Reeker

Reeker
Directed by Dave Payne
Written by Dave Payne
Starring Devon Gummersall
Derek Richardson
Tina Illman
Scott Whyte
Arielle Kebbel
Michael Ironside
Eric Mabius
Distributed by Primal Pictures
UK Pathé
Release dates
  • 2005
Running time
 90 min.
Country United States
Language English

Reeker is a 2005 American horror film, written and directed by Dave Payne. It spawned a prequel, No Man's Land: The Rise of Reeker.

Plot summary

The film opens with a family driving down a desert highway. The mother and son are playing I spy when they hit a deer. The dad gets out and walks towards the bushes and comes back with half his face gone. The family is attacked by something foul-smelling.

The scene shifts to a lavish apartment where Trip, one of the film's main characters meets with a dealer named Radford who provides him with a number of pills for a rave in the desert. Trip steals all the dealer's pills. He meets with his friends Cookie, Nelson, Jack (who is blind) and the driver, Gretchen. The group notices an overturned car on the highway, which they dismiss as an abandoned accident.

Gretchen discovers that Trip is carrying drugs and stops the vehicle to kick him out. While parking at the side of the road, the group notices a short, but strong tremor. Gretchen agrees to take Trip back to a diner, which they discover has been abandoned. The car runs out of gas and inexplicably breaks down, so they decide to stay at the "Halfway Motel". Learning from the radio that the highway has been closed, Trip decides to walk down the road for help. After walking into a room in which he does not see the mother from the opening of the film—now with a damaged mouth and unable to speak, carving "Tell my son I lov(e him)"—Jack and Gretchen pitch camp and decide to sleep outdoors. After a haunting experience with the drug dealer Radford, Trip escapes and meets a man named "Henry" driving an RV, who is looking for his missing wife. He goes with Trip to the motel and sets up camp there. Trip doesn't tell his friends about his run-in with Radford but warns them to be careful and to scream if they see or hear anything (much to Jack's chagrin).

Looking for signal reception for his mobile phone, Trip releases from a rubbish skip the still-living head, torso and arms of a truck driver who then crawls away. Henry then meets Trip and discovers they both are seeing the dead people. While in his camper, Henry collapses, suffocating as a dark figure moves through the trailer. Still looking for reception, Trip is attacked on the roof by a hooded figure. Cookie is attacked whilst sitting on the pit toilet and is killed by being dragged into the hole.

Upon noticing her absence, Nelson is almost dragged under his bed but pulls himself back up and jumps on top of the bed. He takes his sneaker off and drops it on the ground, watching as it is shredded. He then tries to escape by jumping through the window, but fatally cuts his throat on a shard of glass. Gretchen and Jack discover Nelson's and Henry's bodies, prompting Gretchen to go look for Trip. Alone, Jack encounters the creature but manages to escape when Trip starts shooting at the figure with his gun. Trip is overpowered by the creature and loses his arm, then dies.

We then learn that in reality an RV had crashed into Gretchen's car after Trip stepped out to call for a ride, at the moment when they experienced the tremor. None of the group had noticed the RV, whose driver was Henry. His wife, Rose had explained that he was suffering a massive heart attack and lost control. The car that the group saw leaving the diner was in fact their own (as seen after Gretchen crashed the car again herself).

Each of the deaths at the hotel were reflected by their own deaths in the car: Cookie died from internal bleeding, Nelson cut his neck when he was thrown through the windshield, Trip's arm was severed gripping the cell phone and he died from blunt force trauma. Gretchen survived the crash because she was wearing her seat belt and Jack, despite receiving a massive head injury, also remained alive in the car. Radford, who had been stalking Trip, witnessed the accident and attempted to assist; hence the visions of him at the motel and highway.

In the final scene, Gretchen and Jack briefly discuss the fact that neither has any recollection of the accident, and no mention is made of the incidents at the motel. Jack comments that, for a moment in the crash, he thought he could see Gretchen, offhandedly mentioning the color of her eyes.

Cast

Reception

The movie has a 54% (rotten) rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with 7 out of 13 critics giving it positive reviews.[1] Variety critic John Anderson wrote called it a "glossy, gory takeoff on the teensploitation slasher flick that might just shock skeptics by scaring up crossover success."

References

  1. ↑ "Reeker (2005)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 23, 2012.

External links