I regard Reeker as being a great horror movie - one of the best examples of the genre that I've seen in the current decade, though I've noticed that quite a few people seem to have problems understanding the film's storyline.
Here's my interpretation of the movie: the central premise of the film seems to be that sometimes people are killed in accidents that are so sudden that they don't actually realise what's happened. In these cases, the victims find themselves in a limbo between life and death - a world that looks identical to ours, with the exception that nobody else is there, and also time works differently (no matter how long you spend in this limbo, only a few seconds pass in the real world).
This is what happens to the main characters in the film. The moment occurs when they stop at the side of the road to let Trip out, and Cookie takes the opportunity to dash behind the bushes. Everyone feels what they assume to be an earth tremor. In fact, this is when Henry (Michael Ironside) had a heart attack while driving his RV, and plowed into them.
Once they've arrived in limbo, the Reeker hunts down the individuals who didn't survive the accident, killing them in ways similar to how they actually died in the real world (eg: Nelson getting a shard of glass in his throat after crashing through a window, Cookie receiving internal injuries while going to the toilet). As they now realise they're dead, this allows the victims' souls to pass on, going to the afterlife/heaven/hell/whatever.
Jack (the blind guy) and Gretchen survived the crash, and therefore the Reeker wasn't able to kill them.
As for the glimpses of 'the dying people', these are the victims of the other accidents mentioned by the policeman at the end of the movie - including the family we see in the pre-title sequence. They've already been killed by the Reeker, and are in the process of moving on to the afterlife. In the same way - because the limbo is half-way between the land of the living and the realm of the dead - we also occasionally see visions of Radford (the drug dealer) as he tries to save the lives of the crash victims, back in the real world.
The writing in the Bible and on the walls was presumably made by somebody (or several somebodies, over a long period of time) who had previously been trapped in the limbo, and realised that something was after them. Eventually the Reeker must have gotten them.
Gretchen seems to briefly retain some memories of what happened in limbo (She murmurs "Why didn't you try to help us?" to Radford as he pulls her out of the wreckage), and Jack also remarks that he can dimly remember being able to see Gretchen for a moment, but the final scene indicates that they have forgotten about the Reeker and the Half-Way Motel.
Here's my interpretation of the movie: the central premise of the film seems to be that sometimes people are killed in accidents that are so sudden that they don't actually realise what's happened. In these cases, the victims find themselves in a limbo between life and death - a world that looks identical to ours, with the exception that nobody else is there, and also time works differently (no matter how long you spend in this limbo, only a few seconds pass in the real world).
This is what happens to the main characters in the film. The moment occurs when they stop at the side of the road to let Trip out, and Cookie takes the opportunity to dash behind the bushes. Everyone feels what they assume to be an earth tremor. In fact, this is when Henry (Michael Ironside) had a heart attack while driving his RV, and plowed into them.
Once they've arrived in limbo, the Reeker hunts down the individuals who didn't survive the accident, killing them in ways similar to how they actually died in the real world (eg: Nelson getting a shard of glass in his throat after crashing through a window, Cookie receiving internal injuries while going to the toilet). As they now realise they're dead, this allows the victims' souls to pass on, going to the afterlife/heaven/hell/whatever.
Jack (the blind guy) and Gretchen survived the crash, and therefore the Reeker wasn't able to kill them.
As for the glimpses of 'the dying people', these are the victims of the other accidents mentioned by the policeman at the end of the movie - including the family we see in the pre-title sequence. They've already been killed by the Reeker, and are in the process of moving on to the afterlife. In the same way - because the limbo is half-way between the land of the living and the realm of the dead - we also occasionally see visions of Radford (the drug dealer) as he tries to save the lives of the crash victims, back in the real world.
The writing in the Bible and on the walls was presumably made by somebody (or several somebodies, over a long period of time) who had previously been trapped in the limbo, and realised that something was after them. Eventually the Reeker must have gotten them.
Gretchen seems to briefly retain some memories of what happened in limbo (She murmurs "Why didn't you try to help us?" to Radford as he pulls her out of the wreckage), and Jack also remarks that he can dimly remember being able to see Gretchen for a moment, but the final scene indicates that they have forgotten about the Reeker and the Half-Way Motel.