Reeker

A curate’s egg of a horror movie, in which a car-load of teens on their way to a rave are terrorised at a remote, deserted diner by a hazy, stinky driller-killer. Writer-director Dave Payne’s obvious debt to ‘Jeepers Creepers’ and ‘Dead End’ notwithstanding, his approach is more indie ironic than fanboy indulgent. Leavening the face-ripping, arm-severing, stomach-skewering gore with some nicely judged humour – including a priceless sight gag featuring a blind guy and a warning flare – he also confidently eschews the sketch-and-slash approach to characterisation.

The salty dialogue and fleshing out of the potentially disposable characters – tough cookie Gretchen, naive ‘babe’ Cookie, fugitive stoner Trip and his pal Nelson, sightless stand-up guy Jack – are Payne’s strongest suits. Lazy clichés – a defaced Bible, spooky phone calls and Cookie wandering about at dead of night in only her micro-undies – are his weakest. A cameo by Michael Ironside, as an edgy guy searching for his missing wife, increases the stench of fear; but there is a whiff of desperation about the contrived, predictable ending.