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

Strong and Moving!

Overrated and overhyped

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I only bought this film because the actor Michael Muhney was in it. I became a fan of his when he was on Young and the Restless. He is a very talented actor. This film is an independent and low budget picture. The script could use work though. There are plenty of unanswered questions about how this Reeker works. He is supposed to have killed people for their souls or bodies or heads. I don't know. This film is more gory and violent than needed be. I was not scared at all about it. The film doesn't work on making this Reeker believable. The cast is fine and so is the production crew in meeting them in the DVD special feature. The film just has a lot more questions to be answered and explained to the audience. I try to not to think too much about what the Reeker is all about and why Death Valley. The goriness and violence is grotesque.

According to writer/director Dave Payne's Reeker films, 'Death' employs the spirit of executed serial killer The Death Valley Drifter to act as a 'soul taker', a being with a pungent stench who exists in the instant between life and death and who torments those trapped there, killing them in a fashion that mirrors their real life demise.If that makes any sense to you at all, then a) you'll probably enjoy this film, and b) perhaps you ought to seek some kind of professional help, this clearly being utterly derivative clap-trap, yet another logic-free scary movie with a supposedly 'clever' twist (so clever that it was done in the first film, and in many, many other films before that).As with the original Reeker, the only good bit occurs within the first few minutes, with the bulk of the film consisting of a series of puzzling supernatural occurrences which are resolved in a manner that only the most unseasoned of horror film viewers could possibly perceive as innovative.

A serial Killer(Michael Robert Brandon)finally obeyed the voices and gave himself up willingly to die in the gas chamber so he could "work for Death" in dispatching those souls in limbo who are reluctant to die. A sparse group are the target of The Reeker, Death's psychopath whose presence is known by way of a peculiar stench. An incident involving three criminals on the lam and the citizens of a small desert town in the middle of nowhere will include the Reeker who has a fresh batch of victims to send to meet their maker. More or less a horror comedy where characters attempt to free themselves from their prison where a devastating occurrence took place which revolves around a shootout and gas tank explosion. Kind of a brother to THE FINAL DESTINATION series, where a group of people attempt to cheat death, unable to avoid their inevitable fates. Grotesque humor includes a victim walking around with half his head gone, the lower half of a victim running around without the upper torso, and a heart patient dropping dead wearing only a hospital gown(his chest bursting open)as he was running about in hysterics. We see a car crash into some sort of invisible wall which holds those caught in the limbo in the general area where the "big event" took place. The Reeker, when he rears his very ugly head, is an abomination of ragged clothes, face mask, and pale skin, accompanied by his "tools of the trade" (such as a drill). The deputy at the beginning of the film who was considered a local hero although the killer clearly had him caught between a rock and hard place, is played as an older sheriff by CHiPs own Robert Pine, who meets the man he helped send to the gas chamber in a different way than the last time. Mircea Monroe is a diner waitress who escaped LA hoping for a new start but an old boyfriend, Alex(Stephen Martines) finds her(he is one of the criminals who helped rob a bank and now wants her to join him now that he has money). Michael Muhney is the sheriff's son, Harris. Valerie Cruz is a doctor who tries to heal wounds as the Reeker goes on his rampage. Desmond Askew is Binky, Alex's accomplice, who causes the ruckus that spirals out of control resulting in exchanges of gunfire which sets everything in motion for the Reeker.

Part of the Ghost House Underground collection, a Science Fiction escape that is not really as bad as some might think. Some questionable CGI and smoke effects with a little bit of gore; not an award winner, but give this one a chance. Circa 1978 Death Valley is literally just that with the fable of the Death Valley Drifter killing dozens of folks. The Drifter(Michael Robert Brandon)was executed for his deeds, but this strange soul collector comes back. We are talking about a supernatural world where people are caught up in a walking coma, not exactly dead...but damn near close. Trapped in between reality and a weak pulsed existence waiting for another world. Don't even try to figure this one out..you won't. Stars include: Micea Monroe, Michael Muhney, Desmond Askew, Valerie Cruz, Robert Pine and Ben Gunther.