Rippy

A ripping yarn about a killer kangaroo conceals a sweet little Disneyesque family drama in Ozploitation director Ryan Coonan’s adaptation of his 2014 short, Waterborne. Shot in the wilds of Brisbane with a skeleton crew and barely enough actors to keep its monster fed, its ability to attract international viewers stems mostly from the presence of Alien: Covenant star Tess Haubrich and genre legend Michael Biehn – as you’ve never seen him before.

Haubrich is small town sheriff Maddie, a troubled young woman who blames herself for the death of her war hero father yet who is still tough enough to step up and take charge when occasion demands it, as we see in an early scene involving a scuffle in the local pub. Unfortunately, the two likeable rogues whom she sends off to walk home, after confiscating their car keys, are unlucky enough to attract the attention of a creature which viewers have already glimpsed in a campsite prequel – a bloody-faced, dead-eyed kangaroo with an appetite for human flesh.

The said creature is also spotted early on by Biehn’s character, Schmitty, a would-be hunter who served alongside Maddie’s father in the war, later got involved with her mother, and is generally believed to be delusional. Wandering through the bush in this fuzzy red dressing gown, accompanied by loyal dog Ralphie, he may look like a goner, but luck loves a loser. Is Ralphie, perhaps, less lucky? Schmitty is distraught when he stumbles into town. Everybody is in mortal peril, he insists. He shot the thing but it wouldn’t die. It’s “a beast in the form of a huge kangaroo!”

Viewers complaining that Rippy takes itself too seriously must have slept through lines like this. Biehn has spent the latter part of his career as a connoisseur of micro-budget trashy movies made with love, and this one – which he also produced – fits that pattern well. It does not emerge well from comparisons with more polished works like Cocaine Bear, and its special effects are terrible, but that’s part of the appeal. Between its stiffness and the texture of its fur, one gets the impression that the killer roo has been made out of carpet. It can’t really be posed at all, so bounces up and down in a stupid-looking way which some viewers will find irresistibly cute, lurching face-first towards the camera to signal that it’s about to bite.

There are subplots aimed at fleshing out the local community, but for the most part this is a family story, with Maddie forced to face the demons of her past whilst Schmitty and her mother resolve their differences. The acting is competent all round, though it really doesn’t need to be. Alas, we don’t always get to appreciate it as we might, because some of the outdoor night scenes are so poorly illuminated that it’s barely possible to follow what’s happening at all.

Definitely on the scrappy side of the monster movie market, this may not always stand up very well, but it does have a spring in its step.