Movie Review: PEELERS Offers Black Goo, Blood, Boobs And VERY Little Else

It’s the end of days at the small-town strip club, “Tittyballs”, as its owner, former baseball player Blue Jean Douglas, prepares for the last night before she likely closes its doors for good. With the intent of moving on to greener pastures, Blue Jean is selling her bar and never looking back. Being that it’s her last night as owner she’s bidding the place a raucous farewell.
As the evening is just kicking off, a group of coal miners show up to do a bit of celebrating of their own. This four man crew believe that in the course of their digging for coal, that they’ve discovered a pocket of crude oil which could make them very wealthy. What they don’t realize is that the black ooze trickling through the rocks is actually a dangerous contaminant, which they have all come in contact with.
What should be a grand old send off for Jean as she prepares to ride off into the sunset,  ends up being a calamity of contamination and carnage.  Jean may be planning on putting this town in hear rear view mirror, but first she, her staff and her patrons need to fend off death and destruction to survive and see another day.
The story here is nothing new, and we’ve all seen some of its elements in other films In this instance they’ve been “Frankesteined” together and presented as a monster all its own. The first clue that this film is obviously trying in vein to pay homage of some sort, would have to be the name of the strip club, Tittyballs. Sort of makes one think of the Titty Twister, the bar featured in Robert Rodriguez’s film From Dusk Till Dawn. And the premise is kind of the same: patrons and staff going about business as usual until some horrific “shit hits the fan”.
Then there are gags and “humor”, particularly instances that relate to bodily functions displayed by the strippers, that turn out to be even more sophomoric than anything one would see in a movie like Porky’s. Perhaps sub-sophomoric would be a good way to put it. Then you have your “infected or “contaminated”, who wreak havoc on the bar. Now they’re not zombies per se, even though the poster(shown at the top of the article) uses devices like a barbed wire bat( Lucile?)  and an allusion to The Walking Dead  (“They won’t be WALKING long”) to bait zombie fans. I would liken these contaminated beings to the infected folks from 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. There are likely other references I could cite(Zombie Strippers, Return of The Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead, etc…), but I’m not going to beat a dead horse.
All of these borrowed components combined with any “original” bits still doesn’t make it any more entertaining to watch. And when creativity fails, boobs and gore aren’t nearly enough to distract a discerning viewer from a weak story and humdrum dialogue.
The acting, almost all the way across the board was average at best. I really wasn’t rooting for anybody to make it out alive. Generally in horror films there is a tendency to pick a side in a showdown of good vs. evil or human vs. monster/creature/infected. The only person of the bunch whose performance would even remotely  make you want to see her character emerge victorious was Wren Walker as Blue Jean. And although she was a strong and likeable character, I was rooting for myself to just make it to the end.
Some of the practical effects were impressive, especially in relation to some of the kills. And there is no shortage of fleshy and bloody viscera to gander at. But there were instances where blood effects ere obviously digital post effects that were weak sauce. Certainly there had to be some way to create the necessary blood spray using practical effects. I can’t be the only one to see this film, who feels this way.
Shooting an entire film in one particular location can be quite challenging especially if some scenes take place within confined areas. That’s why I need to give a nod to Lindsay George for her efforts on this film. If there’s one thing I do have to admit about this film, it’s that it was well shot. Ms. George…well done, you.
Well my Little Monsters, with all things being considered, if you’re looking for a horror film set in a bar that is gory and entertaining, watch From Dusk Til Dawn or Feast. Hey, don’t get me wrong…I love gory gross-out horror, and I like sophomoric humor and YES I like boobs…but this film just did NOTHING for me. 4 / 10