Fatal Exposure

This movie is a laugher. Photographer kidnaps and kills models while his dense girlfriend procures more victims without having any clue as to what he is doing. Made on a $1.59 budget. Worth the $1.59 to rent it if you like schlocky, cheesy movies.

I've been looking for Fatal Exposure aka Mangled Alive for around 15 years. I was lucky enough to find it in a VHS box for another film with the Fatal Exposure name. This film follows the murderous exploits of Jack T. Rippington descendant of the original Jack the Ripper. He plays a photographer who bumps off extremely stupid victims in order to drink their blood to increase his sexual potency! Filled with loads of stupid characters to get bumped, cheap but fun HG Lewis style gore and a good amount of nudity from non-ugly women, this is a fun film for fans of 80's SOV type flicks or cheap slashers. The gore fx are decent with the ending scene being a highlight. Gorehounds should go into this expecting a decent amount of gore scenes spread throughout and not thinking it'll be a Blood Pigs or Zombie 90 ultra-gorefest. The over-the-top performance of Blake Bahner as Jack T. Rippington is another highlight. It's a decent enough made film for this budget level without horrible sound that plagues some of these films. A real hidden gem for fans of such cheap gore films as The Soultangler, Revenge of the Living Zombies, 555, Goremet Zombie Chef from Hell, Demon Queen, etc...

I admit I am a fan of cheesy B-Movies, Fatal Exposure has okay blood/gore effects for a low-budget goremeister. Blake Bahner does a boyishly seductive killer photographer whose subjects are to die for-literally! Ena Henderson and the suppporting cast do an okay if hammy job. All in all, I kinda liked it.

Behind this film's rather forgettable title lies a mean-spirited, twisted, gory slasher, albeit with its tongue firmly in cheek.

Blake Bahner plays Jack T. Rippington, descendant of Jack the Ripper, who poses as a photographer to continue his infamous ancestor's gruesome work, killing his models if they don't meet his standards. Ena O'Rourke is Erica, who falls for Jack, unaware of his murderous ways or that he plans to have her bear his son so that his bloodline will continue.

What makes this one such fun are Bahner's exaggerated performance (his character breaking the fourth wall to chat to the viewer) and the gruesome kills, Jack dispatching his victims in a variety of creative ways, including decapitation by rotary saw, electrocution, and acid. The gore is cheap and cheerful but there's plenty of it. There's also a fair amount of gratuitous T&A, O'Rourke getting nekkid off for a sex scene and a bath (or was it a shower? Ah, who cares?), bible basher Maggie proving to be quite the goer, and Erica's friend Gretchen being stripped to her undies by Jack.

The ending sees Jack getting a taste of his own medicine when Erica throws acid into his face with suitably messy results.

What a fun little surprise! Not a good movie, mind you, but a fun surprise. Judging by the mundane title and cliched cover image, I was expecting a forgettable erotic thriller about a hunky photographer murdering his models after bedding them. And that's exactly what it is, in fact, but there's more! There's plenty of absurd gooey gore, AND "Fatal Exposure" is also a Jack-the-Rippersploitation flick!

A what? Well, one of the coolest short-lived hypes of 80s slasher horror was the "celebration" of 100 years since Jack the Ripper's infamous and still unresolved killing spree in Whitechapel, London. Between 1986 and 1989, there suddenly emerged a number of flicks that either revolved around the actual Ripper case or a copycat killer, or much sillier tales that somehow teleported the real Jack to a present-day setting! In the latter category, you'll find hugely amusing B-movies like "Terror at London Bridge", "Jack's Back", and thus also "Fatal Exposure".

Good-looking and smooth-talking Blake Bahner stars as Jack Ripperton (!); - playboy, photographer and great-grandson of Jack the Ripper who settled in a quiet God-fearing community where the local sheriff challenges you to a drinking contest and where Bible fanatics secretly dream about kinky sex games. Jack murders his models in imaginatively gruesome ways and drinks their blood, but simultaneously he also hopes to find the perfect woman to bear him a son. "Fatal Exposure" simply offers too much fun in the gore & sleaze departments to whine about the shortcomings! How can you not love a twisted little flick that features acid-kills, rotary saw dismemberment, shotgun blasts, axe decapitations, and plenty of gratuitous T&A?