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| With so many scantily-clad babes everywhere, it's like a wet dream... |
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It’s a scorching spring morning in London’s Croydon, and the inside of
porn impresario Larry Flynt’s Hustler
club looks like an explosion in an
abattoir. A half-naked pole dancer with
a gaping neck wound is screaming blue murder and another is rolling about on the stage with blood gushing from her slashed side.
The only thing standing between the terrified totty and
a pair of savage urban lycanthropes are
a shotgun-wielding stripper and her pal – who’s lashing out
with silver-heeled shoes. Amid the carnage, director Jonathan Glendening bellows excitedly, “More blood please! Bloody her up for me!”
From my elevated, out-of-shot position,
I’m happier than a pig in shit. This is exactly the kind of fucked-up scene I’d hoped to see when
I gained exclusive access to the Strippers Vs. Werewolves film set – and it’s only a rehearsal!
SCHLOCK! HORROR!
This latest comedy horror flick from
London-based production company Black & Blue Films follows in a similar vein to its previous frightmare, the gangster/vampire slugfest Dead Cert. But while that film was light on humour, Strippers Vs. Werewolves rips the piss out of
the horror and action genres.
The bloodbath
of laughs – which features the first ever UK performance by Robert ‘Freddy Krueger’ Englund (who sadly isn’t on set today) – kicks off with
a geezer who’s enjoying a lap-dance so much he suddenly sprouts fur, fangs and claws, and
is subsequently killed by having a silver pen banged through his eyeball. It’s a deliciously over-the-top scene that leaves a bloodthirsty pack of wolfmen baying for vengeance, and the strippers are top of their hit’n’eviscerate list.
Having given the green light to make Strippers Vs. Werewolves as soon as he saw the script, co-producer Jonathan Sothcott seems ecstatic with the filming so far, and he welcomes yours truly with open arms.
“Aside from having
a great, scary and silly concept, Strippers Vs. Werewolves is also highly commercial,” the self-professed werewolf fan explains. “Plus,
we simply don’t make this kind of Kick-Ass/Machete-style movie in the UK very often
– despite our rich heritage of madcap comedies.”
Sothcott’s enthusiasm is contagious. Although the club is more humid than Hell’s waiting room, people are throwing themselves into
their work, and the atmosphere is buzzing. Crew-members, some
of whom are wearing Teen Wolf T-shirts that they bought in the Primark store next door, empty blenders of fake claret over injured strippers’ wounds, prompting a squeal
of “Oooh, that’s so cold!”.
With so many scantily clad babes
everywhere, it’s like a wet dream come true.
But it’s Marc Baylis from TV show Sirens
(who plays mohawked punk werewolf Carlos) who catches my attention. After practising his best Sid Vicious snarl in a mirrored pillar, Baylis gets his dishevelled fuzz hair-sprayed back into place like a freaky supermodel, making me laugh so much I nearly wee myself.
CLOSE ENCOUNTER
As perfume-infused smoke wafts through
a baroque backdrop of red velvet drapes and ostentatious chandeliers, a call of “Action!” silences the set. Then the actors let rip through
a breathless succession of takes – each one more intense than the last, making everyone slide deeper into their roles.
Watching hot chicks and hairy monsters getting nasty with each other is thirsty
work. I bend down, fishing around
in my bag for
a can of caffeine-fuel, when a voice gruffer than a grizzly bear gargling grit asks, “Alright, mate?”
“I’m cool,” I reply,
and then look up to see
the ‘I could rip your fuckin’ throat out in a flash’ eyes
of a wolfman built like a brick shithouse.
“Mike Tyson called me the hardest white man on the planet,” he announces, and I don’t doubt him for a second.
“Put your hand in my side-pocket,”
he continues, with a leer and a growl.
I hesitate, not wishing to be the victim of
a practical joke. “Go on, I won’t bite,” he says.
I do as instructed, and the man-mountain continues: “Take a card.”
“Any card?” I reply.
The wolfman howls and laughs, then cracks
a vicious, fanged smile when I fish out a promo pic of him, sans fur, with Iron Mike… he’s only boxing demi-legend ‘Big Joe’ Egan!
Just then, moments before shooting yet another take of the scene, director Glendening walks by and notices that Egan’s chest wound looks a bit iffy. “I know werewolves are quick healers, but…” he says, immediately turning
to a special effects make-up girl and asking, “Have you got some of your giblets?”
She has – real, icky butcher’s shop giblets
– and once she’s sorted Egan out with a truly disgusting, gory wound, he crouches on his haunches, glowering at statuesque stripper Raven, played by Barbara Nedeljakova from
the Hostel movies.
With another shout of “Action!” the distressed-looking brunette splutters, “There are no more silver bullets!”
and Egan takes an almighty swipe at her with one of his huge, clawed paws. It’s a moment
of ‘beauty and the beast’ brilliance.
FANGS FOR EVERYTHING
During a break, while the stage is re-rigged,
the girls start milling about. A blood-spattered, knuckle duster-wearing Ali Bastian – who plays screaming stripper Dani – crouches at my feet, sipping water through a straw.
Just as I’m thinking, ‘You’re a long way from Hollyoaks’, Dead Cert’s Coralie Rose (slashed-up stripper Brandi) vaporises my thought with a smile
and a funny remark relating to the fact
that she’s drenched in fake blood.
“I’ve
got wet knickers,” she tells a female crew member. “It’s horrible, like when you come
out of the sea in your bikini.”
But as gorgeous as all the actresses are, it’s Emmerdale’s Adele Silva who proves to be the star of the show. Playing kick-ass stripper Justice, Silva is responsible for the day’s salacious sex fix. While rehearsing the next scene, in which she wields a shotgun as werewolves circle her and her claret-covered colleagues, Silva unexpectedly ad-libs to co-star Nedeljakova, “Let’s go for a kiss then.” Director Glendening is unsurprisingly delighted by her proposition. “Oh man!” he
grins, “a lesbian kiss with a gun! Yes!”
And guess what, the subsequently amended scene then needs more rehearsal… Funny that. But when the crew finally film the lip-locking moment, the heat is swiftly doused; Baylis’ werewolf gnashers fall out and everyone cracks up, laughing. “I was trying not to smile,” Baylis chortles, “because I could feel them slipping.”
And then my visit ends. But just as I’m
exiting stage left, thinking that Strippers Vs. Werewolves is going to be the most entertaining British horror comedy out this year, a sensuous yet gloriously demented-looking woman appears out of nowhere.
“Good afternoon, team,” she purrs, sashaying past. It’s Sarah Douglas, who plays foxy supervillain Ursa in the Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve.
Douglas has come to play the strip club madame who takes care of her girls and, wearing runny eye make-up and a ‘fingers in the electric-socket’ hair-do, she looks like a magnificent Suicide Girl, making my already huge smile so broad it threatens to split my face as I step back onto the street.
Strippers Vs. Werewolves is unleashed in cinemas this winter
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