Last month, Full Moon gave the world CORONA ZOMBIES, a Coronavirus-themed movie they were able to make in the midst of the lockdown by combining newly shot scenes with stock footage from the 2012 Full Moon release ZOMBIES VS. STRIPPERS and dubbed clips from the 1980 Bruno Mattei film HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD. Just a few days after the release of CORONA ZOMBIES, we broke the news that a sequel is on the way, one that deals with both the Coronavirus and one of the most popular pieces of entertainment people have been distracting themselves with during the lockdown: the Netflix docu-series Tiger King.
The sequel is titled BARBIE AND KENDRA SAVE THE TIGER KING, and brings Cody Renee Cameron and Robin Sydney back as their CORONA ZOMBIES characters. Now Deadline is reporting that Cameron and Sydney are being joined in the cast by Leslie Jordan, who genre fans may know from his roles in JASON GOES TO HELL, DEMONIC TOYS 2, and episodes of American Horror Story, and John Reinke, who was in the Tiger King documentary and was one of the zookeepers employed by the now-very-famous Joe Exotic.
Shot during the lockdown "using creative pandemic parameters", BARBIE AND KENDRA SAVE THE TIGER KING has the following synopsis:
After narrowly escaping the contagious catastrophe of the CORONA ZOMBIES, ditsy American beauties Barbie and Kendra battle their deadliest foe yet: social distancing boredom. Hooked on binge-watching a television show about a man and his tigers on a nature channel, the two ladies hatch the perfect plan to save the Tiger King himself! From the living rooms of LA to the wilds of Africa, our dynamic duo embark on a curve-flattening journey to free Joe from a fate worse than Carole Baskin!
It's a bungle in the jungle as Barbie and Kendra continue their quest to survive the panic of the pandemic in this, the next Coronasploitation caper from the studio that NEVER sleeps, Full Moon!
Reinke appears in the film as himself, talking with Barbie and Kendra through a Zoom call. Jordan's character is Lil' Joe Exotic, a child who is stranded in the Amazon jungle after a plane crash.
The satirical character is inspired by the real-world Joe Exotic from the Tiger King and is forced to defend himself from dangerous wild animals, ruthless poachers and an angry, competitive native boy as he realizes that Lil Joe has been chosen by the great Tiger God to become the heir to the Tiger King throne.
Like CORONA ZOMBIES, this film will include "re-dubbed footage from obscure films, along with new footage and existing news footage." It appears that Jordan is providing a vocal performance for the re-dubbing of clips from an older film, so I don't think we'll actually be seeing the sixty-something man play a child in the movie.
BARBIE AND KENDRA SAVE THE TIGER KING will be released exclusively through the Full Moon Features channel and app on May 15th.