The Rockville Ripper (DVD)

==The Film==

The Rockville Ripper opens with nice shots of some wheat blowing in the wind accompanied by some light piano music and you’d be forgiven for thinking of Gladiator up until you have a the camera pointing directly at a cow who looks put out by its presence and the interruption of rock music coming from a car. What exactly was the point in this initially “artsy “ almost touching opening, with all its beautiful nature and cow? ...
...teenagers are “making out” in the car out in the country as happens in so many horror films and clichéd as it is I kind of like this kind of cliché. There are two cars actually and the guy in the car that gets the most screen time is most definitely gay because he has this naked girl in his car yet all he wants to do is talk to his friend in the other car over the walkie-talkie and when that guy doesn’t want to talk to him he just spouts horrible ... more

The Film

The Rockville Ripper opens with nice shots of some wheat blowing in the wind accompanied by some light piano music and you’d be forgiven for thinking of Gladiator up until you have a the camera pointing directly at a cow who looks put out by its presence and the interruption of rock music coming from a car. What exactly was the point in this initially “artsy “ almost touching opening, with all its beautiful nature and cow? I don’t know. Seems pretty incongruous considering the film but a film has to open somehow.

Anyway two teenagers are “making out” in the car out in the country as happens in so many horror films and clichéd as it is I kind of like this kind of cliché. There are two cars actually and the guy in the car that gets the most screen time is most definitely gay because he has this naked girl in his car yet all he wants to do is talk to his friend in the other car over the walkie-talkie and when that guy doesn’t want to talk to him he just spouts horrible American Football metaphors. He is killed as are his compadres and the world is all the better for it.

The body’s are found by the brother of our annoying American Football guy and detectives are called. Miraculously one of the guys is alive! The sheriff of the town discovers that one of the inmates from the local mental asylum has escaped and a man-hunt ensues. We also keep getting these flashbacks to inside the asylum and the police deputy acts a bit weird. It twists a bit. We have some grand unveilings and that’s your lot.

What I Thought About It

This film is middling. I don’t know where to put it on the scoreboard. Firstly let’s start with the story. The people marketing this film seem to be conflicted as to its genre. It’s been marketed under several different names each going for different angles. Apparently it has been released as “Unaware” and called a psychological thriller. That’s just not true. Whilst you might get away with thriller it’s not really a psychological thriller. There are two scenes were the deputy starts to hallucinate and have flashbacks a bit that might justify this take on the film but they’re not enough. Then it has also been sold as “The Rockville Slayer” and “The Rockville Ripper”. Neither of these are all that accurate either. It’s not a slasher film. Okay some people get stabbed but this film is pretty much a mystery film and I recant what I said earlier it’s not middling. It’s almost middling but in the end it’s just poor.

Terrible, terrible acting from the father of the dead boy. This guy was awful. There was one scene were he is telling of an old love affair and in the flashback scene to make him look younger they’ve just put this really big wig on him so we have this old fat guy all naked and disgusting and I sort of wish I could post the picture of it here but it’s a bit too much. (I have included a picture of the wig, cut everything else out) Then we have the police detective played by Nicole Bueher and God is she annoying. She’s so arrogant and starts to talking the usual rubbish about how she can’t eat or sleep until she gets the job done. Of course this is the fault of the script writers rather than her but she herself has this aura of pure annoyingness around her. She’s been in 2 films both in 2004 so let’s just hope that she took to acting as a phase and she’ll not come back. The main character was the deputy Charlie and get this the actor who played him was called Circus-Szalewski. He was alright to be honest. Almost a good actor. He was also sickeningly thin. The crazy thing about this film is that it stars Joe Estevez as the sheriff and I didn’t know who Joe Estevez was until after and throughout I was confused as to whether that was Martin Sheen or not. Turns out they’re brothers and Sheen changed his second name but they look so similar and I was amazed that who ever made this piece of crap got Martin Sheen on board. But they didn’t, they got the cheaper brother. Imagine being the cheap substitute to your brother. Like my brother. Joe Estevez wasn’t a bad actor here though.

Story wise it was alright. This I suppose was its only strength. It worked the mystery side quite well and I was convinced it was a certain character but I was wrong. I’m generally quite good at guessing whodunnit so they managed that quite well. You also had these weird flashbacks that you knew were going to be important.

Marc Selz wrote and directed the film and made a mess. Some of the writing was really clichéd and some of it was just plain awful. Like after they’ve got the escaped lunatic and everyone considers the case closed the detective won’t let it go and she starts giving all her reasons to this piano music which was for a far more emotional scene than this was. She gets all wound up because one person was stabbed and the other strangled so she doesn’t believe it was the lunatic because it doesn’t make sense. She was mad! It makes perfect sense. She then says it was all too sloppy. Who is more likely to commit a sloppy murder than a raving head-the-ball? God, I’m bringing that punch section back into my reviews and if I were to punch anyone in this film it would be her. You think I’m being too over the top? Well, when she discovers the dead bodies she opens their eye-lids and stares at them, when asked why, she replies “Sometimes the eyes tell a story, you know”. Aghhh shut-up woman. This was made all the better when she was asked what story the eyes were telling and she just replies “I don’t know”. How stupid was the person writing this film?

Some of the directing was just plain amateur directing. You could tell the guy lacked experience and they also seemed to be using really crap video equipment, sometimes it was alright but sometimes it all fell apart or looked like something someone bored made for youtube. The special effects were woeful. All the gunshot sound effects were clearly dubbed on and there’s one scene were the actor is flicking his wrist to give the impression the gun is shooting but it looks like that’s just what he’s doing and not in the least realistic.

Critics Quotes

So there were these three statements on the back of the DVD that are really misleading.

“Smart Psychological Thriller” Mark Engle, Cult Cuts Magazine

Maybe his assessment of smart is relative to his own capacity but I don’t reckon too many people would consider this smart. The story was alright but there was nothing clever about it. The dialogue was terrible. So Mark Engle - shut up.

“An orgy of bloody beauties” Tex Massacre, Bloodydisgusting.com

What? I reckon this guy only watched the first five minutes. Because within that time we do have one topless girl (it’s questionable as to whether she’s a “beauty” or not) and some bloodiness but the rest of the film isn’t all that bloody until a slightly bloody climax and once little miss topless goes that’s the end of the “beauties”. Tex Massacre - shut up with your stupid name.

“A real independent treat” Horror Bob, HorrorReview.com

It’s not a treat but it is real I suppose and it is independent so for getting two out of three right Horror Bob doesn’t have to shut up.

Who I’d Punch

The dead teenager who kept putting off you know what and kept making American Football sex metaphors.

Annoying detective woman. Really hard in her story telling eyes.

The guy in the film with either a really big skull or fat face. Just for the experience.

DVD

The quality of my DVD was terrible. It was all pixelated and the aspect ratio was weird. (My pics don’t represent the bad quality)

Price

£1 new. Not bad but still…

Do What I Tell You

Do not buy, it’s almost good but it’s not. Bad acting, writing and directing ruin an acceptable story. It’s not scary, it’s not a slasher film and it’s not a psychological thriller.

Trailer

http://www.therockvilleslayer.com/

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