Plot
A group of teenage friends are stranded at an abandoned
desert motel when their car breaks down. When night approaches, they realise
that they are not alone and something that smells bad is after them.
Review
You can insert as many smell-related puns
as you want into this review but it's been done to death, believe me. I guess
the filmmakers were after something to hook people and any publicity is good,
even if it means your film's title being the butt of as many stink jokes as
possible. Reeker certainly has all of the requisites to make it a stinky
film - the clichéd slasher-esque plot, the generic remote location, the
stereotypical characters, the token genre cameo (Michael Ironside of Scanners
here) and as much gore you could possibly fit into a 15 film. However there is
something about this film that makes it more than just your usual slasher film.
Reading the back of the box,
you'd think that it was rubber-stamped to be a formula flick where you can
predict everything that happens. But this isn't just any formula flick. It's
made so competently and well-crafted that even though everything seems familiar
at first, it isn't long before a few twists start turning and the film pulls the
rug away from you. The setting isn't really the most original but it's well used
and the desert location does prove to be useful in the sense of isolation later
on. The characters are given a bit more depth than usual and some of them are
actually likeable enough for you to want them to survive. Devon Gummersall
proves sympathetic as the blind guy who has to put up with the brunt of jokes
from the rest of the group. Tina Illman is also pleasant and sweet as the "final
girl." Even Scott Whyte as the token jackass manages to squeeze some life out of
the character. It helps these films greatly when you actually want to see
characters survive. I'm sick of cheering for the killers and monsters in these
films when they are constantly fed whiny, unsympathetic morons so it's a
refreshing change to sit and root for these three to make it. Thankfully there's
a few others here designed to be fodder and that they are. The Reeker creature
is brilliant. It mainly consists of smelly air (it might as well have had those
funny stink lines people sometimes draw on cartoons to indicate smell) with a
horrible demon-like face and hands which sport a variety of sharp cutting and
spinning instruments! This thing has a weapon for every occasion! There are a
few quality death scenes including a particularly nasty one where one of the
unlucky victims is dragged kicking and screaming down a toilet! Nice! There's
also a great scene where Devon Gummersall's blind character walks into a motel
room where a woman with half of her face missing attempts to call out for help
to him. The film also does a great job of managing to stay one step ahead of you
in regards to what is actually happening. I didn't see the inevitable twist
coming even though I'm normally pretty good with things like that. Nothing
really makes sense throughout the film until the final third when everything
clicks into place. Then looking back, the rest of the film makes a hell of a lot
of sense.
Verdict
Reeker
certainly doesn't emit the nasty odour that other horror films do. It's more
like air freshener, giving us a breath of something different amidst the bad
smells. Don't be put off by some of the negative reviews around the net - they
obviously have got nose plugs on!
