There are only a few aspects of this film that are drastically different from the standard formula, but one of them is its ending. I don't want to give it away, but I have to say that it has a twist that, while it doesn't force you to rewatch the movie, does make you have to rethink a few of the scenes. Unfortunately, I figured out the twist, at least on a basic level, about a quarter of the way through the film.
Reeker follows a small group of college students who are taking a road trip to Area 52, a rave in the middle of the desert. The group is comprised of Cookie, a free-loving girl whose parents let her pick her own name when she was three, Jack, a blind man with a dry sense of humor, Gretchen, Jack's roommate's girlfriend from Johannesburg, Nelson, your average guy and Trip, a person who just pissed off a drug dealer because he stole a ton of his ecstasy.
When Gretchen, the driver, discovers that Trip has a stash of X on him, she drives up to a little dinner in the middle of nowhere with every intention of leaving him there. But when the gang walks into the diner/motel area (a scene straight out of Vacancy), they find that the place is deserted, but not for long. Cigarettes are still burning and there is still fresh food on the plates.
When their car won't start back up again, they are forced to stay the night (of course). During the night, various members of their party start dying of unusual circumstances. As each character faces off against this unknown, but obviously decaying, assailant, they first encounter its horrid stench (just about everyone in the movie gags as a cheesy ripple post-processing effect occurs on screen).
Eventually, the group is joined by a RV-driver named Henry (Michael Ironside) and the group tries to stay together, but this strange creature seems to always be one step ahead of them.
Quite frankly, Reeker is barely worth a rental, and even then, only for the most enthusiastic horror fans. While the twist at the end is fairly intelligent, it is a bit predictable. Being a horror fan, a fan with a guilty pleasure of enjoying most "bad" horrors, I was intrigued by this movie, but even though it has a nice twist, it isn't really worth a second watching. If this movie were older, I would almost expect to see it in front of the bots in Mystery Science Theater 3000.
