No Man’s Land: The Rise of the Reeker (2008)

This is the prequel to the Reeker movie from a couple of years back.  That movie establishes the formula of a killer called the Reeker.  The Reeker exists in a world between the hereafter and the real world.  People who should be dead end up, but refuse to give up go here and killed by the Reeker in a manner that is similar to how they died in the real world.  Occasionally someone escapes thru their actions or the actions of those trying to save them in the real world.  This movie tries to explain the origins of the Reeker, and actually does it pretty well in a flashback involving a traveling salesman and a hitchhiker.  Then we flash forward to present where a gang of criminals have a gunfight with the local sheriff, with explosive results.  This thrusts the characters into the Reeker’s world where they struggle to survive.  Who makes it out and who dies?   Can the Reeker be stopped?  Why do I like to end my plot synopsis with questions? 

I’m torn on this movie.  This is basically the retelling of the story from the first movie with criminals instead of stupid kids having a wreck on the highway.  Now I really enjoyed the first movie, but much of that enjoyment came out of figuring out the big twist, which of course if the whole they are already dead sort of thing.  Sure it has been done to death, but sue me I liked it.  Here that cat is out of the bag, and other than a nifty twist at the beginning the movie offers no surprises.  Because of this I found the story to be just a bit “by the numbers” and not terribly interesting.  Now the one thing that helped this for me is the cast.  Other than Robert Pine (CHIPS) I didn’t recognize any of them, but they all do a fine job. Desmond Askew is hilarious as Binky, who walks around part of the movie missing part of his head.  The dialogue and delivery is great and had me chuckling.

This is a really gory movie, from missing heads, pipes thru torsos, drills to foreheads, and ½ a torso running around.  But where this could have been very cool my enjoyment was tempered by the bane of the low budget horror movie, bad CGI.  All of the kills are ruined by the cringe worthy CGI that is all over this movie.  There is a disemboweling that should be cool but looks awful and a pipe rammed thru a characters chest that looks terrible.  The dumb thing is they manage at the same time to pull of the torso gag and the missing skull pretty well with a combination of practical and digital.  So they knew what they were doing, but I guess they must have run out of time or money.  Other than that the movie looks pretty good (camera work, lighting, etc.).

Like I said at the beginning I’m really torn with this movie.  It does try and deliver gore on a budget, which I appreciate.  But manages to ruin it a bit with too much CGI.  The story makes very little attempt to toss any twists at the audience, which the first did so well.  That is also disappointing.  But then I wasn’t ever bored with the movie, which puts it head and shoulders above a lot of the low budget flicks I watch.  I guess in the end it is an average movie that is worth a rental, but not much more.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2009 John Shatzer