YeeeHaw! Your strange and mysterious Grandpappy NFlames is back with another long awaited review! I know I know it’s been over a week since I’ve submitted anything, and I know you’ve all missed me, and my humorous horror musings. So who’s ready to light the camp fire, and get the s’mores goin’ so I can spin a horror movie yarn for my kiddies? [Insert Crickets sound effect] “Hello?? Is this thing on?” Fine, I can take a hint, let’s move on shall we?

Ripper opens up with an incredibly fast paced scene that sucks you in immediately and disorients you with its rapidly changing camera angles and the main character, Molly played by A.J. Cook (Final Destination 2) frenetically running around terrified out of her mind because of the fact that a madman is stalking her. We get some gore and nudity in the form of a naked girl crucified on a tree, and the discovery of a disembodied head. Right on! This movie doesn’t waste any time getting to the good stuff and is gonna be good!

Five years later we find Molly at the University of Idontknowhere, taking a class on what else? Serial Killers, specifically Jack the Ripper. The class gets split up into study groups and we find out that conveniently, someone in her class happens to recognize Molly and remembers the ordeal she went through five years prior. This is when we learn that Molly is very sensitive about her past, and has taken on the role of the angry, troubled, and misunderstood girl whose father died and mother abandoned…. Uh oh, that almost feels like a Hollywood cliché, oh well, I must be imagining things.

Cut to the Rave scene (Rave? Someone’s getting sliced and diced) where we find the members of the serial killer study group cutting loose, and it’s not long until we see not one, but two people mysteriously dressed up in black cloaks and wearing white face masks {COUGHscreamripoffCOUGH} Note to Hollywood, when you make a movie, especially a horror movie, and especially when it’s not a sequel, try to avoid having anyone even slightly resembling the killer from another movie, that’s about as lame as it gets!

Anyway, we cut to the bathroom scene where studygroup-slutgirl is getting banged from behind by one of the cloaked, masked characters. Why oh why do directors allow this to happen? I don’t know about you, but nothing turns me on more than the smell of a rundown public restroom that’s been frequented by booze swilling, sweaty ravers? I mean, the smell of sweat, cigarette smoke, shit, piss, puke and god knows what else just put my libido in overdrive, and that’s before even mentioning the optimal hygiene requirements for intercourse.

You’ve probably figured out by now what happens to studygroup-slutgirl, and one, it’s not a surprise, it’s not original, and we begin to see the movie for what it really is; a lame, unintelligent, lazy way to make a buck. How could the director take a beginning like the one in this flick and let that go to complete waste? This movie is a total insult to us serious horror fans.

For one, they try way too hard to make certain characters look like the killer. Well anyone who’s seen any horror at all can quickly surmise who the killer ISN’T! Also, you see every murder scene coming a mile away, everything is too convenient, and especially the fact that all of the members in the study group share the same initials as Jack the Ripper’s victims??? There’s no suspense, no mystery, nothing. I also get incredibly offended when the sense of isolation is attempted by making doors locked, and un-escapable.

Case one, slut girl finds a door while trying to escape, it’s rotted wood that’s got more holes than swiss cheese, but it’s locked, can’t break that one down, nope, you’re stuck!

Case two, girl in a morgue decides it’s time to scram, runs to the door, it’s LOCKED! She can’t get out, even though she bragged to her study group that she’s got the keys to the morgue (their doors must only have locks on one side, don’t want a corpse stealing a set of keys and escaping).

And case three, time to get the hell out of Dodge (also known as a cabin) but, oh shit, the back door's locked, obviously from the outside, you’re stuck. Be right back, I think I’m gonna go change all the locks in my house to work like that, don’t want my teenage daughter getting out…..

On the positive side, the acting was good, everyone in the movie did a great job as a matter of fact, but no amount of good acting will save poor writing, or poor directing. One more note before I wash the memory of this movie away with a nice hoppy ale, is that I never had the ending figured out, more specifically, my guess as to who the killer was, was wrong, but the ending is still a letdown nonetheless, it too is a lazy, illogical, contrived cliché. I’ve seen worse, but there are so many more movies out there that are far more worth your time.

4 out of 10 Sawmill split personalities