I Am The Ripper

by | Jan 14, 2015 | The Horror Review News | 0 comments

Well, any film would be hard-put to live up to raves likening it to “The Matrix on crack!” and the work of “a Gallic John Woo on speed!”…

It’s party night, and a dozen-or-so French twentysomethings are gathered at a friend’s apartment. There are considerably more guys than ladies present, so there is a considerable amount of competition and sexual tension. When one horny lout, Yann, goes to the toilet to check out the kick in the eye he received for pawing goth hottie Raphaelle, he’s attacked and murdered by a mysterious assailant in a cloak and skull mask. His body is discovered by Kae, the Korean girl who was just vomiting, and the killer promptly takes her head. And takes it right into the middle of the party.

Conversation stops and the apartment erupts in panic. The Reaper wades through the young partygoers, skewering heads and slashing away until the revelers have either fled or perished. Only brawny Ulrick of the ponytail remains, and perhaps because he too was shot down by the lovely Raphaelle he challenges the assassin to some kung fu fighting. The outcome of which is not difficult to foresee.

Meanwhile the rest of the part is running for safety, but somehow they keep finding themselves back in the same apartment. “Something’s not right here.” The inescapability of the situation only fans the flames of hysteria, and Alex in particular takes poorly to the mounting claustrophobia. He beats pretty Cecile bloody, goes after dreadlocked Tek for intervening, and even clocks Peter for trying to help. When Alex is finally pulled off of his friends Peter phones his new girlfriend Raphaelle, who only minutes before proposed to him in the bathroom with a blowjob. Somehow they became separated during the chaos, and now he finds that she’s trapped alone with the killer.

The other survivors split up to find and help her, but still end up coming back to the same room time and time again. Where one set of friends does find Raphaelle – alone now and transformed into a hellish she-bitch who viciously attacks them. The guys beat the possessed girl bloody, but only manage to slow her down and piss her off even more…

Meanwhile the killer finds the others and the slaughter continues. In addition to his fists and deadly blades the killer now breaks out the firearms, and when the kids get their hands on some of these the casualty rate escalates severely. At long last the killer seems to be done in by his own twelve-gauge shotgun. But when approached and unmasked, what stares back at the living but the cold skull face of Death. And Hell follows with him – literally. The kitchen door boils open with flames, and in pours a horde of the damned in zombie form, pouncing upon Alex and Cecile to pull them apart and eat them alive.

Peter has avoided this horrible fate by taking the shotgun and continuing the search for Raphaelle. What he finds instead is Death, and another spasmodic gunfight takes place. When bullets run dry Peter takes a bone-cracking beating from the Reaper, who then gives him a glimpse into Hell. But Death decides to spare Peter’s life for the moment; so far he’s managed to fight off the Reaper the longest, and so Death now proposes a challenge: a wrestling match, with the winner keeping Peter’s soul. (“I’ll be the Undertaker and you can be Hulk Hogan. I’ll smash your face in!”) Death is even willing to be a good sport and give Peter 24 hours to rest up and train for the main event. But Peter is strongly cautioned regarding the consequences should he try to cheat Death in any way…

That doesn’t mean Death is going to leave Peter in peace for a day however. As the Reaper proceeds to dog his every move before the fight, Peter quickly decides to take his fate into his own hands. Standing in the middle of a public square Peter puts a pistol to his head and, as a shocked crowd gathers, pulls the trigger.

And what should come next but the appearance of his dead buddies Yann, Kim and Sam, all packing heat, and who without pause begin laying to waste everyone in sight. Picking up Peter, who is somewhat surprised to find that he’s as undead as his friends, the gang takes him to a club where the rules of the afterlife are explained to him. He, like his revenant pals, can either work for “The Big Boss” taking lives, or he can go to Hell.

Of course first there’s the small matter of the “entrance exam” given by their new employer, during which the candidate must take the life of someone he loved while he was alive. Peter’s target is easily identified, and not wanting their “contracts cancelled” his friends tag along to ensure that all goes well. Joining them is another friend from the party who now declares that he is a real angel, not an angel of Death, and has been sent down as an arbiter for the events that come to pass when Death walks among the living.

And from here on in things get even more violently messy. Certain betrayals are made, multiple fist- and gunfights break out, The Matrix is imitated some more, and additional otherworldly beings are introduced to the fray. There’s some fancy flying-ball-of-light shit, a badly unnecessary music video sequence, lots of jumping around, a toy swordfight, and in due time even Death gets called on the carpet. And of course there’s the ultimate ironic twist…that’s somewhat diluted by having been seen in cartoon form more than once before.

Loaded with music and pop culture references, the script is energetic and lively with much rude colorful dialogue. It does however draw too much from popular culture, particularly film; influences from Highlander, Lord of the Rings, X-Men, Akira, Superman and, yes, The Matrix are all evident, but translated down into an independent’s low but over-excited budget. (And is that a Pantera sound byte I heard in there?) In addition to gunfire so frequent it’s nearly random there are far too many Mexican stand-offs (or are they called Hong Kong stand-offs now?) in which two characters point often-empty weapons into each other’s faces. With its emphasis on hyperactive violence the plot becomes confounded and needlessly complex in its determined hyperkinesias, and ends up turning life and death into gang warfare that lacks any of the gravity and cool of The Prophecy, another film from which I Am the Ripper evidently draws inspiration.

Grainy video stock and the often frenetic camera motion give the film a definitive pulp quality, but that fuzzy video look grows stale pretty quickly as it picks up and emphasizes the yellow-orange glow to the lighting. The FX are none too impressive as well; as indicated before the Reaper’s swords are ridiculously plastic-looking, right down to the rounded points. The blood and gore are most often candy-colored, and when one guy gets his heart pulled out it really looks like a Nerf ball. (Also, the undead from Hell look a lot like Rob Zombie; is that homage or goof?) The video editing resembles disc skippage (or maybe that was my cheap-shit DVD player actually skipping…), and the CGI effects, always a dicey bet, are downright cheap and childish here.

Oh yeah, and it’s in French, with English subtitles.

Extras include a gallery of grainy video captures, a few ‘behind the scenes’ stills, a video for The Nuns “White Slave,” a fetching little Middle Eastern-sounding techno goth ditty loaded with vampire lesbian S&M visuals (that are somewhat offset by the aged-looking lead singer), and finally the rather bitchin’ video “Spells” from goth metal band Cadaveria.

-Crites

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