The Stink of Flesh Movie Review by Jordan

The Stink of Flesh starts with Matool (Kurly Tlapoyawa) battling a few zombies in a parking lot.  The action is intense as are the zombie FX.  Once Matool has dispatched the zombies he hears a woman screaming in the distance.  Being the brave guy that he is, he proceeds to save here from the multiple zombies that are attacking her and her brother.  Her brother unfortunately gets eaten but Matool manages to carry the girl off to a shack and busts his way in.  When the door breaks open he finds an old man with two kids sitting by his side.  After some witty and sarcastic banter between the two of them Matool proceeds to seduce the girl, but with no luck!  Then, for whatever stupid reason, the girl decides she wants to go back outside!  Well, needless to say it was a bad mistake and Matool gets the hell out of dodge.  As he is running away a truck driven by Nathan slams into him knocking him out.  Matool wakes up and gets dragged into a house where he formerly meets Nathan and his nympho wife Dexy (Diva).  From here the real fun begins and we learn exactly why the tag line of the movie is "How do you lead an alternative lifestyle when everybody's dead?".

Let me first say that the zombie FX in this movie are the highlight of the film.  You can definitely tell that they spent a LOT of time making sure the zombie effects were well done and believable.  I didn't see a single zombie that had crappy makeup so props to the special effects team on that one.  Most of the zombies have that bluish skin tone, much as it was used in 'Dawn of the Dead (78)'.  I especially liked the splatter effects from Matools giant nails through the head and all the head shots the zombies receive throughout the movie.

The characters were all very well done in my eyes.  I really liked Matool and his 'I'm-only-looking-out-for-#1' attitude.  Dexy was very good as the nympho/mother of the group, Nathan played a pretty decent role (although I thought at times that his performance was slightly forced).  The rest of the characters were all fairly well acted.  I thought Sassy was the creepiest of the bunch, and I won't tell you why as it's quite a shocking surprise!  Oh, and of course, the zombies ruled!  I REALLY appreciated the attention to detail in regards to how the zombies acted.  You could definitely see the 'Romero' influence on the zombies.  Slow moving shamblers but also some faster 'super' zombies thrown into the mix.  You all know that I am a Romero-zombie-purist, but the fast moving zombies that were in the film were done well, I wasn't disappointed in them at all.

Now, on to what I didn't like about the movie.  I thought, and I also gathered this opinion with the people I watched it with, was that the story was more about what goes on in the family than the actual zombie plague.  The pacing seemed to switch back and forth between zombie action and wild sex.  Now, that isn't always a BAD thing, but to me it was the weak point in the movie.  I didn't quite understand WHY the characters were where they were and how they came to be there.  Also, there didn't seem to be any motivation to do anything about the zombies...all they wanted to do was screw around.  Perhaps they were just accepting of what happened and decided 'Screw it, lets just enjoy our last few months/years on this earth by screwing'.  I'm not sure if that is what they were thinking, but as I said, that was the weakest part of the movie.  Also, as this was a pre-release edition it did have a temporary sound mix/score.  The songs that were used were effective, but there were many scenes where they seemed overly long just because there was a lot of silence.  However, I was made aware of that before I reviewed the movie so I'm not docking any points from the overall movie because of it.

All in all I was quite impressed with the movie.  Believable (and likable) characters, excellent zombie FX, great action and a cool setting!  To point out again, Scott Philips and the entire EDP team definitely appreciate and respect the work of other zombie-genre gurus (such as Romero).  It's really reflected in the well done zombie makeup and the handling of the characters.  I can say that I am GLAD to have this movie in my collection and suggest that once it is released in it's final form that you ALL pick it up!  It's well worth it!