DIRECTED BY: Craig McIntyre
REVIEWED BY: Mario Dominick
After completing his debut feature, the brutal and twisted A Few Screws Loose, Craig McIntyre has finally given us his follow-up, The Los Angeles Ripper.
LA Ripper starts off with Grahm, a deranged sociopath wandering through the streets of Hollywood, who picks up a prostitute. After the two head off to a hotel room for some fun, things end badly for the prostitute, who finds herself being stuck in Grahm’s powerful grasp being strangled to death. Kristy arrives in LA to meet up with and move in with her cousin and aunt. She needs a place to stay while she takes singing lessons. Cousin Angel is a drug addict whose dealer happens to be Grahm. Grahm and his friend BC meet the two and their friends in a bar. Grahm tries so desperately to make an impression on Kristy that he ends up creeping her out. Kristy later sees him on the beach and his weird behavior hasn’t changed a bit. Meanwhile, the bodies of prostitutes start piling up around the city as Grahm makes his rounds performing his homicidal methods. It becomes increasingly apparent that Kristy is in danger. What horrifying and gruesome ordeal awaits Angel and her?
LA Ripper is an excellent microbudget grindhouse-style serial killer flick. There’s some pretty decent gore effects including a hatchet in the head, a bloody scalping (with the top of the head being opened up), and more. A Few Screws Loose was another sleazy gore flick which delivered the classic exploitation film elements. While that one was entertaining in its own right, LA Ripper is actually a step up from it in many aspects. It’s clear that Craig McIntyre is a seasoned auteur of the depraved, and with LA Ripper, he proves it in one sleazy and brutal scene after the next. Here’s hoping the DVD release is available soon so fans of extreme underground horror can put this on their reference shelf next to the likes of The Super and Nick Palumbo’s Murder-Set-Pieces.
For more info on LA Ripper, visit the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/#!/LARippermovie
