The Reeker films have floated around cable for years, and I finally watched them. Honestly, based on the title, I seriously thought they were about a rancid odor cloud that kills people. But I was so wrong. It’s really just a slasher, with the killer teleporting in the form of a smoke cloud.
REEKER (2005)
People seem to loathe the Reeker movies, but right from the start, I was having a gory good time. In the opening kill scene—which involves a family on a desert road—the cloud does seem to just slice people in half.
Then we meet our clan of kids. They’re on a road trip to a rave and it turns out one of them stole drugs from his drug dealer, who is coming for him. Yay! More Reeker victims! Also along for the ride are horror names like Michael Ironside (Prom Night II, Children of the Corn: Revelation) and Eric Mabius (Resident Evil, Voodoo Moon).
Until we finally see the killer, things are pretty freaky, with partial people running around still alive.
And finally, the killer in the cloud is revealed. Reeker is a hooded dude who uses…garden tools as weapons?
It’s cheesier than pizza with a twist ending that has become quite a cliché these days, but it’s FUN, so who gives a crap?
NO MAN’S LAND: THE RISE OF THE REEKER (2008)
Yep, it’s a sequel that’s a prequel. We learn how Reeker came to be in the first ten minutes, which are worth the price of admission alone. An encounter between a geeky salesman driving through the desert and a drifter quickly turns deliciously brutal and gory.
We even get a glimpse of Reeker’s macabre lair before he rises as a supernatural, undead dude surrounded by a shimmery cloud aura and wearing a gas mask.
As much fun as I had with the first film, this mess is midnight movie slasher comedy gold. Cutie Stephen Martines (David DeCoteau’s Ring of Darkness) has committed a crime, so he escapes the cops by using a hostage – his girlfriend, played by scream queen Mircea Monroe (Bloodwork, Growth, The Blackwater’s of Echo Pond, House of the Dead 2, All Souls Day).
The cops on his tail happen to be Sergeant Getraer from Chips and Sheriff Lamb from Veronica Mars, so they’ve both had law enforcement experience. There are desert shootouts (why do these people live in the middle of no man’s land?) and plenty of bogus scares before things get oddly—and entertainingly—slapstick as they all run into an Under the Dome situation.
An invisible force field is keeping them trapped at a desert motel, so they’re sitting ducks when the Reeker comes slashin’!
Once again, there are partially sliced people still walking around (this time, they put a bag over it), blood gushing all over, body parts flying…and body parts talking! WTF? Just pop another bowl of corn and go with it.
