REEKER 2 (REVIEW)

previously titled NO MAN'S LAND: THE RISE OF REEKER

Dir. Dave Payne

Reviewer. Dan Cook

Cinema’s smelliest slasher returns to slaughter a new batch of archetypes in REEKER 2, Dave Payne’s moderate sequel to his 2005 surprise cult hit which is memorable for both its gore and for putting an interesting spin on a well-worn genre convention. However, by repeating the same narrative twist, Payne has made the central conceit of the series far more contrived and much harder to swallow.

A promising introduction belies a rather tepid horror feature which sees a bunch of people once again being stalked by an invisible yet deadly presence. This time, rather than the annoying teens of its predecessor, REEKER 2 instead focuses on a new group of people, including a group of bank robbers and a sheriff and son team, who find themselves trapped in the vicinity of a remote roadside motel/cafe where, one by one, they fall victim to their pungent persuers’ various tools of execution.

Despite some enjoyable nasty moments of splattery mayhem and an opening act that effectively establishes a creepy and sinister tone, REEKER 2 is ultimately scuppered by noticeably rubbish special effects, one dimensional characterisations, less than impressive performances and, most damningly, the aforementioned beat-for-beat duplication of an idea that was original at first but now here lacks any sense of suspense or surprise.

Plus, it also contains one of the most out of nowhere, utterly bizarre non-sequiturs that has ever been said in any horror picture I’ve ever seen, making one of the nicer characters in the film unnecessarily weird and absolutely unworthy of a pass to his local aquarium.