Back in the 1980’s, you could shoot horror movies directly on video and they’d still get into video stores. Jeff Hathcock did that with two movies, this one and Streets of Death. He also created Victims! and the Troma film, Fertilize the Blaspheming Bombshell. But today, we’re here to discuss his 1986 slasher film, Night Ripper.

Sure, this movie is packed with sheer Velveeta, but I kind of loved it. It turns out that a guy who ignores his fiancee — who is having sex with her boss anyway — and meets hot models as he does glamour shots for them ends up getting blamed for some murders that are just like Jack the Ripper. He becomes a suspect and also falls in love with one of the girls who gets targeted by the real Night Ripper. Or is that Night Ripper!?

Even better, Larry Thomas, the Soup Nazi, is one of the suspects. And if you are keeping track: Thomas was in Don Edmond’s Terror on Tour — which looks like and stinks like an SOV, but was shot on film. There’s also tons of bad acting, worse line readings, soap opera music cues and incredible dialogue like “This isn’t love! This is two sweaty bodies fucking under flood lamps. And I’m tired of flood lamps!”

I think more movies should have this much surface noise, with actors being recorded probably from the microphone that’s on the camera. It’s also got an awesome climax inside a mannequin factory, making me think that I should have saved this for my upcoming theme week of mannequin movies.

This is really hard to find, so I’m just going to share the whole movie (via You Tube) in the hopes that you watch it and love it as much as I do.

Do you need more SOV Jack the Ripper hijinks? Check out Christopher “Blood Cult” Lewis’s The Ripper starring Tom Savini