The humble slasher film has come a long way over the years, and while there have been some high-profile and high quality entries into the genre, on the whole it’s a genre built upon low budgets, poor scripts, awful acting and absence of brains. On occasion, it’s possible to overlook flaws like this to an extent, if the film manages to achieve a sense of fun, or even be so awful it’s hilarious. However, what isn’t forgivable, ever, when it comes to a slasher movie, is a film that believes itself to be more intelligent than it actually is. With this said, I bring you Ripper: Letters From Hell.

To be honest, I didn’t have particularly high hopes for Ripper to begin with. I expected another brainless slasher late to the Scream-ripoff party. However, upon further inspection, the film’s synopsis got my hopes up a bit, talking about lots of references to Jack The Ripper (possibly spurred on by the same year’s adaptation of the Jack The Ripper comic book From Hell) and the fact I’d even heard of a couple of members of the cast.

Things open in a fairly atmospheric manner, with the teenage Molly Keller (AJ Cook - Final Destination 2) being pursued through the woods on a rainy night, and stumbling across body after body. It’s clear a serial killer is in pursuit of her, and as she makes it to her family’s boat, a gloved hand tries to climb up from the watery depths, only to be stopped in his tracks by Molly with a kitchen knife, but to disappear before the police arrive to rescue Molly.

Cut to a short while after, and Molly has enrolled in a University class studying Serial Killers, taken by former FBI profiling guru Marshall Kane (Bruce Payne - Sweepers) where she seems to excel in Jack The Ripper related knowledge. Things take a turn for the nasty when Molly’s classmates start dying, dying in the same manner as victims of Jack The Ripper. Molly’s classmate Chantal (Claire Keim - Barracuda) suspects she has something to do with it, although this is partially to try and create suspicion to keep Molly away from her boyfriend Jason (Ryan Northcott - Mystery, Alaska), who is the only member of the class to warm to Molly. To further complicate matters, a mysterious, gloved, detective named Kelso (Jurgen Prochnow - Judge Dredd) starts to snoop around.

For the majority of the film, Ripper follows your standard, clichéd, slasher film nonsense, using a fairly uninteresting ‘whodunnit’ style affair, and for the most part, it’s unoriginal, unimpressive, yet not unwatchable. I mean it’s littered with utterly moronic developments, like the class deciding to try and solve the case themselves, and in the most ridiculous development in any film, ever, the students, after discovering they are all under threat from the killer, to travel up to a secluded cabin in the woods, as opposed to staying in the densely populated city.

It’s when it comes to the end that it begins to believe it’s something special, and tries to pull not one, but two big twists on the viewer, both of which are so cringe-inducingly “Look at me! I’m SPECIAL!” that it really made me almost completely hate the film.

Acting in the movie is fairly workable actually, granted Cook’s gorgeous looks outshine her acting ability, but she’s passable enough as a lead. Further eye-candy is granted by the unexpected presence of Britain’s own Kelly Brook, albeit in a minor role. However, veterans like Payne and Prochnow take it up a notch, albeit while working with a generic and dull script.

The film also sports some decent blood effects, though it never goes overboard with gore, which is strange as it leaves the film in a bizarre middle-ground, where it’s neither suspenseful nor gruesome…it’s just sort of there.

The film does have a number of other minor niggles working against it, such as one of those awful direct-to-video rock soundtracks that direct-to-video horror movies these days seem to love, as well as one of the most laughable sets I’ve ever seen…where the students appear to live in a warehouse. No explanation is ever given for this, which leads me to assume that the film’s makers were actually trying to pass this off to us as some form of student accommodation.

When all is said and done, Ripper is a fairly standard and forgettable little DTV slasher film, that I would almost consider recommending, if it weren’t for it’s thoroughly preposterous and intelligence insulting ending(s). As is, it’s far from the Worst film, or even slasher, I’ve ever seen, but at the same time, there really isn’t much reason to recommend it to anyone. You’d be better off watching Halloween for the 200th time.

Review also posted on DooYoo.co.uk

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD