The Stink of Flesh (2005)

Director: Scott Phillips
Starring: Kurly Tlapoyawa, Ross Kelly Diva, Billy Garberina, Kristin Hansen

Low budget, trashy, gory, exploitation zombie porn flick – with a deep message (maybe).

Nathan and his wife have chosen to live an alternative lifestyle; she has sex with other men, he watches. Fair enough, they are all consenting adults. But difficult though maintaining the normality of your previous life is after a zombie plague, maintaining the UN-normality of your previous life could prove impossible – especially considering the secret Nathan has locked in the shed…

 

Here are two of my favourite things about zombie films: the Petri-dish like observation we can make of the dwindling, shell-shocked survivors as they adjust to their terrifying new reality, and the metaphor the whole zombie outbreak is for our lifestyle – racism (Night of the Living Dead), consumerism (Dawn of the Dead original), terrorism (Dawn of the Dead remake – the unthinkably brutal and violent impact on the soft banality of suburbia). Make no mistake, the Stink of Flesh (which is a simply fantastic title, by the way) is altogether less crafted and subtle than any of these but hidden beneath the sub-Tarantino style cutting and dialogue, and friends-of-the-directors zombie extras there is something of a subtext.

The Stink of Flesh is literally the stench of the zombies our survivors drag away from their refuge after they’ve despatched them with a bullet or nail through the head. But more interestingly the Stink of Flesh is also the wretchedness of the human condition; that the flesh is weak and we are at the mercy of the base needs of our flesh and blood. It is that makes us vulnerable and what often leads to our downfall – and what leads to the downfall of the SoF gang.

This isn’t to say that SoF is some sort of intellectual piece – nothing could be further from the truth; it’s trashy, gory and frankly, pervy. Writer / director Scott Phillips is a twisted one alright. He’s on fine inventive form here, treating us to some seriously warped situations. As well as the central voyeuristic husband scenario consider the following:

• Fast talking badass brawler, Matool with his big hammer and an ankle-strap nail holder (“bullets run out”)
• a naked zombie sex slave chained up in the shed for furtive “use” by a husband unable to have sex with his wife
• an arse-spanking sister with some kind of Siamese twin / stomach growth that demands to be kissed (yes, you did read that right).

Some of these scenes do veer a little too close to just plain gross-out territory and you really need to embrace the spirit of the whole thing. And directorial enthusiasm does brim over; take the sound track as an example. There are some great tunes – a lot of Texas-twang boogie, psychobilly and surf-punk – but they are often a bit too intrusive. Instead of enhancing a scene, they obscure it. And strangely, perhaps because of the overall peculiar feel of the film, SoF is never really scary. Even the most ludicrous of zombie films ought to have at least a few creepy or jumpy moments. The scene where a boy is in a car that gets surrounded by zombies could be quite disturbing – imagine zombies pounding on windows and a tearful boy scrambling to wind up windows and press down door locks – but unfortunately it comes over as flat.

The film ends in a loose, unfinished and unresolved way, which some may find disappointing.  Personally I think this works though – we observe survivors of the zombie plague scurry out of nowhere and encounter each other at the beginning…while at the end they simply scurry back off to nowhere. One might argue it points at a lack of imagination from the writer, but no resolution, no answers, no grand plan fits well an apocalyptic zombie world.

Basically, the Stink of Flesh is a fun gore ‘n porn romp, though frequently you get the impression that making it was a lot more fun than actually watching it. That said, it does have a charm, it’s certainly got a lot of energy, and it even has an underlying theme (probably).

Soundtrack

As I said, SoF has a cracking soundtrack – it’s not available for purchase though, and I’ve not seen it listed anywhere except on the end credits of the film.  Here it is copied from there – together with a few of the artist URLs

Angry Johnny and the Killbillies
www.getangry.com

• I brought you some roses

• Walking Alone
• A Love More True

Lonesome Kings
www.lonesomekings.com

• Hell’s What I’m Used to

• Through the Devil’s eyes

 

Rudy “Boy” Jaramillo 

• Love her with a Feel
• Rio Grande Blues
• Matool’s Smooth Groove

Soda and His Million Piece Band
www.sodaband.com

• July
• Sinnerman
• Christine
• Lakeshore

Boot Hill

• Code of the West
• Go-go

Noah Wolters

• Sassy’s Theme

 

Favourite Scene

Zombie concubine is not in her chains any more.

Favourite Quote

Sassy: I have to have one scary thing to remind me not all people are nice

Film Rating

2.5 / 5

Adherence to the Lore

4/5

Pretty good actually. Zombies shuffle and moan. There’s some talk of a faster, cleverer “hyper-zombie” but we never really see it.