Horror Movie Review: Rippy (2024)

An Ozploitation horror film directed by Ryan Coonan, who co-wrote it with Richard Barcaricchio, Rippy is an infuriating watch. Burying all positives in a miasma of blandness and turning what should have been utter silliness into something stupidly serious.

It’s about an undead kangaroo, and that should have resulted in fun horror antics, expect Rippy is more interested in drama, constantly grinding to a halt as characters deal with issues that simply don’t belong in a film like this. It’s about an undead kangaroo, so why am I seeing the damage war can have on a person? Why am having to deal with the lead character come to terms with the accidental death of her father when she was a child? How is any of this fun!?

Now listen, I want story and good characters in my horror, but there’s a time and a place, and when I press play on a film called Rippy that is about an undead kangaroo, all I expect is mindless violence and gore. Anything less than that, and we have a problem, and Rippy is so much less than that.

Maddie (Tess Haubrich) is an outback cop in a small town dealing with minor issues like drunken behaviour or the mad ravings of her late father’s best friend, Schmitty (Michael Biehn). Mad ravings that now include a huge kangaroo that didn’t go down when it was shot. Of course, she doesn’t believe him, but then the bodies start to turn up. Bodies that are torn apart in such a way that no human could have responsible. There’s a killer roo on the loose and taking it down isn’t going to be easy at all.

It’s such a basic story, but forgivable as it promises mayhem, kangaroo style, except as I’ve already said, it doesn’t deliver. Rippy is a minor character in the grand scheme of things, with the bulk of the story spent with Maddie, Schmitty, and her aunt Donna (Angie Miliken) and their discussions about Maddie’s father and the Vietnam war. Hell, we even have a Schmitty speech that is the equivalent of ‘war, ain’t it hell’?

It’s a baffling decision that could have worked if it wasn’t in a film about an undead kangaroo. Where’s the fun in any of this? Great acting isn’t enough to save this, nor is a cool location, decent gore effects, and a finale that at least delivers on some of the desired manic roo action.

Too little, too late, alas. I wanted this to be so much more. A braindead horror flick that was hilariously silly and absurdly gory. What I got instead was a lacklustre horror blended with unnecessary drama that doesn’t have the impact it needs because it’s in a film about an undead freaking kangaroo.