REVIEWED - REEKER: David Payne made what name he has collaborating with Roger Corman on straight-to-video rip-offs with such revealing titles as Showgirl Murders and Alien Terminator (two steals for the price of one there), writes Donald Clarke
Encountering one of his horror films in the cinema is, therefore, somewhat like coming across a Jade Goody fitness DVD on the big screen.
Yet here it is. Aside from a brief appearance by Michael Ironside - himself no stranger to the bottom shelf at Xtravision - Reeker stars nobody you have ever heard of. It features a monster whose powers seem to change from frame to frame: one minute it has the omnipotence of all-seeing death; the next it appears susceptible to being run over by a pick-up truck. And it dares to wheel out the most overused twist in contemporary horror cinema yet again. For all that, it satisfies the demands of its genre quite nicely.
Reeker follows a gang of youths stranded at a motel in the desert as they seek to avoid a hooded beast with drills for hands. The spectre's appearance is accompanied by a rank smell. Or perhaps he actually is a rank smell. Or maybe the soon-to-dead just imagine the rank smell. At any rate, the shocks are judiciously rationed and the tension is reasonably well sustained.
By any respectable critical standards, Reeker is, of course, appalling trash. I have, however, seen at least half a dozen weaker films directed by Sydney Pollack.
Donald Clarke
