A group of college kids are on the way to some big rave, and when driving on some deserted road in the middle of nowhere, their car breaks down. A deserted diner lies close by and so does some cheesy motel. So the kids stop there to rest, while waiting to get back on the road. They get the feeling that they're not alone, and soon they run into a strange trucker who's looking for his wife. Shortly after the smell of death starts to surround them, and they see visions of dead people, and realize that there's something out there. Something that's out to get them.
Reeker starts off with a great intro that makes you wanna keep watching, and it all looks very promising. The scene in the beginning is gory, and splatter enters the movie fast. So like I said, it looks very promising, but shortly after, it slows down a bit, both the pacing and the gore.
It follows five college kids, on their way to some big rave, and when their car suddenly breaks down, everything takes a turn for the worst. The five kids consist of three guys and two girls, were one of the guys are blind. One of the other guys has a fun time messing around with this blind guy early on in the movie, and even if it's somewhat mean, it's not that bad and adds a lot of humour to the movie. And the movie featured some more humour as well, which actually worked pretty good without ever taking the seriousness away.
After a short time, they realize that there's something out there, and they all start to get a bit worried. And they are right, as something actually is out there, and it looks pretty cool as well. While Reeker might not be the most original horror movie to date, and while it might have borrowed a few things from other movies, it was still entertaining and mysterious enough to be able to sit through without complaining. It had some cool gore to offer, and I read somewhere that it was really gory which is not true at all, but still had some entertaining gore, and that's always something.
The overall acting I found to be quite ok, as all of the characters was pretty likable when talking about the five kids. Movies like this always has some unlikable character, and while these were not great in any sense, they were still likable enough and never irritating which so often seems to be the case. For a low-budget movie, Reeker looks really good, and the whole concept with that someone who's out there reeks of death was an interesting thing that gave this movie some new life.
The cool thing about this killer is that he's way different than most of your normal slashers out there. It's some kind of a supernatural being that looks pretty freaky, and like I said before; reeks of death. It takes a while before the viewer get to lay eyes on him, you know he's there at times but don't really get a 100% view until much later. And when finally get to see the nasty thing, it doesn't disappoint.
These are all good things, but I had some problems with this movie too. First off, since the beginning made you go wow, you were kinda expecting other things to be like that later on in the movie, but unfortunately that never really came. The movie of course had its share of cool things, but nothing as impressive as it was right from the very start. Another thing was that the movie was a bit too dark at times, well at most times which felt kinda bothersome.
The darkness wasn't really that big of an issue though, but the lack of scares and the pacing was. I felt that the scares weren't effective enough, even though they might work on other people (judge for yourself), and I felt that the movie could've used some more actual feel of terror, as it just wasn't enough. The overall pacing was somewhat ok, but at times it slowed down way too much, and it was a bit hard to stay interested at certain points. It had a big twist in the end which was kinda cool because when I was expecting it to end, it came, and made the whole thing come out looking a bit better.
Reeker was kinda hard to rate, since on one hand it was quite cool and had some interesting things to offer. But on the other hand, I felt that there was something missing, and so I couldn't give it a higher rating than 6. May it be that it could've used a lot more gore? I don't see the reason why to hold back, as this is the kind of movie that could easily go all the way and it would've looked so much better. Nudity is not a big thing, but again, movies like this needs some nudity as well as huge amounts of gore, and the total lack of nudity was a mystery. Still, for a low-budget movie it looks very good, and you can easily tell that there were some thought put into it. So even if it doesn't rank that high, it's still well worth a watch.
Back to Horror Review Archive
|
ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Dave Payne
WRITING CREDITS: Dave Payne
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Devon Gummersall, Derek Richardson, Tina Payne
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 90 min
RATING: 6/10
Reeker Website/IMDB Click here
Reeker Trailer Click here
|
