Reeker
Into the end credits for the film Reeker, the film-makers inserted the following note: “If you’re a film reviewer and you’re uninspired enough to use the phrase “this movie stinks” or any other lame pun/riff on the title – ha ha ha.” I noticed this as I like to let the credits roll until the very end so I can be sure that there’s no after credit scenes. How confident in your material would you have to be to insert a comment like this? Would you perhaps be concerned that the reviews may not be stellar so you try to get a dig in advance? And what would lead to such a monumental lack of confidence in your own film that you would be so concerned? In my opinion the only thing that could have caused such a crisis of confidence is if they’d actually watched the movie!
Breathe through your mouth!
Reeker has borrowed heavily from other films, which is a nice way of saying it stole a bunch of ideas and threw them together for the purposes of making money. The five kids on a road trip (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) are made up of two girls and three guys, one of whom is disabled (Chainsaw Massacre again – though this time the guy is blind not in a wheelchair). There’s no petrol at the rest stop (Chainsaw, again). The kids at the motel are killed off one at a time while there are parallel events in the real world (Identity). This goes on and on.
Reeker does have one or two decent moments, like the cute girl getting killed in the outdoor privy and the horrible injuries some of the victims suffer are good effects, but the whole thing is woefully predictable and not scary at all, though I’d imagine younger viewers would jump at the right moments. The biggest complaint though has to be how boring the film is. There are long sections where nothing happens at all – I’m not kidding when I say I fell asleep watching Reeker I was that bored.
Two thumbs down for Reeker.
Martin Minnock 