Night of the Reaper is a retro slasher film with a dash of found footage horror. Set in an unspecified year in the 1980's, when MTV, Coke Classic, and dial telephones were still a thing, it opens with a well-done sequence showing the stalking of a babysitter by a killer with a video camera.
It then jumps ahead a bit to follow another teenager, who is back in town from college, and is roped into a job babysitting the sheriff's kid for the night. Meanwhile, the sheriff is getting videotapes of snuff films...
The retro feel immediately brings to mind House of the Devil, one of my all-time faves, but it's not nearly as good as that. Its low budget can be pretty apparent at times, and some of the performances are a little over-wrought. But Jessica Clement as the "final girl" is pretty good, and has the perfect eyes for a role that requires lots of looks of terror. I also appreciated that it goes in some unexpected directions. In all, a pleasant surprise, and one of Shudder's better originals.
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