The major problem with The Ripper is not that it’s a Jack the Ripper movie made in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but that it looks like a Jack the Ripper movie made in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Although unrelated in story, it forms an unofficial trilogy with director Christopher Lewis’ other video-lensed, T-Town opuses, Blood Cult and its sequel, Revenge — all full of faults, yet full of fun. This one stands out for the participation of splatter icon Tom Savini — not as a special-effects artist, but as an actor, playing none other than London’s most famous 19th-century serial killer.
Clad in cape and top hat, Savini first appears in the flick’s historical prologue depicting the Ripper’s first murder, complete with English accents and a horse-drawn carriage (and, unfortunately, moving cars and working traffic lights). The tale is being told by Professor Hartwell (Tom Schreier, Dark Before Dawn) to his classroom of college students. Hartwell then picks up his girlfriend, dance prof Carol (Mona Van Pernis), to go antique shopping.
While Carol negotiates the price of a brass headboard (discussed so much throughout The Ripper that the piece of furniture deserves screen credit), Hartwell is drawn to an ugly red ring that flashes images of the aforementioned prologue in his head. He later returns to purchase it, and can’t get the ring off his finger. The jewelry gives him nightmares and — gasp — turns him left-handed! It also may or may not have implanted the evil spirit of Jack the Ripper inside him, thereby making him responsible for the sudden string of intestines-yanking of several young ladies around the metro area.
While these gross-out scenes aren’t near the level of what Savini can do, they do look good, especially for Super VHS. As with Lewis’ other slashers, they’re the movie’s raison d’être, leaving less attention paid to other elements, like pacing and performances. As Hartwell’s pet student, Revenge killer Wade Tower gets a sex scene with his girlfriend (Andrea Adams, Blood Lake); she remains clothed, but he bares bright-red briefs. Staying in that same color scheme, New Coke abounds as the characters’ drink of choice. —Rod Lott
So nonlinear that calling it nonlinear doesn’t cut it, the Hong Kong oddity The Invincible Space Streaker has nothing to do with space, and there’s no streaker. But here’s what goes down, or as much I was able to decipher from its truncated-English subtitles (“I order you kill him!”): After a hard day at grade school, about two dozen little boys go to a local watering hole and remove their little-boy pants to go skinny-dipping. This odd group activity is halted by the appearance of a mystical guy with a stereotypical bad haircut. He’s dressed in a robe that makes him look like Dr. Strange, except that I don’t recall the Marvel Comics character having ever enjoyed an eyeful of undescended testicles during an afternoon romp.
Chaos in the classroom used to mean something different than the school shootings of today. In Fernando Di Leo’s 
