Rating: C+
Dir: Jamie Langlands
Star: Bruno Cryan, Owen Llewelyn, Matt Weyland, Maximus Polling
Nobody really remembers much about the victims in a slasher movie. There are occasional exceptions, but it tends to be where the actors involved have gone onto greater things, e.g. Johnny Depp or Kevin Bacon. The memorable entries are the ones with a villain who stands out, and any wise film-maker will concentrate on that element. This gets that right, with severely creepy killer Alden Pick (Llewelyn), who has a full back story involving illness, confinement in a psychiatric facility and, of course, an ancient Italian dental cult. Had the film stuck to this, and the cop pursuing him doggedly, DCI Gary Mullen (Weyland), it might have been a classic of tooth-related horror, alongside The Dentist.
Alden suffers from anodontia, a rare disorder leading to a lack of teeth (not sure if it’s also why he’s bald, or if it’s just because it looks scary, suggesting he’s a nosferatu). This has led, for reasons of varying plausibility, to him killing off young people, leaving behind a joke set of clockwork dentures, and drilling their teeth out to replace his own. Enter Mullen, who has to try and figure out who is the killer, and why he is focusing his lethal actions on a particular group of college students. Among them is Jaden (Cryan), whose girlfriend was the first victim on Alden’s rampage. “She’d be pretty if she didn’t have Resting Duck Face,” was Chris’s sardonic comment, succinctly putting her finger on the problem.
Not specifically the case of RDF. More that all the students are, at best, utterly bland and completely uninteresting. Maybe I’m just too old for millennials and their bullshit. But any time the film’s focus shifted onto them, my attention started wondering if there were any good snacks in the fridge. However, I am grateful the makers listened when I crowned one Emperor of Hope He Dies Soon. He did, in fact, die soon. We reached peak avocado toast with the footage of the group attending a show by some indie band. Outpost 3, who I guess are big in Sussex? I was going to make a snarky comment about their FB page having 308 followers, but the end-credit song was a genuine banger. They now have 309 followers.
It’s a shame, because there’s enough going on in the rest of the movie, we don’t need to spend time with these people. Let the adults in the room do their adulting, while the kids are limited to being orthodontic cannon fodder for Alden. But, hey, I’m a grumpy old fart who refuses to get an account on TickyTack, so what do I know? The makers just had a successful crowd funding run for The R.I.P. Man 2, and I would not mind a sequel at all. Given how this ends, I’m curious where it might go. I’m now off to brush my teeth vigorously.
[The film is available to stream in the UK on January 5th, and in the US on January 12th]