If my name were David Payne, sorry now the slightly more hip Dave Payne, I would be reading this with a little baited breath. For two years ago just prior to the movie Reeker's UK release I wrote a scathing review of the movie. Dave took considerable offense at this and threatened the websites I published to with the full weight of Fox/Pathe unless they removed the reviews I had written. Imagine, an internet nobody such as myself threatened with such action, however I stood by my guns and two of these websites allowed me to repost my review having previously been forced to pull them down. Things have changed since then, and it was the actions of Dave Payne that actually made me more confident to continue to write, review and literally make my living from the practise because when the words of one little person can make one of the world's biggest movie companies shudder, then I must surely be doing something right.
Reeker was a highly successful low budget movie, released in the UK under a stream of big hype, while I absolutely hated the movie, I do have to hand it to both Dave and Tina Illman (AKA Tina Payne) they pulled an amazing con trick, and must have achieved high profits from this movie.
I guess with this in mind it was with no surprise that Dave and Tina would try to to replicate their success and this leads us on to...
No Mans Land: The Rise Of The Reeker
Beginning in 1978, the movie shows us the roots of the killer known as The Reeker, and allows us some insight into why the character smells so bad. And I have to commend the director here, this is rather like the original Reeker a fantastic opening, to what promises to be a good movie.
Promise however is a deceitful thing, and I did think to myself at one point that I really was going to enjoy this movie. But suddenly after much promise things went bad, I would go so far as to say worse than the original, now I appreciate that a sequel is rarely as good as the original, when the original is so bad where on earth is the story to go?
The cast are far better picked this time round, for me the most notable being Desmond Askew who I grew up watching in British kids school drama Grange Hill, here Askew delivers the best performance of the movie as a cocky casino robber, who meets with a rather unfortunate accident in his car, leaving him... Shall we say a little lacking upstairs? The movies Deputy Sherriff Harris is played by Michael Muhney who is probably best known as Sherriff Don Lamb in Veronica Mars. With star of television for 40 years Robert Pine the main cast is iced off. What is amazing, and I'm utterly thrilled about is that David has not tried to chuck the awful Tina into the mix again as is often the case with these sort of movies, instead she manages to stay on the right side of the camera, behind it.
Effects are pretty good; the make-up department really earned their cash here, with some fantastic scenes of gore; there are really good signs that this is not quite as low budget as the predecessor. While the CGI department do fantastic justice to Askew's head.
What I give to Dave is the fact that as a director he does have an incredibly good eye, his scenes are almost perfectly framed, some of the scenes in this low budget horror offering are as good as any big budget blockbuster. With cinematographer Mike Mickens close at hand the capturing of effects, action, and the desolation of Reeker's location is captured fantastically. What Dave cannot do however is work a script to his advantage, rather than let the characters develop as the movie progresses often their opening lines contain a nasty TV movie dialogue that gives the characters life story away, sometimes less is most definitely more. As for the story itself it's a little bit jumbled, Payne struggles to keep the movie franchise fresh by adding new bits, as well as trying to justify just how the Reeker appears, simply through a couple of explosions. There are also a number of "unexplained" incidents that no doubt if Payne was given an open mic on the subject he might imply that maybe "You just didn't get it!" Sadly for Payne this is not The Matrix, or anywhere near that quality. Payne's ultimate and I feel disrespectful final strike involving a child talking about his babysitter not only effectively defecates on Payne's work but gives sad promise that maybe Payne will ridicule us all again by returning to the franchise for a third instalment.
If by some freak incident you happened to enjoy the original Reeker, then I'm sure you will get a certain degree of satisfaction from this sequel, if however you enjoy life then head off out for a walk instead, there are better ways to spend your life than to watch this.
As for Dave, and I know that you'll be reading this, I take my hat off to you; in the previous movie it was pretty much all-round awful, whereas despite the deficits of the storyline you have grown and progressed far more as a director, obviously learning a lot since your last encounter with the Reeker. And while I criticise your work harshly you're a far cleverer man than me, and I commend your devotion to your trade. I sincerely hope that I'll be able to enjoy your next movie.
No Man's Land: The Rise Of The Reeker I suspect will greet European audiences in the form of a straight to DVD product.
Spencer Hawken 08/08
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Production Year: 2000 - Horror - Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Carmen Electra, Anna Faris, Kurt Fuller, James Van Der Beek, Keenen Ivory Wayans
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