The Stink of Flesh Review


Movie: The Stink of Flesh
By: Kries Tyfus
Date: November 21, 2011

The Smell of Instant Classic

I am, and always have been, a great admirer of low budget filmmaking. It’s movies like these that has to be reviewed in another sort of way. I mean.. it’s not like you’re going to watch a new Rob Zombie production or the latest slasher directed by Wes Craven while written by Clive Barker. So you give those people who try so hard extra credit already. You know, for all the hard work and effort they all put into it. Well, in some cases. And in most cases, it’s these type of movies you can already tell if it’s any good or so bad it actually starts to hurt by only watching the first 10 minutes. But thanks to myself I had picked this movie to write about, so I had no other choice.. did I survive this zombie invasion?

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To me, watching a low-budget horror flick is always more exciting than watching a big Hollywood production. Will there be different camera angles? Will there be a decent soundtrack? Any special effects maybe? I wonder how many people suck at acting. You know. I’ve seen a lot of them. I got this movie a while ago and I actually never heard of it. Never heard anyone talking about it either. Didn’t care about it for a long time. Until today, I finally put it in my dvd player.

The Stink of Flesh is about some Mexican guy named Matool, who is on the run for zombies. The whole town seems to be infected. He’s a smooth talker, a real ladies man and this macho dude even knows martial arts. Matool’s first scene is him being in a zombie fight. But thank God this guy has seen The Karate Kid too many times during his childhood and kicks some zombie butt. He then takes a hammer and nail and whacks it straight into the zombie’s head. Yes! Blood, splatter and gore within the very first 5 minutes! The camera takes some nice positions too. Even though the movie is of real poor homevideo quality, it doesn’t ever bother me at all. Matool’s acting is actually pretty good for a b-actor. Then he runs into some redhead gal who’s having trouble with her car and she is under attack by zombies as well. Matool doesn’t know the word ‘fear’ and yet again know how to deal with it. He takes her to his hiding place where other people are hiding out as well. When suddenly this place gets invaded by slow-walking creeps too, it’s every man for himself. Matool runs as fast as he can and gets hit by a car. The Mexican Hong Kong Phooey type of guy is now unconscious and is being tied up by the time he wakes up. There’s a guy named Nathan, along with a little kid that doesn’t speak much, or actually doesn’t speak at all. He has this eerie look in his eyes and seems pretty autistic to me. And then there’s Nathan’s wife named Dexy and they’re living in a barricaded home.

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Matool is now safe and in good hands. So he thinks. Nathan tells Matool that when the world is at the point of destruction, meaning all those dead things out there, it really doesn’t matter how to live your life anymore and demands Matool to have sex with his wife while he’s watching. I mean, what? That’s insane. But Matool doesn’t see any harm.. yet. It’s not only Nathan’s wife Matool has to serve sexual duties to. Dexy also has a sister. And I can tell you, it’s definitely no twin sister. Her sister is like.. Frankenstein and Seinfeld’s Cosmo Kramer having a little baby. Not to mention the fetus that’s still living inside of her. Now that’s something I’d like to call ‘disturbing’. It’s up to Matool where to spend the rest of his humble life. Inside the barricaded home of a pretty f*cked up dysfunctional family or outside where Hell is still breaking loose?

The Stink of Flesh is not the average zombie flick. It goes much further than just zombies eating the guts out of human beings. The movie is written and directed by Scott Phillips. I really don’t know who Scott Phillips is, but I now know that this guy has a pretty sick and twisted mind. And I like it. This movie contains zombies, a nice amount of blood, massive disturbing behaviour, semi-sexual content and even a zombie rape! A zombie rape for God sake!

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This movie also fits perfectly on a Saturday night while hanging out with some friends along with a few beers and eventually, when you’ve had about enough beer, a few laughs too. There are some nice one-liners in it. Like the scene Matool rescues the redheaded girl and he takes her to his hideout, holding her on his shoulders and he crashes the door to barge in. An old man sitting in their hideout says: “the door was locked for a reason”. And another great example is Matool remembering people to watch out for his glasses, whether he’s in a fight or having sex.

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So who cares the camera quality is bad and who cares most of the actors are bad? Do you like b-movies? Have you been a Troma fan as long as you can remember? Then The Stink of Flesh is a must-see. I started watching the movie expecting the worst, but it turned out to be pretty sweet. I think Scott Phillips has potential to make a bigger step to b-horror stardom, like Lloyd Kaufman and such. If he just comes up with more of this stuff, he’d be on the right track.


4/5




Movie

The Stink of Flesh

Title

The Stink of Flesh

Director

Scott Phillips

Country

USA

Year

2005

Cast

Kurly Tlapoyawa, Ross Kelly, Billy Garberina, Devin O'Leary