The R.I.P Man is an indie slasher that was co-written (alongside Rhys Thompson) and directed by Jamie Langlands (The Cellar). Featuring a memorable antagonist killer and some atmospheric locations, it was only let down by the fuzzy logic motivations of the core characters.
The titular R.I.P Man (Owen Llewelyn - Good Neighbours, Dredd) is a demented serial killer who takes the trophy of a tooth from each of his victims. This is perhaps due to the man having no teeth of his own due to a rare oral condition. The police, led by DCI Gary Mullen (Matt Weyland - Eastenders soap opera), are determined to catch the killer, but are not getting very far, even though the killer appears to only be targeting a small group of college friends. After Jaden's (Bruno Cryan - Popeye's Revenge) girlfriend is murdered in the film's prologue sequence, the grieving young man starts an investigation of his own to track down the killer and end his reign of madness.
Rather than keep the antagonist a hidden menace, he is shown fully almost straight away. For a killer such as this, this is a good thing, as he has a really memorable look. He did remind me a lot of Nosferatu; pasty white skin, bald, wide eyed, and suited out with punkish looking black clothes. This villain always looked great on camera, the creepy way he grins at his victims, with his 'R.I.P' embossed mouth guard he wears made for some fun on screen moments. Each of the kills over the course of the 90 minute movie were fun to watch, and varied as well, with no one victim dying the same way as any other. There wasn't a lot of blood shown, but it always looked decent enough. Special effects throughout were never bad, love the practical over CG. The night scenes did all seem a little blue tinted, but that's a minor quibble. The killer's repeated use of wind-up chattering tooth toys was also a neat touch, these items bookending the kill scenes, often used to lure his victims to the particular places were they would meet their end. There was also a decent dive into who the killer was, and the reasons he might have for wanting to kill, though the repeated refrain from Mullen as he explains the killer has a 'rare oral condition' to everyone he meets did get slightly farcical.
On the topic of the police, that is just one of the areas where the story goes a little loose in terms of believability. Aside from one late film moment where the police tell one of the potential victims that they will look into getting them police protection, there seems little to no protection for the characters. The police seem more obsessed with learning where the wind-up toys originated from, than looking for a motive. Not that that bothers the protagonists, despite their friends being killed off in horrific ways one by one, they never seem to express any type of shock or sadness at this. The R.I.P Man weirdly never shows the characters initial reactions to finding out their friends have died, they are only ever shown in scenes where they are shown carrying on their lives as normal, without seemingly a care in the world. The focus was more on the police investigation, which was entertaining to watch, but it did make the college student's role in the film take more of a back seat.
There were some excellently chosen atmospheric locations here, from a dark church, to isolated cellars, and a ruin, these places all looked exactly where you might expect to be murdered by a crazed slasher. My issue with these places where that characters end up in them for no real logical reason. One early example, not to reveal the victim, but they are basically wandering down a series of narrow alleyways at night for some reason, and then randomly decide to enter a building, head into its maze-like basement, before conveniently stopping in the exact location where the slasher has set a convoluted trap that is then sprung on them. Characters have little to no reason to constantly be appearing in these sinister locations, it became a recurring theme, and felt like they were only ever where they were because the script called for it, not for any logical in-film world reason.
At the moment, I am all about escapism from the real world, and The R.I.P Man delivered with that. Despite my problems with some of the way this story was told, the antagonist was very memorable, and the story told was decent, making for an entertaining indie slasher that sometimes effects a pretty neat dream-like feel, whether intentional or not. The R.I.P Man comes to streaming platforms on 5th January in the U.K and is available for pre-order.
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