There is no forgetting the putrid and almost sickly sweet smell of human death once it has become an olfactory memory. Those unfamiliar with this hyper-specific stench should count themselves lucky. However, that odor of mortality is all the characters of Reeker have to keep themselves safe. Danger lurks wherever that fetor goes. Dave Payne’s 2005 horror film introduced a unique villain named after his most notable attribute, yet by the time that cadaverous stink has been inhaled by potential victims, the chance for escape may have already expired.

Following a silly but grisly cold-open — a random family becomes a roadside picnic for The Reeker, who remains unseen early on — director and writer Payne sets up what looks to be a garden-variety slasher: one by one, young folks are murdered in gruesome fashion, somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. No doubt that pitch sounds familiar. As straightforward as the film starts out, though, the malodorous antagonist is revealed to be only a part of the bigger picture. The story ultimately subverted expectations and reimagined a fairly common plot twist from back in the day.

The Sixth Sense can be thanked for the resurgence of the “dead all along” twist. M. Night Shyamalan picked an oldie but a goodie — 1962’s Carnival of Souls is considered to be the first film to use this technique — for his breakthrough film’s iconic ending. “It was all a dream” and “unreliable narrator” both get a lot of mileage as well, if not more so, yet revealing a character has been dead all this time has its own special shock factor. In the case of Reeker, learning Jack (Devon Gummersall), Gretchen (Tina Illman), Nelson (Derek Richardson), Trip (Scott Whyte) and Cookie (Arielle Kebbel) were involved in a life-threatening car accident prior to ever reaching their destination does not come as a huge surprise; Payne dropped enough hints along the way. What helps this practice of a now-tropey twist stand out is the delivery.

Image: Scott Whyte’s character succumbs to death in Reeker.

Although Reeker does not quite pull the rug out from under observant viewers, it makes up for its foreseeable outcome by enriching the death motif and leaning hard into the story’s limbo element. For the first two acts, Payne supplied a seemingly clear-cut slasher scenario with a supernatural veneer, then he firmly directed the audience to the film’s alleged aha moment: the aptly named Halfway Motel was, in fact, a waiting room for all the characters involved in nearby car accidents, and The Reeker served as an analog for Death (with a touch of Charon thrown in). The Reeker’s brutal kills also mirrored the real-world inflictions these motorists sustained in their roadway wrecks. Another director might downplay this certain state of flux just to avoid early detection, but Payne hides it in plain sight. A bold move for a story banking on its big reveal.

On a design note, merging 35mm and digital did wonders for The Reeker’s surreal depiction; in retrospect, these now-dated visual effects add to that unearthly quality. The characters’ fetid foe is trapped between two worlds as he convulses all over the screen, jabs and eviscerates with whatever tool is appropriate, and then vanishes into a puff of smoke. This cross between a sadistic welder, zombie and generic glitch entity is not all that imposing — for everything this film does do well, it lacks in major scares — however, The Reeker is rather uncomfortable to watch at times. For audiences, this blink-and-miss-it Grim Reaper proxy is often too much to take in during the few seconds he is corporeal. Whereas for the characters, they can never comprehend The Reeker’s rationale, or in some instances, the realization comes as an afterthought.

As unconventional as Reeker can be when propped up against other slashers from the 2000s, it slightly succumbs to tradition when deciding the fates of its main characters. In Payne’s film, those who partake in sex and drugs tend to die. This moralism in the horror genre, while neither official nor consistent, is shown enough to be accepted as fact. The lone survivors in Reeker just so happen to be the nice but jaded blind guy, Jack, and the one character who had a vocal issue with there being MDMA in her car, Gretchen. The pair never hooked up with anyone or each other, either. As for horny and high Cookie and Nelson, they each perished in due time. Jokester Trip also passed over to the hereafter, however, the motivation for his demise is trickier to nail down because he went from jerk to hero in his final minutes. In addition, Trip’s shady drug dealer (Eric Mabius) was spared and even turned out to be a good samaritan. The Reeker’s other victims, including an RV driver played by Michael Ironside, have nothing prickly about themselves that would feed into the so-called moral morass of horror.

Image: In the prequel No Man’s Land: The Rise of Reeker, both The Reeker and his two victims get caught in an explosion.

No Man’s Land: The Rise of Reeker (Reeker 2: No Man’s Land in other parts) served as a prequel to the first film, but it was also able to stand on its own story-wise. As the title suggests, this entry explained how The Reeker came to be and how he operated in that halfway realm between life and death. In place of the younger cast was a range of adults, including Maya (Mircea Monroe), a struggling food server wishing to be free of her layabout ex-boyfriend Alex (Stephen Martines) and his partner in crime (Desmond Askew), and the local sheriff (Robert Pine) hoping to retire and pass the badge on to his estranged son (Michael Muhney). These characters and others were, more or less, strangers to one another, so they had to contend with that tension on top of the otherworldly threat at hand.

Anyone who had seen the first Reeker knew how this follow-up would play out, and in many respects, No Man’s Land is a retread. That being said, there is a little more meat to the prequel’s characters; Maya and Alex’s quarrelsome relationship culminates in an affecting moment which better illustrates the series’ notion of second chances, something only touched on in the prior film, and the sheriff and son’s subplot is also somewhat fulfilling. The interactions this time around are more amusing and appreciated than the antics of bubble-headed coeds. And as indicated during Muhney’s character’s weird gallows confession — he is a secret dolphin voyeur — Payne was funny when he wanted to be. Surely the mention of the Council for the Ethical Use of Cell Phones at Gas Pumps during the film’s closing credits was done in jest.

With its high concept, the Reeker franchise could only go on for so long without eventually repeating itself. So finishing as a duology was for the best. The prequel already came close to being a rehash had it not improved on the original’s shortcomings (middle-act pacing, characters, production values), albeit marginally. Even so, these two films, which in hindsight were written off too quickly, make for an entertaining double-feature. No, they are not as smart as they would like to be, but they do put a different spin on a time-worn formula. And after watching plenty of unambitious and nondescript slasher films from the same era, the Reeker series is a breath of fresh air.

Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Image: The namesake of Reeker appears out in the open.