Amityville Ripper (2023) by Bobby Canipe Jr.

Director: Bobby Canipe Jr.

Year: 2023

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Slasher

Plot:

Preparing for a special party, a woman and her friend decide to use the opportunity to covertly conduct a seance with Jack the Ripper through a knife of his acquired from the destroyed Amityville house, but when the actual killer crashes the party forces them to stop the deadly killer.

Review:

This was a fairly fun and enjoyable genre effort. One of the better aspects here is the decent enough setup that allows for a fun way to bring everything together with a solid series of storylines. The main setup about the party taking place and how everyone is clearly on opposite ends of everything, with the brother trying to find a person to hook up with, the cheerleader being way too enthusiastic about getting everything put together, and the goth girl trying to find the chance to get together with her friend and do their thing while the others are off doing their thing is a fun way to go about this kind of setup. With the way the fabled knife gets involved and the eventual release of the killer during the party, this is all worthwhile enough to tie together the various connections here which is what provides this one with a solid enough setup.

The aftermath of the setup here is the main rampage where the combination of cheesy comedy and indie stalking offers some fun scenes. The sense of comedy here is rather fun, offering up a decent mixture of quips showing off their stupidity while also going for a stellar type of fourth-wall-breaking commentary that also includes input from the production team to help things along. As well, the stalking and slashing here is quite fun with the release of the killer in the middle of the party making everything into a solid series of ambushes with random partygoers which has the usual formula of approaching an unnamed extra and graphically killing them off in a silly enough sequence. Full of silly scenarios with some silly gore along the way, there are some rather fun positives to help this one along.

There isn’t much to dislike here but it does have some issues. The main drawback is the heavy use of dialogue present in the first half where it’s far talkier than it needs to be for something of this length. Rather than go for the kind of expected premise involving the party taking place at the beginning of the film and featuring the killer going through the guests during the night, this takes quite a while before that point with the different storylines spelled out that there’s the need to get the rampage off the way it does because it’s wasted the time it did on these other factors. The other issue here is the obvious low-budget origins featured here, with the commentary on its budget not being the only factor here but the lack of action and overall presentation also giving off that particular impression which can all be enough to bring this one down.

Overview: ***/5

A rather fun and enjoyable indie slasher comedy, there’s a lot to like with this one that helps to overcome some expected genre flaws that do show up and hold it down somewhat. Those who are fans of this particular style or appreciate the creative crew will have a lot to like here while those who don’t enjoy these factors should heed caution.