan (Ms. Lenz) decides that she wants the case, and her cheerfully sleazy partner Heineman (Greg Evigan) gets the bright idea to have her pose as a stripper. She wins a gig at the aforementioned club - despite not being much of a dancer - and eventually starts to find that she may be enjoying the prospect of being uninhibited for once.This stylish movie marked the directing debut for actress Katt Shea. She co-wrote this with her now ex-husband Andy Ruben and went on to direct such things as "Dance of the Damned", "Poison Ivy", and "The Rage: Carrie 2". With Roger Corman as the executive producer, this is engaging, deliberately seedy entertainment. The low budget helps to create a spare, sordid atmosphere, enhanced by the music by John O'Kennedy. Yes, there may be a fair amount of the running time here devoted to protracted dance numbers, but they *are* erotic and well choreographed, with the ladies showing off some great moves.The lovely Ms. Lenz does a creditable job in the lead. Her character is reasonably strong, in the tradition of Cormans' productions which were often as empowering as they were exploitative. Evigan is amusing and engaging as the somewhat chauvinist Heineman. A glum looking Norman Fell of 'Three's Company' fame wearily walks through his role as the club owner. There are some tantalizingly sexy ladies in the supporting cast; character actress Diana Bellamy has a particularly fun role as a gruff police dispatcher, while exploitation buffs will recognize actor Brad David (who plays the D.J.) from the 70s movies "The Candy Snatchers" and "The Curious Case of the Campus Corpse".Thankfully, some viewers may actually be caught off guard by the reveal of who the killer is, or at least how they avoided detection for so long.Overall, this is an enjoyable B picture for lovers of the genre.Seven out of 10.

capkronos 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.

brandonsites1981 A cop goes undercover and uncovered at a local strip joint to find out who is killing the dancers. Shockingly enough, the dance numbers are far too excessive considering this was written and directed by a female. It does however have character development, realisitc dialogue, and it is even a bit thought provoking too! Followed by an inferior sequel.