Saturday Night Special DVD review: Stripped to Kill (1987)

When Detective Cody Sheehan (Kay Lenz) discovers the body of a stripper from the Rock Bottom dance club, she wants the case. Her partner, Detective Heineman (Greg Evigan), is equally anxious to make the jump to the prestigious homicide division, but the only way Cody can get the assignment is to go undercover - uncovered - at the club. Stripped to Kill is written by Andy Ruben and Katt Shea who also is the director. The acting is decent and it´s always nice to see Kay Lenz on the screen, yup I got a soft spot for her. The camerawork and editing is pretty good but there are faults, there is especially one scene where Detective Heineman is on the phone and through bad editing it is very obvious that his lips ain´t moving but yet we hear his voice (the camera shifts angles and this is cearly visible during several shots). The music is... well during a few of the strip numbers I laughed out loud due to the music being so freakishly bad. What were they thinking?? The lack of a proper budget is very evident in the limited amount of sets and so on. The pacing is pretty good, which is hardly surprising as the running time is a mere 88 minutes. There is a twist and it isn´t too obvious who the killer is as we get multiple suspects.  Stripped to Kill has a pretty good sleazy atmosphere, especially in the scenes taking place at the Rock Bottom dance club.  There are a few drops of blood but no gore in this. As can be expected by the topic there´s gratuitous nudity in this. There are several prolonged scenes of boring and unerotic striptease. Kay Lenz gets topless here in a few scenes and she's absolutely beautiful. I must say that I was a bit surprised when finding out that Stripped to Kill is written and directed by a female considering the ample amount of nudity on display.
This review is based upon the region 1 DVD release from New Concorde.
Rating: 3½ out of 7. I enjoyed this, my only real complaint are that there are too many and overlong dance scenes. If you´re a fan of low-budget 80's exploitation the chances are good that you most probably will like Stripped to Kill.

/JL