Having learned the trade from Roger Corman, Dave Payne lends that master's touch to this 21st-century update on that most infamous and beloved of genres, the '70s youth-lost-in-the-boondocks horror film. It's spring break and a group of college kids are on a road trip to a party in the desert-"the biggest rave of the year!"-when, of course, things start going wrong. A road closure and an empty gas tank leave them stranded at a deserted hotel, just as night starts to fall. Beyond their supply of stolen ecstasy tablets, nothing else seems to be around... nothing human, that is. A shed filled with bones and tools, a smell that won't go away, the trucker in the dumpster who's missing half his body, and the woman in the hotel room whose mouth seems torn off: all these things and more, especially the ones that linger in the darkness, will make sure our co-eds have a night to remember, if they can survive it all. Though it's taking off on a genre familiar to anyone who's seen a '70s or '80s teens-in-peril film, Reeker refuses to take a simple, mocking tone. Payne loves the genre, and invests his film with an intelligence and craft that's rare in the easy-laughs and quick-bucks realm of most contemporary horror films. It may be a story that's been told before, but the fun is in how it's told, and in watching a classic and classically trashy tale being reinvigorated for modern times.