Strictly z-grade stuff from writer-director Scott Philips, responsible for such straight-to-video fare as CRYPTZ and SCIENCE BASTARD (2002) , HORRORVISION, and so on. Despite the claims on the box ('Better than 28 Days Later!') STINK is clearly not in that league, although it now remains a favourite gross-out title, along with the likes of SHRIEK OF THE MUTILATED and ENTRAILS OF A VIRGIN. STINK is handicapped by some low rent acting talent, although the film benefits from an excellent rock score, reasonable photography and special effects, as well as an intriguing storyline. The catchily named Kurly Tlapoyawa plays Matool, a man who prefers the excitement of fistfighting zombies before driving big nails through their skulls to the less stressful, and more common means, of just shooting them straight in the head. After one grisly encounter, from which he is sole survivor, he stumbles onto the retreat of a swinging couple and a sister, still managing to maintain their alternate lifestyle during the current flesh eating apocalypse. Stranger still, the sister has a mutant head growing from her belly. Soon they are joined by soldiers carrying one of their wounded, shortly zombie-to-be, comrade in arms, and the swinging couple duly expand their activities - including the husband, whom we incidentally discover keeps a zombie chick in his shed for his private pleasure.. Whether or not the film intends a satire on a liberal lifestyle, the intrusion of such an idea makes a pleasant change from the usual concerns of the genre, and the vaguely communal life style of the uninfected is intriguing, even if Philips' script runs out of steam at the end, wrapping things up too abruptly. But as a film it is entertaining and rarely boring, quite playful in its own way and the rumpy pumpy inside, while the zombies bump up against the refuge outside certainly makes for some novel suspense...
