Rippy - Das Killerkänguru

Rippy, or The Red as the title card suggests, is NOT the horror-comedy it's being marketed as. Instead, it's an incredibly dull film that borrows heavily from Jaws but fails miserably at executing any of the key plot points. The tone is inconsistent, and the script is dreadful. Michael Biehn's character swings between cartoonish and trying to channel Robert Shaw, complete with their own cringe-worthy version of the USS Indianapolis scene.

Rather than focusing on the zombie kangaroo-barely featured in the film-we're subjected to a family drama about a cop whose alcoholic father's past is bizarrely glossed over by the whole town. Despite the credits listing a puppeteering team, every kangaroo scene looks like a low-quality video game cutscene with terrible color grading that doesn't match the surrounding shots.

There's nothing redeeming about this film. Don't waste your money-it's a complete lemon with zero entertainment value.

Where do I begin with this dreadfull pos?

Don't expect a comedy here. The movie takes itself seriously and the only laughs to be had are dumb plot scenes, oh and the God awful CGI that looks fresh out of 1997.

The plot should just be there is a giant killer kangaroo on the loose killing humans. So they fight back. That's all that should be needed. Instead it forces you to watch a pointless plot of the local cop whose father died and he was the towns hero zzzzzz. His daughter (the cop) is always going on about trying to live up to his legacy, or some stupid pointless thing, it bored me to death so much I just stopped paying it any attention and I dont know or care what the stupid outcome of it was in the end, because it was utterly pointless.

I heard toilets flushing when multiple times this cop ignores the peril dangers and just stops to worry about her dead father rather than the danger their in. Who wrote this (what gets flushed)?

Then there's the killer kangaroo in all its horrible CGI glory. What's even worse is this kangaroo changes size in every shot. One moment it looks average, then it's 8 feet tall, then back to 5. Whoever did the CGI is no professional, and I've seen amatuers do 1000 times better work on personal YouTube videos.

Mix all that in with side characters all muttering about things trying to make you feel for their past or something, and you've got a cocktail for the worst film out of Australia in years.

It'd have been better to use quick cuts, shadows, and off screen imagination with a couple of puppet close ups rather than try to sell this CGI disaster amongst pointless, and I mean POINTLESS dialogue between miserable characters and it's dumb plots.

The horror aspect falls completely flat. Never any sense of danger, nothing gripping, and not even any cool or memorable kill scenes. One moment a killer kangaroos after them, then they're casually walking home, then they're fearing the roo might be outside.... MAKE UP YOUR MIND writers.

My biggest question is how did they get Kyle Reese into this film, and why did he agree to be in it? I bet he regrets agreeing to it now.

I can't think of any reason to ever suggest to someone to check this film out. It's not even one of those 'it's so bad' ones. It just has NOTHING to offer, no redeemable qualities and I wouldn't even waste film students time saying this is a movie to watch as an example of how not to make a movie. It's just not worth anyone's attention in any way, shape, or form. It's just pathetic. Don't bother with it.

First off, the trailer is not really a good indication of what to expect from Rippy (aka The Red), which seems to imply it is a comedy horror movie (like 2014's Zombeavers), but in fact the material is played almost entirely straight. The closest film that springs to mind is another Australian film, Razorback from 1984 in which a giant boar terrorises an Australian community. Here, it's a zombie(!) Red Kangaroo that terrorises a small Australian mining town. Razorback is the better film.

Michael Biehn is hopelessly miscast (although at least he does not attempt an Aussie accent), and his apparent overacting (particularly during the first act) suggests he thought he was making a different kind of film. The lead, Tess Haubrich, who plays the small-town cop Maddy who lives in the shadow of her father's legacy, does the best she can with what she was given.

This is clearly a low budget film, and the dodgy cgi and practical effects could definitely have used some more money thrown at it. The movie tried but failed to bite off more than it can roo.

Rippy should have been Australia's answer to Cocaine Bear-a wild, blood-soaked, tongue-in-cheek marsupial massacre. Instead, it hops straight into the realm of the forgettable, weighed down by cringe-inducing earnestness, limp storytelling, and a complete lack of self-awareness.

Ryan Coonan's kangaroo slasher arrives with a killer concept: a jacked-up joey goes rogue in the Outback. Sounds like campy gold, right? Wrong. Instead of leaning into the absurdity, Rippy insists on dragging viewers through a desert of maudlin backstory, family trauma, and dead-serious exposition. You'll spend 85% of the runtime wondering if someone accidentally swapped the script with an abandoned Outback soap opera.

Tess Haubrich plays Maddie, a haunted sheriff with daddy issues so cliché they should've come with a warning label. The film opens with her narrating her dead father's legacy like a eulogy from a bad Hallmark movie. It doesn't get better. The emotional weight is forced, unearned, and entirely unnecessary in a film about a murderous kangaroo.

Michael Biehn, bless him, is the only one who understands the assignment. Playing Schmitty, a deranged, bathrobe-wearing bush prophet, he twitches, rants, and throws himself into the ridiculousness with abandon. Unfortunately, the script abandons him, leaving him stranded in a movie that's too embarrassed to be what it should've been: fun.

The kills? Meh. The gore? Minimal. The jokes? Non-existent. Not even a single half-decent pun-no "roo the day," no "marsupial mayhem," not even a cheeky nod to Skippy. When your monster is a murderous kangaroo, you owe the audience at least some wink-wink carnage. But Rippy squanders every opportunity to lean into Ozploitation chaos.

By the time the film finally delivers a campy one-liner in the closing minutes, it's too little, too late. You don't make a killer kangaroo movie and spend 90 minutes pretending you're making Mystic River.

Actually the trailer tells you the whole movie.

And it is really about some zombie kangaroo who kills a lot of people in the Australian Outback.

It sounds like a hilarious, funny horror comedy you'd enjoy watching and have a good laugh at - but noooo.

The biggest flaw of that kangaroo zombie flick is that it totally wastes that opportunity and tries to be an earnest shocker movie.

But that does not work, because while the movie takes itself way too seriously and tries to scare you, it fails miserably because once "Rippy" the zombie kangaroo enters the scene you can not stop laughing at all. :)

And that's not only because the whole idea is so silly but because they used some very cheap and obvious CGI for "Rippy".

"Look - it's Rippy the zombie kangaroo out of my old computer I made with the help of the book "Cheap CGI zombie kangaroo for dummies" :)

The movie never gets any good it isn't even so bad it is almost good.

Unfortunately it isn't really worth watching.

I almost felt sad for poor ol' Rippy, who desperately tries to scare you, but you always end up laughing about it.

And I was really looking forward to watching a funny, braindead movie with the typical down under humor - but nooo - instead I got "Rippy" the serious serial killer movie about a zombie kangaroo.

Facepalm!