Soho Horror Film Fest 2025 Coverage
Stinker review.
E.T. with a lot more feces.
Festival movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Stinker
Directed by Yerden Telemissov
Written by Yerden Telemissov and Sergey Litovchenko
Starring Bakhitzhan Alpeisov and Irka Abdulmanova
Stinker Review
As with every feature at this year’s Soho Horror Film Fest…Stinker was preceded by a short film. Two short films, in fact. It’s funny how they choose these. Yes, you want them to be somewhat thematically relevant to the feature…but one movie had a three minute short, and some have two of more considerable lengths. This one had two that were longer than three minutes…but neither overstayed their welcome.
The first was called Chickenboy. It was pretty gross. The story involves a farmer who accidentally impregnates a chicken. It lays an egg with a giant…chicken boy inside of it. The farmer comes face to face with his progeny and some funny decisions are made. It’s pretty good…but, again, a little gross. The second short was called Steak Dinner and was another fun little creature story. A woman accidentally hits a shelled creature with her car and brings it home to nurse it back to health. Her partner is not pleased with the arrangement…especially since the creature is a weird snail like thing only much bigger. This one isn’t nearly as gross…but does feature a woman trying to dispose of an animal.
With the shorts in the rearview mirror, it was time for Stinker. Stinker starts on a down note. A homeless man (who is nicknamed Stinker) is trying to kill himself…but he keeps getting interrupted. On his third or fourth attempt…the interruption is a life altering one. He sees a spaceship fall to earth. While checking out the crash site he discovers its alien occupant and drags him to the outhouse he frequents until he can figure out what to do. No one believes him, of course. And the alien has taken to hiding underneath the excrement inside the toilet where no one can see him. The ship has vanished…and everyone assumes Stinker is a drunk.
You might not expect for Stinker to become an E.T. like story…but that’s exactly what happens. The alien’s communicator is damaged in the crash, and he has no way to…phone home. Stinker vows to help the alien…who, it turns out, can speak the language and communicate just fine. What he can’t do, however, is go into the sunlight. Sunlight will kill him. That’s Gremlins, not E.T., but Stinker definitely takes its cues from the childhoods of people of a certain age.
Compounding matters is an upcoming event where a presidential drive by will occur in the area. All vagrants and undesirables are ordered to leave the area. Any building not looking in top condition needs to be renovated immediately. This brings Stinker, and the family run shop he hangs around, to the attention of local authorities. The woman who owns the store doesn’t like Stinker hanging around. She’s raising her granddaughter and doesn’t have the means to fix up her establishment. Stinker and the woman find a common enemy in the local mandate…and find common ground when she discovers his alien secret.
Stinker has a sad backstory…as does the store owner. There is a found family element in play here. Those sweet moments are always counterbalanced by some act of evil by the man demanding their exit or the bumbling officer he sends to threaten them. The main mission in Stinker is to find the specific metal that will make the alien’s device work. Along the way there are some laughs, some sad moments, some nice character growths…pretty much everything you want in quasi-family film where an alien lives in human waste.
The production quality here is very strong. The alien has a good design. His sad eyes make him easy to like. Stinker is a quality lead character. A troubled man who never hesitates to do the right thing…even if it puts off everyone around him. I’m not sure the villain of the piece gets everything he deserves in the end…but his fate is fittingly cartoonish to match his over-the-top character. Stinker is another good one from this year’s Soho Horror Film Fest.
Scare Value
While Stinker certainly borrows the bones of E.T., it has some fun while doing it. Yes, this is the story of an alien trying to phone home. No, I can’t spin that any other way. But E.T. didn’t spend his days submerged in human excrement to hide himself away from a sun that will kill him. There are some good characters here…and a couple cartoonish ones. Found family, letting go and moving on make for some strong themes in what could have just been another E.T. clone.
