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A group of five college kids (hmm, where have I heard that opening before?) are headed down a desert road on their way to the rave of the year. As they stop by the side of the road, the earth around them shakes hard, and before too long, they find themselves at a deserted highway motel with a Black and Decker-powered, skunk-smelling crazy man on the loose.

As far as horror movies go, Reeker doesn’t make you wait long for the first splatter scene, gruesomely butchering a family of three and a dog within the first two minutes of the film. The splatter continues pretty consistently from that point on, with plenty of the usual fake scares mixed in with some edgy humor, a couple of great visual gags, and just enough off-screen spookiness to keep things from getting too obvious. Director Payne understands the intricacies of horror well, as many of the real scares in the flick come from subtlety rather than a sledgehammer. A figure disappearing in a distant window, a hand coming out from a place you don’t expect (and grabbing a part of the body not usually grabbed in polite company), plenty of expectation, and some solid scare timing make the flick tick in a way that sets it far above the usual PG-13 shinola like Cursed or Boogeyman. All the usual horror conventions are present, and all the same old “no, don’t do that” moments are there, but there is a certain newness to the way Payne puts it all together that gives the proceedings a tongue in cheek feel. Sure, he’s using clichés, but he’s using them in slightly new ways that at least indicate some thought went into the thing.

At no point does Reeker attempt to rewrite the horror handbook, and it never falls into the weak ‘spoof’ territory that seems to be the last bastion of the screenwriter with no actual original ideas, but it does manage to consistently entertain, without ever being truly horrific simply for the sake of being horrific. The film is paced exactly right, but it should be said that the reliance on a twist ending makes much of the rest of the film a somewhat uneven affair. I managed to see the twist coming, but then I have immersed myself in Twilight Zone episodes for most of my adult life, so I can usually smell one of these things coming a mile away (no pun intended).

The cast is above average for this kind of affair, with Scott Whyte, Tina Illman, Derek Richardson, Arielle Kebbell, and Devon Gummersall rounding out the highlights, even to the point where you don’t necessarily want them killed (a rare thing for me – I’m usually yelling for the jock’s death within the first minute of any horror film). The camerawork is polished, the production values high, the audience sufficiently kicked about, and the blood and guts ever-present. All in all, a pretty darn good effort, and one that would grab an extra half star from me if our system allowed such things. But it doesn't. Deal.

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originally posted: 03/14/05 20:42:21
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