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Stripped to Kill II: Live Girls
USA 1989
produced by Andy Ruben, Roger Corman (executive) for Concorde
directed by Katt Shea
starring Maria Ford, Eb Lottimer, Karen Mayo-Chandler, Marjean Holden, Birke Tan, Debra Lamb, Jeannine Bisignano, Lisa Glaser, Tom Ruben, J. Bartell, Virginia Peters, Paisley Yankolovich, Al Guarino, Gregg Cooper, Charlie Wallace, Sandy Roth Ruben, Curtis Fairchild
written by Andy Ruben, Katt Shea, music by Gary Stockdale
Stripped to Kill
review by Mike Haberfelner
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When stripper Victoria (Lisa Glaser) is killed, her colleague Shady
(Maria Ford) thinks she did it, because she had a dream about Victoria's
demise, and has woken up with blood on her hands. Her roommate and best
friend Cassandra (Karen Mayo-Chandler) quiets her down of course, but she
can't shake the feeling there's something wrong with her. She even
confesses as much to investigating officer Dekker (Eb Lottimer), but he
doesn't really believe her - in fact he starts to date her before too
long. When another stripper (Debra Lamb) is killed and a trail again leads
to Shady (who's less than sure she didn't do it), but again, Dekker
follows other leads instead, like the one leading to the strip club's DJ
Ike (Tom Ruben) - who really is obsessed with one of the strippers, but
that's not enough of a reason to kill somebody. It takes a few more dead
strippers before Dekker finds out the real identity of Cassandra, and that
she might be in possession of mind-altering drugs (intended for chemical
warfare back in Vietnam) that she gave Shady to make her believe she did
it. In the finale, Cassandra is about to kill drugged Shady when Dekker
intervenes - to almost get himself killed too. In the end, it's actually
Shady who saves the day when she shoots Cassandra dead. Why did
Cassandra do it thouigh? Because she was in love with Shady and didn't
want to share her with other strippers. Despite the title and
most of the same creative team, Stripped to Kill II: Live Girls has
pretty little to do with Stripped
to Kill, apart from the strip club setting and a few supporting
actors returning, most notably Debra Lamb, who only had a very small role
in part one but gives the hottest dance performance (including
fire-eating) by a longshot in this one. And quite frankly, Stripped to
Kill II: Live Girls is the better movie. While the first one was a
tired copmovie with the strippers added for a bit of sleaze appeal, this
one really tries to come across as a labyrinthean thriller with its
splashes of surrealism and some bizarre imagery inserted to keep everyone
guessing. That said, Stripped to Kill II: Live Girls is hardly a
perfect movie: The culprit of the piece is just too predictable despite
everything, the love story between the cop and the stripper is as cheesy
as it is far-fetched and doesn't really click with the rest, and the
killer's motive is just off. In all, not bad but miles away from being a
masterpiece.
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