No Man's Land: The Rise of Reeker

I have fond memories of watching the original "Reeker" back in 2005. It was at the Belgian Festival of Fantastic Films and practically the entire theater went wild with enjoyment. Surely the premise was derivative and the wholesome was overall forgettable, but at least it was a totally unpretentious new horror film with neat gore effects, fresh acting performances and a really cool killer character (a smelly grim reaper like serial killer). Nothing more, nothing less. The release of sequel within a couple of years was inevitable, but let it be understood that it wasn't unwelcome at all. In a fair period of three years, writer/director Dave Payne came up with a follow-up that is at least equally entertaining, exciting and fast-paced as the first. Obviously the surprise element has vanished – although even the original wasn't *that* surprising – but Payne inventively compensates this through adding a background to the killer, even more black humor and barbaric gross-out effects. The main difference with "Reeker" is that the characters become conscious of the situation they're in relatively quick and actually attempt to make it out of there. Whether some of them succeed or not is what keeps the film reasonably suspenseful. "No Man's Land" opens bizarrely, in the year 1978, with the arrest and execution of a serial killer known as the Death Valley Drifter. He doesn't even bother to resist because the voices in his sick head keep telling him that his work on earth is done and a much bigger errand awaits him. Jumping forward to present time in the same desert, where a retiring Sheriff and his estranged deputy son literally bump into a couple of fugitive casino robbers. Subsequent to some gunfire and a car explosion, the posse find themselves isolated and abandoned in the desert, with a heavily stinking and vigorous "shape" chasing them. In this type of films, when you already know from beforehand what the major twist will be, it's still a lot of fun to pay close attention and fit all pieces of the puzzle together yourself. The script of "Rise of the Reeker" leaves plentiful of clues for alert viewers, but offers even more exhilaration and bloodshed for undemanding horror fanatics. Good performances, particularly from Michael Robert Brandon and the beautiful Valerie Cruz, surefooted direction and a marvelously depressing setting as well. Overall a much recommended film to fans of the genre.

In case anyone doesn't know, this movie is in fact a sequel (the first simply called 'Reeker'), and this time it follows the plot, well...almost identical to the first one.

This is a major problem.

In the original film there is a rather large twist at the end, and if you don't already guess it, it is a great twist. This film follows the exact same twist, so if you've seen the first, then there's not much to see here. It's basically a remake, with slightly different circumstances.

On a plus point, the baddie does have a little bit of background, unlike in the first movie, but that really is the only plus point.

In my opinion, this is a sequel to a film that didn't need a sequel, so again, if you have seen the first film this might be a little boring to watch.

On the other hand, if you haven't seen the first film you might just enjoy it. Even though it is a sequel, it stands alone (as I said, it's more of a remake) and there is no need to have seen the first one.

so, if you saw the first it's 3/10

if you didn't see the first it's 6/10

So overall (and being generous) it's 5/10

This film first appeared to be a straightforward cops and robbers movie. Three guys rob a casino and manage to land at the same gas station/cafe as a father (Robert Pine) and son (Michael Muhney), one a retiring sheriff, and the other the new man in town, were eating.

Then things got weird, as one man gets his head practically torn of, but was still able to walk and talk, another man, who was burning a car, is also walking around, and, I kid you not, some legs without a body were running. Are we in the Twilight Zone or something?

But, just when things couldn't get any stranger, we come to the ending where there appears to be a logical explanation to everything we saw. So what were we watching for the last hour? A soul-catcher reborn or someones imagination run amok. It was an interesting film with just the right amount of gore, a lot of laughs, and enough to keep you interested. Well, not totally. Mircea Monroe and Valerie Cruz were nice eye candy, but they could have made it more interesting.

I have not seen the first one yet, I had no idea what the plot was about this movie, I did not even see a Trailer for this before giving a watch.

Somehow I ending up having this is movies collection.

This movies as some kind of Supernal force that is killing people.

This movie did have a great nasty Gory start , Which I really liked, there were some descent gory scenes in the rest of the movie.

This dose get really odd and really Confusing, which makes scratch your head, Saying what the hell is going on and some of the scene can seem really funny at times.

I also enjoyed the twist at the end of the movie, which I think really well done.

I going to give this movie 5 out of 10

I saw RISE OF REEKER at the weekend, and this is a really boring film, the first one was OK, but this is kind of a prequel and a remake all in one.

It starts off well, some nice gore to start off with, but then for about an hour nothing really happens. A lot of talking, some half-arsed CGI Reeker smoke effects, and not much else.

Then the end comes and and there are some really loud explosions, more crappy CGI effects and a lame ending. Im not gonna explain the story to much (you can get that from the Main Page), but people who liked the first will no doubt watch this.

The main problem I had was, it was more or less a remake of the first one...but not as good!

But Im telling ya, it's not very good...YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!