Audience Member
Katt Shea was in My Tutor, Preppies, Hollywood Hot Tubs and Barbarian Queen before working with Andy Ruben to make The Patriot for Roger Corman. She'd go on to direct several films and even earn a four-day retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, where Poison Ivy debuted. You can check out her movies Dance of the Damned, Stripped to Kill II: Live Girls, Streets, Last Exit to Earth, The Rage: Carrie 2, Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase and Rescued by Ruby.
While working undercover, Cody (Kay Lenz) and her partner Sergeant Heineman (Greg Evigan) are too late to save Angel (Michelle Foreman), a dancer who has been thrown off a bridge and set on fire. Of course, this means that Cody must become Sunny, dancing at the Rock Bottom for its owner Ray (Norman Fell).
As she gains the trust of the dancers, they're all being killed one by one. Cody keeps dancing at the club, defying the orders of her superiors, sure she can catch the killer. Is it Pocket, the one handed creep? Is it Angel's lover Roxanne (Pia Kamakahi)? And how does Roxanne's brother Eric fit in?
In a New York Times article, Shea explained how she was inspired by a trip to a strip club: "I didn't want to go because I felt it was humiliating to women. But I finally got myself there. I sat down and began watching these acts and they're performing as if they really cared."
So — spoiler: Roxanne is dead. Eric is Roxanne, taking over her life as he was sure Angel would take his sister away. You can imagine that this is incredibly problematic, as they say, but it's also a Roger Corman movie. In fact, Corman was convinced that only a woman could be a convincing woman on stage. Shea surprised him and showed him up by fooling him. She would later explain: "He [Corman] turned every shade. He was purple by the end."
Also, as this is a Corman movie, all the songs that are danced to in this film were added in post-production. They had been filmed with popular songs, but those songs had to be replaced in post, because clearing licensing would be too expensive.
Shea worked with real exotic dancers, teaching them to act. Debra Lamb was one of them and she has been in plenty of movies since this, including Deathrow Gameshow, All Strippers Must Die! and Point Break, often displaying her fire-eating skills. Shea works as an acting teacher to this day, with students including Christina Applegate, Alison Lohman, Sophia Lillis and Drew Barrymore.
She also claims that this was the first movie to show pole dancing.
It would not be the last.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
victor o
I noticed this movie on websites advertising the poster. You never judge a book by its cover, but I decided to check who was in it. I recognized no one except for the producer, Roger Corman. I love some of his works, B-movie king that he is and with the movie set in a strip club I was more than curious.
A violent murder has happened, the victim was a stripper, and this draws a female police officer from the vice squad to solve the murder. She goes undercover and gets the lay of the land, so to speak. Getting acquainted with the dancers, the owner, and finally gets her break in the case. All this while more murders happen, and her partner is giving her orders to back off as well as leads that end up nowhere until the truth is revealed.
Basic undercover cop story but without any real acting. Kay Lenz is a fine-looking woman in the movie, but she seems to be too gruff for her good. It was funny seeing Norman Fell from Three's Company in this as the strip club manager. Plus, the revelation at the end, whoa. Not a good movie.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Kay Lenz adds a bit of class to this exploitation thriller.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
STRIPPED TO KILL by Katt Shea embodies the later '80s excess of the slasher genre. Strippers are being murdered, so a hot, young female detective goes undercover as a dancer. It is trashy and fun with some technical issues. This is Shea's first movie; although SLUMBER PARTY was Amy Holden Jones' first and much better. The dance sequences are pretty awesome. There's much more of a burlesque element than I was expecting.
The lady detective's partner/love interest was a real downer. He tricks her into doing topless dancing as a 'joke,' and they literally have a conversation where he says, "You're too emotional." She goes, "Well, you know what I need." Cue love scene (and give me a barf bag). The twist ending (SPOILER) is a little too close to Robert Hiltzik's SLEEPAWAY CAMP and Brian De Palma's DRESSED TO KILL, and, I swear I never thought I would say or write this, the whole picture is significantly less classy compared to DRESSED TO KILL. Still fun though!
Katt Shea did some nearly notable movies later, mostly latter day exploitation fare like POISON IVY and THE RAGE: CARRIE 2. She recorded a video to play before the movie at Cinefamily, stating that she loved working on STRIPPED TO KILL and was excited that we were watching her film. She also said she was working on a new project, but I'm not sure if it's a film as she hasn't directed anything since 2001.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/30/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Sensitive drama about the very real struggles faced by female police officers who have to go undercover as strippers to catch murderers.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/23/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Stripped to Kill is, hands down, one of the worst horror movies I've ever laid eyes on. Well, at least I think it's a horror movie. It may be more of a thriller. Whatever it is, it's not effective at all. About 80% of this movie is strippers stripping. I wouldn't complain except that that's not why I'm watching this. I'm watching it for the thriller and horror aspects and not the T&A. It goes way overboard with it to the point of frustration. You just want to get on with the story. Not only that but the film is so terribly shot and edited. I've never seen a microphone dip into a finished film so many times. The editing is too quick also. Too many quick cuts in between lines, and the dialogue doesn't make sense a lot of the time. More thought and time is put into the stripping portions than anything else. What looked like it would be some dumb fun turned out to be an exercise in frustration. I dare you not to shut this one off.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
Full Review
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