Ripper (2001) User Reviews

Who Dunnit that keeps you guessing right till the last scene!

[alistair-12 · 6/10 · 24 May 2002]

This film was better than expected and enough of the characters were developed to the point that it was very difficult to guess just who might be the killer. You would make up your mind and then change it over and over again. The violence was not as graphic as it might have been and they spent more time on the characters which is a change. Strong acting from many of the young actors was an unexpected surprise. A cut above the typical teen movie.

Tries to be different from slasher movies but fails

[chrichtonsworld · 4/10 · 24 March 2007]

When I saw the title and cover I was hoping that the movie would be like "Ripper" (videogame 1996 starring Christopher Walken). It was an excellent game that combined the old legend about Jack the Ripper with cyber technology. The result a "killer" thriller. But sadly I have to report that "Ripper: Letter from Hell" is nothing like that game. It is just a slasher movie with a very pretentious story. First of all there were some good moments. But overall I missed tension. The murders seem brutal and bloody, but the violence isn't explicit. Also a big problem is that the characters are not very likable. So you won't care for them if they die. The only exciting thing is wanting to find out who the killer is. When the characters have a dialog in one scene it somehow doesn't connect with what happened before the scene. I got the feeling that scenes were missing. This should not have been a problem if the the story was straightforward and clear. This is not the case. The story is confusing as hell. (Maybe that is why we would need a letter to explain things.) And if you were hoping for a decent climax than you will be disappointed. The way it is presented leaves room open for different interpretations. Normally I would love such an ending. Here it isn't very effective. The ending doesn't clear up motive for the killings. Also the connection between Jack the ripper and the killer is not explained very well. There is very little background given on the original Jack the Ripper murders. Assuming that you are not familiar with the murders committed by Jack the Ripper you could easily put some other famous serial killer in his place. The end result would be the same. Since good old Jack still makes quite the impression today he deserves much better treatment. I could have forgiven the pretentious ending if the movie would have been entertaining and exciting but as I said earlier the movie lacked tension and is quite boring. Jurgen Prochnow and Bruce Payne should be ashamed with their performances. It clearly shows that they don't believe in this project and only are in this movie for the money. You know I get it sometimes you have no choice but to be in certain films in order to make a living. But is it that too much too ask that once you are involved you can give it a little effort.

I know that like me some of you will be intrigued because of the name Ripper but believe me that nothing remotely interesting has been done with it. A giant waste of your time.

Jack is back...

[Amityville15 · 5/10 · 27 October 2014]

By the time she was sixteen, Molly Keller had already lived to tell a very bloodcurdling tale: she was the only survivor of a violent massacre while on an otherwise peaceful island vacation with her friends. Disturbed by her horrific past, Molly focuses all of her energies in researching the psyche of serial killers. This leads her to the forensic science program at Berkeley under famed author and man hunter Professor Martin Kane. But before long, the evil that claimed Molly's friends is seemingly loose once again - this time on the campus. A reluctant Molly joins the study group which is fixated on tracking the gruesome murderer. But events take an eerie turn when the students discover that the killer's modus operandi matches London's oldest unsolved murders: those of Jack the Ripper. Molly's friends fall victim around her, one at a time, while the remaining group work feverishly to uncover the identity of the copycat killer. As the past re-awakens, Molly is forced to face the terrifying secret behind the stalker's return, and the entire class soon realises that it's a history that they don't want to repeat.

This film starred: A.J. Cook, Bruce Payne & Jurgen Prochnow.

RIPPER was released in 2001 and is a slasher film based on Jack the Ripper. This film ran for a bit too long as it is 1 hour 50 minutes long, no slasher film is on for this long. So not very surprisingly this is a slow and boring horror film based on a Jack the Ripper copycat killer. I don't recommend this film because it is not very good and not a film that you will want to tell your friends about or a film that you will remember for very long yourself.

**/***** Poor.

Ripper - DVD From Bargain Bin

[skat17 · 14 August 2004]

I paid £1.49 for this and I'd say I got my moneys worth. As you'd expect it's very derivative of most films of this genre and treads a fine line between credibility and hokum.

However it's not cringe-inducing bad and I'd probably rate it a lot higher if it weren't for the lack of a clearcut resolution at the end. Even the Director's Commentary failed to shed any light on the definitive solution, basically saying it's up to the audience to decide for themselves - acceptable in a more highbrow production but a bit annoying for a film of this level.

Still I've seen a lot worse and it's worth the small change from anyone's pocket!

A copycat of Jack the Ripper systematically kills the members of a study group while ironically he is the very object of their study

[shuia · 2/10 · 16 March 2006]

Girl-running-in-a-thunderstorm-with-killer-close-behind-girl-trips killer-gets-her kind of story. Lots of blood, no originality. One would expect more from a movie which promises serial psycho killers copying Jack the Ripper. No real motivation for the blood bath, least of all a psychological one. Except for the ending which at least creates a little bit of confusion, one could predict every scene at least 10 minutes before it unfolds. Everything in this movie has been done, redone and overdone. It's like watching Scary Movie and taking it seriously. It's been a real disappointment. Where are the calculated blood thirsty psycho killers? What happened to movies like Seven or Silence of the Lambs, with original plots and motifs? Because personally I'm tired of watching helpless blonds being butchered like cattle while instead of defending themselves they scream in agony and then always manage to trip and fall.

Dreadful slasher movie, aimed squarely at teens.

[BA_Harrison · 2/10 · 22 July 2006]

Molly Keller (A. J. Cook), the only survivor of a violent massacre when she was sixteen, is now a student enrolled in a forensic science course at Berkeley. When her fellow classmates start dying at the hands of a mystery killer, who is following the modus operandi of the infamous Jack the Ripper, she suspects that the murderer from her past is back to finish the job.

Molly and the remaining students from her study group pool their profiling talents in an attempt to discover the identity of the maniac.

Director John Eyres directs this slab of stalk 'n slash with both eyes firmly fixed on the teen market, and what may have been a nice addition to the genre becomes an annoying and unwatchable piece of garbage due to its MTV trappings. So obnoxious are the trendy narcissistic teens that make up teacher Marshall Kane's (Bruce Payne) class of wannabe Clarice Starlings, that you'll find yourself rooting for the killer. Main character Molly is perhaps the most annoying character of all; her emotionally troubled, spunky, grunge-chic heroine is carefully designed to appeal to the widest possible teenage demographic; angst-ridden loners, trendy fashion followers, horny guys—she's supposed to appeal to them all. Well I'm not a teenager anymore, and I hated her with a passion! And while I'm having a rant about the students, could someone please explain to me how they all became so damn erudite. From hacking into a police computer undetected, to conducting an autopsy, to fixing a satellite dish, nothing seemed to be beyond their capabilities.

And now onto the death scenes. The first murder is the most impressive—a multiple stabbing followed by defenestration—and it is also the bloodiest. The rest of the killings are relatively gore free and disappointing. The nastiest deaths actually occur by accident, when two characters fall in front of the whirring buzz blades of a sawmill.

Toward the end of this drivel, which at 115 minutes is way too long, I gave up following the ludicrous plot. There was some rubbish about the victims sharing the same initials as those killed by Jack the Ripper, a pointless (non-explicit) sex scene, and various characters were revealed as red herrings. The finale is completely confusing and I ended up unsure as to who the killer really was.

Apparently, the director deliberately wanted the ending to be ambiguous, with the viewer making their own mind up about who was responsible. Well I'm not going to be ambiguous about what I think of this film—it was awful.

A film that wants to be original and smart, but fails miserably.

[thephantasm4 · 1/10 · 10 February 2002]

As much as the creators of this film want to be intelligent and creative, they fail on both accounts. Terrible dialog, annoying characters, and a pretty lame comparison to Jack the Ripper destroy this film. Not once did I care about any of the characters. In fact, I found myself awaiting their deaths so the film could finally end. The dialog was cliched and boring, and the delivery was rarely believable. Bruce Payne and AJ Cook do a decent job, but the rest of the characters come off as card board cut outs. One of the film's biggest problems is its desire to be intelligent through exposition. Unfortunately, the movie hits rock bottom whenever the characters try to explain something (which I again attribute to bland characters and dialog).

Also, there are no real ties to Jack the Ripper. Almost every Ripper element feels forced (thrown in last minute to cash in on the Ripper craze). A better description might be that they are unnecessary. This formulaic film seems to follow pretty much every slasher film that has come out since Scream. A connection to the Ripper seems to be thrown in for good measure.

To sum it up: If you have seen any slasher films over the past five years, you have already seen this movie.

Please stop it!(spoiler)

[llioncourt · 1/10 · 12 June 2002]

When I got this movie, I was looking for "From Hell" with Johnny Depp and got this one by mistake. I'll be more careful next time, I mean this movie is really awful, I'm sick and tired of seeing that kind of movie all over again. Serial killer, teens, woods, rain, problems with engines, more rain, faulty phone lines (well, it's a satellite dish now, after all it's a 2001 movie) still none of them had a cell phone... That thinking "Why? If there's a serial killer after me, WHY will I walk alone at night in the woods ?" For the plot, it's none, or at least none that one can understand, lots of holes on it's, already barely existing, story. This movie is from 2001 and still they use the very same formula that worked with, lets say, Friday the 13th... Except for the nudity, which this movie has none... Want a good thriller? look for Memento(2000), and you'll see what is a good plot.

Insight Into The Mind Of Serial Killers

[sddavis63 · 1/10 · 28 June 2002]

This movie helps the viewer gain a real insight into the minds of serial killers. It really does, because by the time this piece of utter garbage is over you want to do away with pretty much anybody who had anything to do with it. I mean anybody. The actors, director, writer, producer - even the best boy and key grip! They all need to be prevented from making any more movies.

What else can one say about this? Typical (and therefore dull) slasher type story about a group of students taking a course about serial killers who suddenly find that they're being bumped off one by one in a style reminiscent of Jack the Ripper. One of the students - Molly (A.J. Cook) has been subject to this before, being the only survivor of a serial killer on an island five years before. There's lots of wonderful screaming, and all sorts of suspects, from the appropriately creepy professor to the nerdy social outcast student, and by the end you don't really care who did it; you just want them to finish the job and put this cast out of its misery.

Best line though? It's a class of maybe 10-15 people from the looks of it (maybe not that many.) Two of them are already dead, and one student says to another, "do you think we're being targeted?" How'd this guy get into university in the first place?

No more. It's too painful to think about any more. 1/10.

good:i liked it

[canadianmovieman · 7/10 · 10 July 2003]

this may have been a standered slasher flick, but what can i say i'm a sucker for horror flicks. i say if a horror movie is bloody, gory, and fun, its a good movie(especally the fun part), if the movie is scary its an added bonus, this movie isn't scary but its bloody, gory, and fun, plus i thought the acting was good with likable characters(except that french girl, i was waiting for her to die), and i like the plot they put in there, and this movie made me a fan of a.j. cook.(who is canadian, thank you) something that could have been fixed is the ending, i've seen it 3 times and i still don't get it. otherwise im recomending this movie so, go see it

good=7/10

Began with promise then quickly degenerated into typical slasher

[thealexanders · 3/10 · 15 January 2002]

¡°Ripper¡± is for die hard slasher fans only, and even they will feel cheated. It does commence with promise, but quickly degenerates. The story centers around a young woman with a traumatic and horrific past. At university she becomes part of a group studying the crimes of serial killers, ¡°Jack the Ripper¡± in particular. Their lecturer presents a chilling introduction to the course, which gives us the hope that this might be a thinker¡¯s horror movie instead of just another ¡°cut ¡®em up¡± slasher. Unfortunately, it does not take long before we are seeing the knife wielded with gusto and the potential for real suspense departing. From here on it is a case of, which one of them will do something stupid and become the next victim. The main characters, who by now have become major crime investigators, are wooden and shallow and at times seem to be taking turns to say their dialogue with no spontaneity at all. I enjoy a good thriller but for me, ¡°Ripper¡± was annoyingly predictable.

What I like to see...

[Zombified_660 · 8/10 · 5 February 2006]

When the straight to video horror market is good, it's awesome. It gives us things like Ginger Snaps, The Locals, and in this case Ripper. Granted when it's bad it spits out garbage like Alienator, Curse of the Puppet Master and The Last Broadcast, but the more movies like Ripper I see the happier I am I cast my net further afield than Hollywood.

Ripper has a small budget, a relatively unknown cast (aside from Bruce Payne, but I'll come back to that soon) and an unknown director. However, it has what many films of it's ilk lack, an exciting premise and a potential that the movie follows through on.

Let me explain that. Ripper falls halfway between Urban Legend and Crimson Rivers. It has a teen slasher side that flashes through in it's cast of cute 20-somethings and script peppered with 'dude' and people saying 'f**k' a lot for no obvious reason (this doesn't really detract from the story though), but also has elements of a sophisticated art-house thriller. Though it doesn't commit to either, it comes out as an exciting hybrid. This is fantastic, as traditionally attempts to make teen slashers intelligent often just come off pretentious (see Scream for details) and attempts to make arty thrillers appeal to wider audiences normally dilute the idea way too much (remember Hannibal?).

It has it's down points. I had to turn every damn light in my house off to see what was going on at times, as the night scenes are at times so dark that you'll get eye strain just watching them. Also some of the actors are awful. Many of you will join me in cheering the killer on as certain among their number get what's coming to them.

On the good side though, the actors who don't suck are very very good. A.J Cook as Molly is both a great anti-heroine and a wonderful surprise as an actress, and STV veteran Bruce Payne hands in a brilliant turn as the teens' ex-FBI teacher, with a British accent that puts Angelina Jolie et al to shame. Good on you my man, great to hear a convincing accent again! Add to this a twisty turny plot that had me in shock by the time it was finished (seriously, I've seen all the big horror-thrillers and I still didn't see the end coming) and Ripper is exactly what STV is for, showing up the big boys.

So, if you think you can hack a movie with some rough edges, and you like a good slasher whodunnit, check this out.

This one is better than you may expect.

[p1phillips · 6/10 · 14 August 2001]

Molly (A.J. Cook) is the sole survivor of a massacre. Five years later, she is at university, doing a course on serial killers. Then, one by one, members of her study group start dying gruesome deaths. The m.o. in each crime is eerily similar to the work done by Jack The Ripper. Molly suspects that the killer she eluded first time around is still out to get her.

This slasher film went direct-to-video, but it holds its own against the theatrically-released slashers. A few of the deaths are quite gory, and there is some genuine tension as various characters try to avoid getting ripped to shreds. The last half hour especially has some real showstoppers as the body count rises. The film's main fault is that it is populated with several really unlikeable characters. Other than that, those sick of the jokey slashers might appreciate this above-average offering, which gets right down to business.

needless to say, "From Hell" did a much better job

[lee_eisenberg · 3/10 · 26 February 2008]

Typical slasher movie about a copycat killer, with young people doing things that they shouldn't and getting butchered. I could pretty much predict everything that was going to happen. You'd think that something focusing on Jack the Ripper might be a little more interesting, but "Ripper" doesn't cut it. The most befuddling thing is that Jurgen Prochnow stars in this. He played the submarine captain in "Das Boot" and the terrorist leader in "Air Force One", so what's he doing here? If you want to see a good movie dealing with Jack the Ripper, the choices are: "The Ruling Class" (Peter O'Toole's character ends up believing himself to be Jack the Ripper); "Time After Time" (H.G. Wells chases Jack the Ripper into 1970s San Francisco); and "From Hell" (Johnny Depp plays a detective investigating the murders in 1880s London). And of course some people might include "Dr. Strangelove" (Sterling Hayden plays Gen. Jack Ripper).

All in all, you'll do best to avoid this one.

Cut Above The Rest...

[Slasher-10 · 15 May 2002]

When people ask me what are some of the best things in life, I being a horror guru reply, a good direct-to-video horror flick. Straight on the heels of above average (or well above average) direct-to-video horror movie such as, Cube, Ginger Snaps, Cut, and The Truth About Demons, comes the latest DTV installment, Ripper: Letter From Hell. While one may find the premise to be undeniably cliched (it is), the film comes off stylish and ultimately becomes engaging as the body count increases in a most elaborate fashion.

Now for that all-too-familiar premise: Molly Cook, young woman who survives the attack of a sadistic killer now finds herself in a college course studying serial killer theories. When the people around her begin to die, she believes a new serial killer is hunting them down, imitating the slayings of Jack the Ripper.

The killings in Ripper: Letter From Hell, are much more extensive than the average slasher film. Horror fans are used to seeing the killer show up, swing his weapon of choice, and then the scene is cut, going back to the more boring part of the movie. In Ripper, the killer spends more time with his victims, making them scream in agony, stabbing them to death, and then heaving them through a window, or ramming them off a cliff and leaving them to hang onto a rock before finishing them off.

The direction by John Eyers keeps the film moving along at a brisk pace. While the editing tends to be a little MTV-ish at times, it is not overdone. The fast action editing actually works well and adds to the brutality of the killings in the movie. The beginning comes off as a Brothers Grim-like fairy tale with the serial killer's pursuit of Molly through a dark, rainy, forest. The scene in the club where the camera follows the trail of blood from the ceiling and onto the dance floor, is one of the most stylish murder scenes I have seen in a while and dare I say it, reminded me of those elegant murder scenes from the Italian giallos of yesteryear.

There are some major set backs in the film such as a highly unlikeable cast of characters. A.J. Cook (Molly) holds her own and is a convincing lead character. She gets support from veteran actor Bruce Payne. The script has more than a dozen ridiculous lines as one user pointed out, "Shut up!"..."No! You shut up!" However, dialogue in the class lecture scenes about Jack the Ripper are impressive and well researched.

The ending is a grand showdown as the killings become even more graphic and intense. The handful of suspects begin to wind down, and although you may have it figured out who the killer is, you'll be flip-flopping back and forth until the final scene. It's a beautiful scene, without giving anything away, as we are given a glimpse of 1800 London. It's an ending you will either love or hate or just not grasp entirely.

Ripper: Letter From Hell is a stylish, well orchestrated effort and deserves a spot with the recent array of worthy direct-to-video horror movies.

One of the worst movies I've ever sat through.

[maralex · 3/10 · 27 November 2001]

This is a terrible movie, absolutely dire. I can't think of a single good thing to say about it, except that watching Jurgen Prochnow prowling and slithering around, dressed all in black, whispering half his lines and over-emphasising the other half gave me the best laugh I've had for a long time. What a waste of a good actor. The rest of the cast are terrible too, but perhaps that's their normal standard of acting, I don't know as I've never seen any of them before, and I hope I don't see them again. The entire film is badly written, badly acted and very badly directed. At the end I still didn't know for sure who the killer was. At first I thought this was because my brain had atrophied during the course of watching the movie, but when I listened to the Director's commentary on the DVD I discovered that he'd 'deliberately left the film open-ended so that we could all make up our own minds'. Now there's a novelty. If you can't make up your mind how to end a film, leave it to the viewers! I wouldn't recommend this film to my worst enemy.

Quite possibly the worst horror film ever made

[djbraukman · 1/10 · 14 February 2008]

I registered on IMDb just to warn people not to waste even a minute of their lives on this film. It is simply the perfect storm of bad writing, bad dialogue, bad acting, and the most predictable storyline ever. I am a fan of even some really bad horror, as there are usually some worthwhile traits, but Ripper took all semblance of a coherent story and threw it out the window. There's bad acting that is so deliberately bad that it's amusing, and then there's the compilation of actors in this film that one can tell are actually making an attempt, but failing miserably. Considering their subsequent large body of work, the 4th grade level acting can likely be blamed on the truly horrid dialogue they are forced to attempt to make sound decent.

I would tell you to just fast-forward to the kill-scenes, but most of them are not worth the effort (was that apple-red paint used for blood?) Once the music video of the girl running through the city hit the screen, I couldn't take it any more, but forced myself to endure this drivel just to verify the "twist" ending that I had predicted within the first 5 minutes. The best use of this film is as the low-bar by which to gauge all future movies. Forget stars, my scale for horror movies is now a rating system going from Ripper to Evil Dead.

Carbon dated.

[veritybingo · 2/10 · 11 April 2021]

This film opens with a quite effective and cinematic first sequence, promising to be an atmospheric & frightening horror viewing experience.

Then it is rapidly apparent within seconds of the following scene that this will not be the case.

What we get instead is an excruciatingly dated (to an embarrassing degree) 90's rock video, where even the hairstyles are irritating.

Every character has a tiresome grungy rebellious attitude with a highly charged sexuality.

Throughout the endlessly cliche-ridden plot, we are bombarded with a playlist of generic 90's music that seems to take center stage.

Let's not also forget to point out that the improbability factor is turned up to eleven or that it features quite an unwelcome 'moment' between a young woman & her teacher.

They seem to be clutching at straws for a satisfactory conclusion & settle on quite a gimmicky one.

A Who-dunnit ? More like a Who'd watch it!

[bjkamasz · 1/10 · 2 April 2002]

Don't get me wrong,I love a myriad of horror styles, from the cheesy video flick through to pulsating realistic horror, but this flick was a stunningly poor piece of work that deservedly bypassed the cinemas the world over. Shamelessly borrowing elements of recent horror movie hits such as "Scream" "Copycat" and "I Know what you did last Summer", the film drags on interminably for nearly 2 hours with an assortment of laughable plot details, uphorent acting, a contrived soundtrack matched by the god-awful dialogue ( for example : "Shut up!" - "No, You Shut up!" ), the silliest love scene and a swag of horror movie cliches that even a spoof film wouldn't dare use due to familiarity. (The Phones don't work on a stormy night!). Even hanging in there to the film's climax doesn't deliver a modicum of merit, let alone sense. Instead, you're left wondering aloud, how in hell, this piece of garbage was ever produced.

Jack The Ripper hardly deserved this

[Sandcooler · 3/10 · 25 July 2007]

Whoever stayed around after filming "Wishmaster 3", to investigate which office supplies could be sold for crack money, was also forced into "Ripper". Which is probably better, but so is being chained to a bear. "Ripper" goes for the tired old whodunit slasher approach, but it has the handicap that you really just don't care. I guess it could be that professor, or that scary inspector guy (he specialises in investigating little girls' bedrooms), but this has so many twists you really just end up picking a character at random, you always have the same chances anyway. The ending is confusing, mainly because the director freely admitted he left in two separate endings just for the sake of confusing everyone. That's just pure professionalism right there. Not a very entertaining B-movie.

C'mon, does no one get the connection?

[divrdwn41 · 7/10 · 28 January 2006]

I viewed this movie basically because of A J Cook, who is now in the new TV Series "Criminal Minds". In the beginning I was like many(most) of the commenters on here. I played the ending twice to determine the killer. Then, the switch went on. This IS a movie with connections to Jack the Ripper. And there has never been definitive proof of who he was.

Aha, there is no definitive proof of who the killer is in this movie.

So, let's move on. Perhaps this is the answer to the oft asked question about the ending, perhaps not. But the logic makes considerable sense. As far as I know, none of the directors dialogs has ever addressed this issue.

I vaguely recall a movie back in the 60's that had an ending that was left entirely to the viewer's interpretation. It began as a black and white movie, and then as a female is killed and she begins to bleed the blood turns to red and the movie becomes a color movie. One of the best transitions I can recall. I cannot recall the name of that movie. However, at the conclusion you were left to decide the ending.

Not for me

[Bezenby · 2/10 · 3 August 2012]

Here's a list of things Ripper gets wrong:

1) It's a post-Scream slasher 2) It's full of terrible music and horrible quick-cut editing 3) It's one hour and forty-five minutes long (A slasher film!) 4) With the exception of Bruce Payne and Jurgen Protchnow, the acting is terrible

And if you think I'm going to say 'in spite of this, I liked it' then you're wrong. It was crap!

After a promising pre-credits sequence where a girl named Molly survives a serial killer's rampage, we're thrown right into smart arse territory as we see our victims are all part of a college class who are studying murderers, or something. We've got our post-Scream list of morons here: goth-like Molly who keeps her past a secret, Marissa (Kelly Brook!), who's the nymph, twitchy red herring guy, the dark stud guy, the wisecracking guy, and the bitch, who hates Molly and serves to introduce an unneeded teeny drama element to the proceedings. Their teacher is Bruce Payne, an ex-FBI profiler who also has a dark secret. Everyone, with the exception of the twitchy guy, is confident and annoying.

We run slap bang into the film's main problem here: too much talking! We get a lot of babble about serial killers (looks at watch), characters establishing themselves (nods off), and a fake killing instigated by the teacher (pffft). Eventually we get to the first killing, which, for anyone who sat through The Big Breakfast on British television, is mercifully Kelly Brook. She's stabbed to death in a nightclub in a way that turns out to be exactly the same way Jack the Ripper killed his first victim (more lengthy discussions about Jack the Ripper here, and indeed this goes on throughout the film).

To cut a very long story short (there are only two killings in the first hour!), one of the students (or maybe the teacher) is killing everyone else in the way Jack the Ripper killed his victims. Turns out all the students have the same initials as the victims of Jack (how stupid is that?) so they know who's going to be next. Throw in some Dawson's Creek drama (Molly likes the stud, but the Bitch tries to derail things), some truly daft contrivances (the initials thing, Molly being able to hack the police database) and a severe lack of gore and nudity, and you have a truly rubbish slasher flick. What drags this film way, way down is the deadly serious tone, the crappy music (nu-metal, some emo style crap) and the acting of the younger cast. Check out Molly's tantrum which seems to involve throwing cushions around and spray painting!

Also, the 'killing Jack the Ripper style' plot is plainly dropped after the first two kills (unless Jack the Ripper used a bandsaw and a hatchet), plus the ending is completely daft and annoying.

It is well made enough, but the post-Scream era wasn't a great time for slasher films. What Scream missed was that, yes, the older films had clichés, and were predictable, but they were fun! Don't believe me: try Pieces (1982), Don't Open Till Christmas (1984), and any other Sleepaway Camp films. Much better.

Avoid!

Cut Above the Rest...

[Angelus-16 · 8/10 · 28 February 2002]

As most people who comment negatively on DTV slasher films have only ever seen the Scream trilogy and I Know What You Did Last Summer, they can't be expected to construct a comparative view of what is really a film that excels the others of its ilk on production values alone.

Although surface gloss is by no means compensation for a good strong story, Ripper has a whole lot more plot than some its commercially released contemporaries without abandoning the simplicity of the slasher conventions: a group of student taking a course in serial killer profiling are offed by a mystery murderer who bases the slayings on the most famous serial killer of them all - Jack the Ripper.

Storywise, this is really a combo of Copycat and Urban Legend but, for the most part, succeeds in creating an ongoing ambiguity over the killers identity (something that is never honestly made clear at the end), but the ingenuity lies in the styling leading up to the finale. The unsympathetic teenagers are first excited at the chance to do some detective work of their own, then they're curious as it becomes obvious they're somewhere on his list before fighting amongst themselves and ending up hacked to pieces.

I wouldn't give any of the twists away, but Ripper is a largely satisfactory venture with a level of stylish (though sometimes misogynistic) violence that has been absent in recent horror outings and echoes the early days of Friday the 13th with a bit more visual flair. 8 out of 10.

Ripper

[agentsteel-1 · 6/10 · 16 October 2007]

IF ANYONE KNOWS, WHO THE KILLER WAS, THEY ARE BETTER THAN ME, I THOUGHT THE PROFESSOR? As 'Teacher' was spelt out, from the last letters of th victims names, but them i thought the blonde girl, as she was on the boat, when some1 fell in the water; but maybe it was Molly all along??? I enjoyed the Film, but seems most didn't!!! So, anyone who can help, with the identity please let me know. I think, i may have to watch it a few times and spot things, i missed first time around. Maybe more gore and violence would of made it better and more sexy scenes, naked girls perhaps? Alex is HOT HOT HOT!!! Anyway let me, know, who you thought, was the KILLER.

Jack The Rip-Off Vs. The College Co-eds

[Coventry · 4/10 · 5 April 2007]

This is one of the worst things you can encounter on the lowest horror-shelves of your local video store; a pretentious teen-slasher! "Ripper" basically is just another routine and mediocre stalk 'n slash film, but it stupidly also pretends to be a deeply intellectual and psychological thriller investigating the sickening motives that drive serial killers. In theory this means "Ripper" is a film that constantly features college students bragging about their knowledge concerning the modus operandi and trademarks of notorious killers – Jack the Ripper in particular – but when they eventually face one themselves, they make exactly all the same mistakes victims usually make in low-brain horror films. Every member in class perfectly knows Jack the Ripper picked up prostitutes or that Ted Bundy aimed at lonely and insecure girls, yet even then they still have random sex with a total stranger at a party and continue to separate themselves from the group even though several of their friends already turned up dead. Are we really supposed to believe these characters are any smarter than the usual ones in post-Scream slashers just because they read a few books about profiling techniques? On the bright side, however, "Ripper" certainly isn't a total waste of time. The opening sequences and the finale are pleasingly exciting, there's a relatively fair amount of gore and the cast contains a handful of familiar faces, like Jürgen Prochnow ("The Keep") and Bruce Payne ("Passenger 57"). The latter stars as a prominent FBI-profiler slash university professor, teaching his class to 'expect the unexpected' when faced with an actual serial killer. They can soon enough put this theory into practice when an actual Jack the Ripper copycat shows up on campus. He/she seems to follow around the class' outsider Molly, as she already survived a similar massacre party on an island a couple of years ago. Quite annoyingly, the characters are killed off in order of likableness and beauty. The most ravishing scream-queens, Kelly Brook, Emmanuelle Vaugier and Daniella Evangelista, are the first to die whereas the insufferable ones like the class-clown and the obnoxious French import actress hang around till the very end. Much more than on the revived popularity of slashers, "Ripper" attempts to cash in on the success of Hughes' brothers "From Hell". Even part of the title is borrowed.