On DVD: Rapturious

 

 

Directed By: Kamal Ahmed

Starring: Robert Oppel, Debbie Rochon, William Smith, Joe Bob Briggs

 

White rapper Rapturious (Robert Oppel) is an up and coming talent about to have a movie deal. His life of drug use turns harder when he takes a coke-like substance called Afterlife. After doing a bump, he loses touch with reality and begins having murderous visions. After a couple more bumps and another gory episode, it looks like he might be committing murder. Unable to discern the truth and concerned that he’s going crazy, Rapturious goes to see a psychiatrist who offers him a solution. But, Rapturious, coked out on Afterlife, makes a few deadly decisions that might just send him to hell.

 

The Movie

 

The premise of the movie could actually work, but there are just too many laughable items throughout the film to get an audience to lend any credence to this cesspool of bad horror. No, this is not even bad in the good way. First of all, the movie is too predictable. The movie tries to be a psychological thriller that plays the fence as to whether there is something demonic or mental going on. Plenty of films have done this beautifully, but the intro sticks out like a sore thumb. So, soon you figure out that Rapturious is truly a reincarnated evil bastard. (Whoops, I spoiled the plot. As if!)

 

That this movie has a white rapper as the protagonist is also laughable. Who can take Rapturious serious even when the spelling of his name is a little problematic? Rapturious is suppose to be a blend word between Rapper and notorious, which would logically yield Raptorious. Yet we have RaptUrious. Small point, I realize, however it is an infraction in a movie that already sucks. More importantly, Rapturious is not relateable nor can we lend any type of sympathy to our protagonist. Since we figure out that he’s probably evil reincarnated pretty early on, there is no basis for conflict. We are given no hero or protagonist to struggle against evil. Rapturious just sinks into his destiny.

 

The only thing Rapturious perhaps has going for him is that he can throw down some good rhymes. I liked the scene where a rapper challenges him with a rapped out dis. Rapturious rebuts with a simple even handed rap. Other than this, there is nothing notable about this character.

 

Sometimes actors are victims of bad roles, but I’m not sure Robert Oppel could even act his way out of this one. While he might be able to rap, I’m not sure he could really act. He remained stoical like a withdrawn druggie and oscillated this with occasional and sorely unbelievable angry outbursts and sometimes quiet spoken replies. He really leant nothing to the role.

 

There are a couple scene that I can say I liked. For a low budget, the filmmaker did a good job creating hell controlled by large lipped, fiendish guards. Hell was portrayed as a factory warehouse peopled with naked despondent people in pain. Yes, I do mean full nudity as you see both male and female parts. (Sorry, this didn’t add any points). Also, they created a birth canal out of a man-sized tube, a creative and cost-effective way to pull off the scene where Rapturious’ previous life was reincarnated as him.

 

Overall, Rapturious is a failed movie. Even if you like bad horror, I wouldn’t recommend this as one to see. There is nothing scary, disturbing, or even funny about it. It’s just crap, plain and simple!

 

2/10

 

The Video

 

Presented in full-screen, the video quality is mediocre with dark scenes that appear rather grainy and detail drops to nil.  This is a low budget film and you can tell in this video presentation.

 

5/10

 

The Audio

 

The sound is presented in 5.1 Dolby Digital. There are no major balance issues or sound glitches but the sound isn't very dynamic either.  Again, it's just mediocre.

 

6/10

 

The Packaging and Bonus Features

 

The DVD release is packaged in a standard aramay case with a picture of Rapturious back to back with a hellish demon. The title hangs in a slight arch and is scrawled in a menacing font just above the picture.

 

The DVD release offers a rather lazily pieced together behind the scenes bonus feature. It offers no commentary (like this movie would need it), but perhaps reminiscent of this movie, the feature is a throwing together of random behind the scene moments interspersed with unrelated scenes from the movie. There is no A for effort on this one!

 

1/10

 

Except for a couple of good production values, the movie is an utter bomb. Why add more suck to something that sucks? Of course, the bonus features are crap too, so it makes me wonder why they even made the effort. The artwork on the box is about the best thing going for it.

  

Overall (Not an Average) 2/10

Review

The Movie 2/10

The Video 5/10

The Audio 6/10

The Packaging and Bonus Features 1/10

Overall (Not an Average) 2/10

 

-Chuck Knight