Charming and brutal

Best movie of this year hands down!

A Major Disappointment

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Whoah! This is a very very bad film. Really, very very bad. In almost all aspects of the cinematic arts. Almost all? All! Decent, sensible folk (who wouldn't have rented it in the first place), will turn off after just a few minutes. And understandably so. But... for such a low-budget flick, "The Stink of Flesh" is actually fairly entertaining. Its biggest plus (and a pretty surprising one) is that it's decently written, again relative to its low-budget origins. The humor employed is mildly amusing - rising to 'quite' amusing on the odd occasion. And the plot, while glaringly unoriginal and dripping like a sieve, has the fun twist of characters who 'enjoy' taking on zombies - even seek them out - and having at them with hammers. Good stuff.Alongside the cheesy goofball humor, though, is plenty of dumbness. One particularly exasperating example is when one idiot character opens the door WHILE ZOMBIES ARE TRYING TO CLAW THROUGH IT, not only to meet her own inevitable death, but also inflicting death upon an old man and a young boy who had been sheltering in the cabin. One of those groan-inducing idiot characters you are glad gets wasted. Then, more dumbness: immediately following this, Matool is saved (well, he's knocked unconscious with a car door and thrown in the back of truck) by Nathan, who we met previously, who also has the other young boy from the cabin in the car with him. We should assume, I suppose, that Nathan had swung by the cabin and saved the young boy before smacking Matool in the face with his car door. I guess that's what happened, but on first viewing it just isn't convincing. It smacks of sloppy plot hole or, more likely, deleted scene. This movie is full of such stuff-ups. There's some woeful acting (young boy number 1), some misdelivered lines (the girl who escapes to certain death), some unconvincing writing (I said it was fairly well-written, considering, and it is, 'broadly' speaking; but it's certainly not without its gawkish moments), inconsistent and wrong-headed pacing (action action action followed by way too long showing pieces of wood being nailed across a door; or too long of a man laying in a hot tub etc.), and REALLY unconvincing make-up.But to focus on these negatives (and there are plenty more) is to do this particular film an injustice, in my opinion. This is a REAL low-budget job, made by some dudes for 'sh*ts and giggles' as they say - for the love of it! - and in doing so they've, yes been unable to include convincing special effects and expert acting, but have managed to make a fun film that doesn't take itself too seriously and reflects the fun had by those involved in its creation - as well as some future writing potential.By contrast, I very recently watched (and reviewed) "The Hidden 3D" which was made by experienced industry professionals with a much larger (though still not very large, admittedly) budget and access to CGI and many other benefits "The Stink of Flesh" didn't have the luxury of. Yet, on the level of creativity and writing and enjoyability, "The Hidden 3D" was a MUCH worse film. In fact it was utter cr*p! "The Stink of Flesh", while clearly flawed (understatement) ends up being an entertaining piece of C-grade 'home brew' and more worthy of this viewer's plaudits than sloppy, cookie-cutter snoozeramas like "The Hidden 3D" (and many others of similar ilk). In short: kudos to the makers. Hope you guys had fun. An open mind and VERY low expectations render this (barely) watchable schlock. But, hey, it's still better than...anything with David Caruso in it, for example. Cr*p, yes, but not the stinkiest kind. (Still, my vote is 3/10. I can't in good conscience grade this any higher.)Never mind. Just my two cents.

What the F? I mean : what the F? This movie is just.... awful. Special effects (?) and editing seem like mediocre college work. The image quality is reminiscent of an amateur video hobbyist. Make-up is just sad. Acting is atrocious. The story is not compelling. The characters are barely likable. The zombies are not convincing. The plot is completely uninteresting. The sex is gratuitous and reminiscent of the dullest of soft porn. The budget of this film is most definitely ultra-low. Hmmmm... What a waste of time! Why did I buy this film? Oh, I expected to see some semi-original humorist splatter fest like Braindead, Bad Taste, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzzor or *ahum* Dance of the Dead (while not a perfect movie by any standard, there was something likable about the effort). Another option was something reminiscent of From Dusk Till Dawn, Planet Terror or questionable Japanese gore like Zombie Self Defense Force, Battle Royale, Ichi The Killer, Machine Girl or the atrociously delirious Toyko Self Defense Force. Or maybe it was an attempt to jump on the bandwagon of 28 Days Layer, Land of the Dead, Zombie Diaries or Diary of the Dead. But no..... Even the disgusting, perverted, retarded crap that looks like it could only have come out of the psychedelic vision of a man with all sorts of weird fetishes that is Toyko Gore Police still is more pleasing to watch than this poor attempt at a film by someone who should never have cared to waste my attention... WTF?

If you don't have a budget for name actors or special effects, then you need a good script. Now, I don't know if I would call Scott Phillips script good, but it was certainly different enough.Matool (Kurly Tlapoyawa) is a Rock look-a-like that doesn't use guns because he says bullets are hard to find. He isn't nailin paylin, he is nailin zombies with a hammer and long nails. Long nails aren't hard to find? Hmmm.He manages to escape and ends up with a strange house full of people - Nathan (Ross Kelly), Dexy (Diva) and Sassy (Kristin Hansen). Nathan likes to watch, so Mandool is soon nailin Dexy, while Sassy spanks him with a plastic ruler.Sassy must be a siamese twin, as she had the face of her sister in her side. Yech! Nathan obviously doesn't have any skin mags, so he keeps a zombie naked and tied up Jesus-like in the shed to visit whenever he needs a kick. Unfortunately, he decides on day that he wants to do more than just look at her decomposing body. Big mistake, Nathan.Some soldiers manage to get to the cabin and soon they are all nailin Dexy. She even manages to get a little lesbian action with a female that shows up.All the while these kinky things are going on the countryside is crawling with zombies.If you like bloody body munching, and kinky sex, then this just might be your thing.

I was impressed for what this film is. Low budget zombie movie fun, with some unique twists. I had low expectations going in and was pleasantly surprised.Technically it has a spit and polish I'd expect from a higher budget. The lighting, sound, shots and makeup effects are really well done. I studied martial arts 18 years and the fight choreography isn't bad either, for what it is. Hong Kong cinema it's not but it's still pretty good. And it's not a mindless zombie flick. It actually has some depth, which I'll explain.Dexy is an excellent cast, IMO. She's full figured and while she doesn't look like what would be typically sexy, she exudes sexy psychologically. Her sexiness comes not through her looks or figure (unless you like full figured women) but through her appetite for and attitude about sex. She also exudes a caring and warmth. If you had a beautiful looking actress playing that part, the subtly would've been lost, I think. Personally, I'm a fan. I thought she was great.Ross Kelly is excellent as the brooding husband, turned on, yet disturbed by his wife's antics in the bedroom as he satisfies his own desire for flesh elsewhere.Matool is the only minority in the whole movie I think, so having a Hispanic in the lead is refreshing. Being introduced so strongly I thought his character kind of got "lost" as the movie progressed.The Stink of Flesh in an interesting title in that, the people are not that different from the zombies. Both crave flesh in a mindless, animalistic way that underlines its apocalyptic theme. Zombies aren't capable of ethics or morals and in the same situation neither are the people. All that's left is a desire for flesh and survival. You can't get much more basic in human behavior than eating and having sex and having the 2 parallel in a movie was really a fascinating twist. I just wish the story was presented better.There are some things that didn't make sense (to me anyway) and it was really one of only a few things that disappointed me. I thought some good acting and an excellent premise was wasted on the lack of cohesion in the story and plot.Zombies aren't angry. There's a sadness and emptiness that belies their behavior and zombie acting really is a unique perspective. I still look to Romero's films for the ideal zombie. I did like the idea of a "hyper - 28 Days Later" type of zombie. Zombies act through physiology and eyes... if they have eyes, so I feel the zombies could've been better, but that's being totally subjective. So the makeup effects sort of overshadows the zombie acting.There really is some disturbing stuff here that I can take or leave. Again being a little disappointed in the story I would've preferred more focus on story and characters and less peripheral stuff going on that added little to nothing to the story. But nonetheless a great effort. I really enjoyed it.