Schlock the Ripper (Ripper (DVD))

Member Name: Splend42

Product:	Ripper (DVD)
Date:	30/07/09 (11 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun to heckle, soundtrack and acting ok

Disadvantages: Very predictable, nothing special

Slasher films are ten-a-penny. Teen slasher films even more so. I enjoy a good bad film, so I picked this up with a certain amount of glee. In terms of its badness, it didn't disappoint; this is at best a predictable by-the-numbers affair, at worst a lazy effortless missed opportunity to bring something new to the genre.

It opens with a chaotic scene where you just about make out that the main character is pursued by some sort of killer, but because they've just leapt straight into it there's very little reason to care about the character who, inevitably, is running through the woods screaming. The opening of Scream (which doubtless inspired this knock-off) was effective because it started with a character whom they first established as at least a fairly decent person, then they placed her in peril - this made us care, it made us sit up and pay attention. The chaos of Ripper's first scene meant not only was I unsure what was happening, I didn't care much.

Flash forward five years (a much overused plot device that's employed TWICE in this) and the survivor of that ordeal is now at University, studying serial killers. The film flashes a great big neon sign over the teacher that says 'HE'S THE KILLER (or IS he??)' and it introduces ... a bunch of stereotypical cardboard cutout teens that you get in all these films. The slutty one. The hunky one. The annoying one. The boring one. The usual gang of faceless victims.

Someone has sex and is immediately killed (seriously? I thought we passed this in the 90's), and a detective who investigated the previous murders turns up. The aforementioned neon sign jumps from the teacher to the detective several times. There's a lot of waffling about Jack the Ripper, a few not-very-creative deaths and the inevitable climax - I won't spoil it, but suffice to say, I didn't see it coming but it makes very little sense within context of the rest of the film.

If you've read this far, you'll have gathered I didn't like it very much. It wasn't all bad - the soundtrack was ok, the acting was mostly passable and at least it was fun to watch. I get the impression that the filmmakers thought they'd made the next Scream, though, and sadly it just wasn't up to that standard.

Summary: Ripper is a bad film but worth watching if you want to make fun of it.