Grim Reaper

 

On the outset when I first ran across the Grim Reaper trilogy on Tubi, I became excited because of the cover art for the original picture. It's in your face about what it's potentially ripping off or what it was inspired by, and of course it's the original Friday The 13th flick. If you've been steeped in this sort of thing for multiple decades now, you already know what the poster art for that film looks like, and I'm sure you would be intrigued to give this initial foray a shot like I did because of it. Let me tell you something-as a huge fan of the Jason films, the original Grim Reaper just fell flat. It literally made me think of what I used to do when I was younger with various kinds of pop where everyone else wanted to drink it normally with the carbonation still in it (which, I mean what's the point of it being soda with out it) where as I would be a jackass and figure out ways to flatten it because I didn't want the little fizzy bubbles in there, so I would set them free by shaking the shit out of whatever two liter happened to be at someone's house, and then proceeding to open it continuously until all of what was left was basically just flavored water. Man did I piss off a lot of people by doing that. Grim Reaper however didn't really piss me off while flattening itself out by taking all the fun and fizz out of it's own possible slasher grandeur, it was delivered that way and I was sorely disappointed by it. I was really in my way of wanting this to be a highly enjoyable Jason Voorhees styled romp with hot girls, nudity, stupid teens getting annihilated by said abomination, and some sicko stalking everyone in a skull mask with a hand scythe. But that's not really what happens here. Before I get to that, what I really was hoping this was going to be was another lame, low budgeted slasher in the vein of the Bloody Murder films. That's what I was hoping this was going to be like. And it never even reached that echelon. The two Bloody Murder flicks are fun as hell and Tiffany Shepis even gets naked in one of them so there's a pull right there for die-hards that know their shit when it comes to digging in the dirt for their entertainment. Here though in the original Grim Reaper-there is none of that. There's no great or funny music, there's no great or funny characters, there's almost no energy to even bounce off of when you're trying to get into it-it's all just blah. Blahhhhhhh, blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I didn't hate Grim Reaper. Not in the slightest. I just didn't really enjoy it all that much because it drags it's own feet slowly, sluggishly and very hard. There are some cool kills here and there is some inherent intensity when Victor Cunningham is going around slicing up randoms because he was released from a mental hospital that was shut down for various reasons. He becomes the grim reaper very quickly by killing a fat farmer dude that claims that it would have been better to marry his sister than whoever he ended up with (we don't get to see this guy's wife) and he goes in his shed and takes the little hand scythe and the black hoodie he has hanging on the wall. After that, he kind of just goes around killing people because of his rage that he has built up from finding his wife cheating on him which is how he ended up in the mental facility in the first place. That's really it. I unfortunately don't have much more to say about the original Grim Reaper besides the fact that it just felt like it was trying way to hard to be serious and atmospheric which led it to really just what I stated earlier-a flat two liter of soda with all the fun and fizz taken out of if. Except I didn't do it this time. The crew involved with making this film did. And I just hope and pray that the sequels have more life and spunk in them than this first one did.