It's hard to deny that eighties shot-on-video horror movies has a very "special" charm. I actually love the quality, the cheapness - close to how a porn movies once looked (not that I've seen any...), but maybe most the enthusiastic idea of making something as "big" as a movie, with a budget consisting of ten dollars. To be fair, Christopher Lewis The Ripper looks like it had some kind of budget. Not much, still enough to have a cameo from Tom Savini, lots of extras and some okay-ish locations and impressive gore. But still... it's one helluva cheap, trashy, crappy SOV movie - but oh so entertaining.
It begins in Victorian London 1988. A prostitute gets her throat cut in gory fashion while modern traffic lights enhances the atmosphere in the background. It's all a story told by a sweater-loving professor (Tom Schreier) to his class of over-aged students. The course is about film crimes (what the hell that's about?) and most of the lessons seems to be the professor saying something generic and lame about Jack the Ripper and then call it a day. But wait! There's something sinister going on in this sleepy small town, a killer is loose and he's after young pretty ladies - often the students we've learned to know and love - and he behaves exactly like good old Jack! Who is it? What has his tacky ring to do with it? And why is there an aerobics-themed dance number during the first twenty minutes?
The Ripper is slightly too long, there's some truly awful performances and some times you just expect a plumber to knock on the door and mount one of the ladies. It's even slightly boring, but in-between the sadness and incompetence there's a couple of very violent and gory killings and the fashion (especially on the professor) is like watching a car crash in slow motion. Most of the time it actually has a good pace and from time to time fun scenes, not only the kills. My favorite part is without a doubt Fred, the psychology professor played by a guy named Randall White (which sounds like a rich drug-dealing serial killer in Miami Vice rip-off). He has one single scene and he f**king rules that one with a bizarre, over-the-top and hammy-in-a-good-way performance - including product placement by Coca Cola (a drink that turns up way too many times to feel like a coincidence). Fun fun fun!
But most of the time we spend on watching crappy actors talking crappy dialogue, watching even more disastrous fashion kill most of hour senses. Some if it so ugly it's easy to go deaf just because it screams so loud. If you get my point. And I love it. I LOVE it. It's shit. It's tripe. But it's so much fun. And compared to Sledgehammer (another fun SOV movie), The Ripper visually feels like something bigger and bolder... but still, it never leaves the dimension of cheap shit.
And yeah, Tom Savini. He's in the movie for like four minutes. He's actually quite okay, better than in some later movies and seems to be enjoying himself doing one of the hammier Jack the Rippers so far. But no, if you expect a typical good eighties horror movie this is not for you. If you want entertaining crap, this is definitely something for you.
But don't blame it on me later on when you're starting to recover from your post-traumatic boredome syndrome.
"It's hard to deny that eighties shot-on-video horror movies has a very "special" charm."
Yes, there is something about them.
"close to how a porn movies once looked (not that I've seen any...),"
ahhahahahhah...liar, liar, pants on fire!
"And why is there an aerobics-themed dance number during the first twenty minutes?"
Aw come on......SOV from the 80´s......you know what that means....
http://youtu.be/vWz9VN40nCA
"but in-between the sadness and incompetence there's a couple of very violent and gory killings and the fashion (especially on the professor) is like watching a car crash in slow motion."
Yeah, Savini was involved, he probably did the SFX as well.
"And compared to Sledgehammer (another fun SOV movie), The Ripper visually feels like something bigger and bolder... but still, it never leaves the dimension of cheap shit."
I never heard about that one.
"If you want entertaining crap, this is definitely something for you.
But don't blame it on me later on when you're starting to recover from your post-traumatic boredome syndrome."
Come one, it can´t be that bad.....it sounds absolutely craptastic, if I can suffer through the uneven, boring Cloud Atlas(2012), I can see this, good review and thanks.
Posted by: Megatron | July 25, 2013 at 14:34