This fifth instalment of (now) AMC/Shudder’s horror anthology, Slasher, comes to a close, and with all the lavish splendour that this season has presented, can it maintain it’s early promise and deliver a conclusion that will set it as the best entry in the franchise to date? More on that later.
The big concern coming into this season was how they could once again twist a narrative out of the template of slasher films that is Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None? The kills may be more gruesome, with blood and gore used to paint each episode by the time the credits rolled. However, inventive and plasma-drenched deaths do not make an interesting narrative. The best adaptations have always been the ones where we spend time with characters, getting to know and understand motivations and desires, weaknesses and fears, so when the knife of vengeance is pointed at them, their passing carries a little more gravitas than say your average kill by numbers, something the Slasher franchise has suffered from in the past (Slasher: Solstice being the main offender of this in my eyes).
There needn’t have been any reason to worry, because, to answer the question in the opening, Slasher: Ripper is by far and away the best entry in the series to date.
The set up from the very beginning was rock solid. The age old story of power and corruption, the have and the have nots, the wealthy and the weak and just how cheap their lives become when it is entrusted to the worst among us. Set this against a backdrop of a Victorian era Toronto, and whilst some of the sets look a little too clean to sell the idea of the squalor in which the impoverished live completely, it manages to place that at the back of the mind of the audience with excellent performances from show regulars (Sabrina Grdevich and Paula Brancati in particular bringing a cruel yet engaging cattiness to the story as the conniving Bottecceli sisters) to first timers (Eric McCormack as the nefarious gentleman of wealth, Basil Garvey, around which a majority of this series revolves) being more than enough to forgive the occasional historical faux pas.
I am not going to sell Slasher: Ripper as a reinvention of this tried and tested formula, neither am I going to try and convince anyone that it is perfect in any way, but what this particular season does better than any other to date was to leave a fulfilling sense of satisfaction upon its conclusion. It manages to take the fate of some of the characters right up to the final moments, never playing which way it will lean, serving as tension that has so often been bereft from other similar shows and films.
I will be the first to admit that when the Slasher franchise landed in the hands of AMC’s Shudder I had my concerns, but on the strength of Slasher: Ripper alone? The future of this series has never looked brighter.
The Compelete Series of Slasher: Ripper is out now on Shudder
Ben’s Archive – Slasher: Ripper (II)
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