[No Man's Land:Rise Of The Reeker]
Plot:A Sheriff and his son try to apprehend bank robbers on their way to Mexico only to find that they are both being stalked by a far more deadly enemy, the fire-wielding Reeker.

Cast:Lew Temple, Desmond Askew, Michael Muhney, Christopher Boyer, Michael Robert Brandon, Wilmer Calderon, Valerie Cruz, Shelly Desai, David Goldman, Ben Gunther, Katie Lowes, Stephen Martines, Mircea Monroe, Lyne Odums, Alejandro Patino, Robert Pine, Ron Rogge, David Stanbra.

My Thoughts:The Reeker is back, so who cares? Not me.

Review:Back in 2005, an indie horror film called "The Reeker" was supposed to be released. It wasn't. In fact, the film had all sorts of release issues. Eventually it showed up on Showtime one day under everyone's noses, and to this day alot of people still don't know part one is circulating out there. So when a film has that many distribution issues, what do you do? Why make a sequel of course! "No Man's Land:Rise Of The Reeker" is the second installment of the series, where another group of unlucky people find themselves caught between the world of the living and the dead...and should be dead by all accounts, but are fighting to stay alive.

So The Reeker, our villain...shows up to make sure they are "reaped" properly...and taken from the land of the living for good. Only this time, the story kicks off with a sweet introduction to the reeker's backstory. He was once human, which is all I'll give away here. But the backstory revelation is quite cool. However after that, the film just nosedives quicker than Ron Paul's presidential campaign. Sure, this time around....the targets of the reeker are not a bunch of annoying teenagers, but instead a few cops, two hotties, and three robbers who are quite possibly the worst robber crew I've ever seen on film! Give you an idea of how lame these guys are, one of them is named Binky...BINKY!!

Imagine a robber named Binky!! Now, in real life...the minute he joined a thief gang, he'd immediately be given a street name, if not just to fit the rhyme scheme...then to rid him of such a lame ass name. I mean when you have guys named Spike, and Knox (none of the names in this picture by the way)...you can't have a guy rolling with you named Binky! Binky is played by Desmond Askew, a veteran of films in general...but his performance in this film is very unenthusiastic. But who could blame him, it's "The Reeker 2" for cripes sake.

Another issue with this movie is unlike the first film, where there's atleast some suspense and dark moments at the beginning...this film relies on bad acting most of the time early on, before finnaly unleashing the title character The Reeker, onto this new group of people. The Reeker commits the usual acts of violence, although he seems to be a bit hesitant this time around for some reason. Maybe because he lost a few potential victims at the end of part one. Who knows. But he carries around the usual slice n' dice hand drill, the foul stench, and the ability to disappear and reappear at will. Bothing new or different this time around, except when he breaks out a flamethrower in one miniscule scene.

Of course his victims are totally at his mercy, because the ones that aren't total dummies are either too stupid or wrapped up in their own problems to notice what's going on. In one scene, some of the characters realize that there's a forcefield separating them from another part of the desert. But instead of questioning why this is, two of the characters (one of which being a half-headed Binky), decide to just argue with one another of the now-on-fire...stolen cash. Incredible. Even the Native American guy in the film, who knows what the Reeker is and what his purpose is...doesn't survive this encounter.

Which is a mistake because if the Native American guy with all the answers dies, then who's gonna save everyone else? The old guy? Maybe the robbers hearts will thaw out and one of them will turn hero, well...almost. There is that whole relationship between one of the robbers and the films female lead, which doesn't get much play in the film other than we find out that he screwed her sister, and then proceeded to rob a Casino...what a great guy huh? I wonder what she saw in him like...ever. And then there's the dialogue, which among it's supposed bright spots includes lines such as "psyche! payback's a bitch isn't it?", and "I like it when fish fuck."...yeah, and I'm not kidding about that last one.

The sequel, which should've offered up more than it did, simply doesn't deliver. There are no new wrinkles, no new twists or turns, just more of the same. Which is The Reeker slicing and dicing through vicitms one by one with ease. Which is a shame considering the film started off with alot of potential, and really had a chance to be a good storytelling experience as well as a slasher film that improved itself from the first installment.

The ending is not a happy moment, and suggests that The Reeker might once again return to do the same thing all over again with no real attempt to contrast and paralell itself away from what came before it. Will I be there for the next ride is the question...and the answer is, probably not...unless I have to.

Positives:Great first 10 minutes.

Negatives:Bad dialogue, the film goes downhill after the first 10 minutes, for a sequel it contained nothing really new or fresh which advanced the story and the character of The Reeker, no really great deaths, and a terrible ending.

Overall:One out of four stars.





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