THE RIPPER
Savini apologized! And that's a damn good thing, too...
Yes, that's what I hear - that he got on his knees and BEGGED the horror-lovin' world for forgiviness, for his involvement in this silly little film. Now, it's not quite as bad as I'd frequently heard, but yes, it's BAD.
The first clue was that it's shot on video. My first thought, every time I see a movie that's SOV, is "Man, I'm gonna have to take another 89 minutes of this?" This time was no different. SOV just SUCKS, people. Videotape is not a format in which a movie should be filmed. EVER. Every time there's a bright light, it ruins the picture for about thirty seconds.
Top-billed Tom Savini only appears in the last ten minutes of the film, and admittedly, I liked his appearance. The first thing we see him do is twirl his mustache, and he spends the rest of his screen time cackling with glee like an evil fiend. There's something to be said for this. You don't see villains do this kind of thing anymore, and I kind of appreciated it. I hope real-life villains do that. Strange that Jack the Ripper here doesn't have an English accent.
The plot - (pardon me while I give reference to what Roger Ebert said about the plot of The Beyond) - concerns a college prof, teaching a course on famous crimes in the cinema (no, he's not talking about the Psycho remake), finds an incredibly ugly ring in an antique store. It's fucking huge, I tell you (the ring, not the store). It's like having another fist on the end of your fist. Anyway, he tries it on, and has a vision of himself,dressed as Jack the Ripper (why is JtR always portrayed as wearing a black cape and top hat? Is there any historical evidence for this?), killing and disembowelling his girlfriend (who's a dead ringer for this chick I VERY briefly dated once,so I enjoyed this bit, heh heh) (heh heh heh heh heh). Normally, he'd just shake this off as yet another LSD-induced hallucination that Oklahoma college profs in bird courses are prone to, but there's really a killer out there, knocking off women Ripper-style. What's a guy to think? (heh heh heh)
Some of the murders are pretty silly (how does Jack cut a woman's throat with a telephone cord?), but they're pretty disgusting (lots of disembowellings)...so, they're pretty well done, and look like they take up the film's entire $62 budget. The numerous (and increasingly obvious) Coke product placements strongly suggest where this lofty sum came from.
The script's pretty dumb - I lost track of how many times it's said that the ring costs $50 (at six), and we're treated toa line like "Let her go! Go ahead! Drop the knife!" (man, "Go ahead"? Talk about your mixed signals) And how is it that getting shot multiple times doesn't bother Jack, but as soon as somebody slashes his hand, he cries out in agony? Wuss.
Notice at the end of the film advises that "...any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental."Even that Jack the Ripper guy?
Worth a look if you're in the mood for watching women get their intestines pulled out - or if you're morbidly curious about what makes Tom Savini blush with embarrassment.
Heh heh heh heh heh......heh heh heh!!!