If I told you that a low-budget direct-to-video horror flick about nurses who've been infected by alien phalluses, only to become sex-crazed, sugar-obsessed zombie chicks, was "pretty darn bad," what would your response be?

"Dude, what did you expect?" is the answer I'm looking for.

Candy Stripers, directorial debut of a woman who's produced much better flicks than this one, is an entirely amateurish affair from stem to stern. What sounds like gravy on paper -- alien-infected murder-nurses run wild! -- turns out to be a misshapen mass on celluloid.

That the performances range from "mildly amusing" to "downright embarrassing" is not a suprise, nor were the moronic dialogue, the deadly pacing, or the dime-store special effects. In fact, there's nothing at all surprising about the lameness of Candy Stripers. Even the fact that Sony bought the thing for the video market seems pretty much par for the course.

As low-end horror flicks go, Candy Stripers isn't as aggressively worthless as many of its brethren, but I doubt that many gorehounds will hit the end credits thinking they've found some "buried treasure." Points for trying to jam a "sense of humor" into the grungy affair, but you'd need some actual "humor" for that approach to work.

To its credit, Stripers doles out some goopy gore and intermittent ta-tas, if only to keep the cheese-fans awake, but the thing takes a potentially cute concept and grinds it into the ground well before those end credits manage to arrive.

The DVD

Video: It's a non-terrible anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) transfer.

Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 English, with optional subtitles in English and French.

Extras: Just a bunch of Sony trailers.

Final Thoughts

The flick's about killer nurses, and the DVD cover says "They're running out of patients." This obvious little pun is cleverer than anything hidden within Candy Stripers' 80-some minutes of running time.