Rapturious (2007) User Reviews

Not horror, oh, and not good

[jackmeat · 3/10 · 4 October 2015]

My quick rating - 3,4/10. Well that was just plain dumb. Good points? OK, that is done, bad points? Horrible acting, the lead does nothing, literally. I read he is a pretentious a-hole and I believe it. The story is stupid and MIGHT be trying to push a "Don't do drugs" meaning, but if so, it failed. Every stereotype is glorified for no reason, and the only reason I can think this is horror (aside from wanting to dig out my own eyeballs) is the supposed plot of a kid may or may not be killing people at random throughout the movie. Oh, for good measure, he also may or may not be possessed by some dude that is trying to escape hell. Anyway, you get the point. Tell the Jerky Boys (if you know who they are) to stick with prank phone calls and leave movie making alone.

worse than you tube movies!

[pinsatiable · 1/10 · 1 February 2009]

This is a film that makes you say 2 things... 1) I can do much better than this( acting,writing and directing) 2) this is so bad I must leave a review and warn others...

Looks as if it was shot with my flip video. I have too believe my friend who told me to watch this has a vendetta against me. I have noticed that there are some positive posts for this home video; Must have been left by crew members or people with something to do with this film. One of the worst 3 movies I have ever seen. hopefully the writers and director leave the business. not even talented enough to do commercials!!!!!

More like cRapturious... boring, dull, and lifeless

[D-Sligar · 1/10 · 30 November 2007]

Let's see where to begin... bad acting; I'm not sure if I'd even call it that, as it more along the lines of a no-effort script read. The actors didn't even seem to be into their parts and seemed quite lifeless and listless. Sure there was a scene or two with nudity, but that couldn't save this movie from it's lifeless characters.

To call the main character a rapper is an insult to the people who actually do. The lyrics had no rhythm or flow and seemed more along the lines of senseless rants.

Budget? Did this movie even have a budget? It seemed like they used less money than I've seen in a home-shot YouTube video. Bad lighting, props, poor sound post production. Bad special effects, if you want to go so far as to call them that. Story could have been good if the people actually seemed interested in making it so, but there was no life to this flick; I don't care who directed it.

I've seen some really bad flicks in the past year and this one is definitely at the very bottom. Don't waste your time or you'll be wishing you listened to this unbiased review. Check the ratings, you'll see the 1's are rapidly outpacing the fluffed 10's with hardly anything in between. Wish I would have looked a little closer before wasting my time. What a suck-fest!

Rapper Meets Demons, Yo.

[RocketB52 · 8/10 · 22 October 2006]

I saw this flick at the NYC Horror Film Festival. When I first heard about it I thought, "A horror film featuring a white rapper? What a crappy idea." Well, it was great.

"Rapturious" is a white kid with dreadlocks--a talented up and coming rapper--with a nasty drug habit and a really interesting prior existence. We find out in a pre-credit sequence that doesn't even seem like it belongs in the rest of the film that in the late 1800s he was a notorious serial killer and rapist. The law finally catches up with him and they hang him from a tree. The whole sequence was shot in a real, dusty little ghost town in Arizona, where the buildings still stand. Very creepy, and very dislocating.

Flash forward to the present where Rapturious (played by Robert Oppel) tries a brand new drug given to him by his dealer (Hoya Guerra). He immediately starts having what he *thinks* are hallucinations caused by the drug in which he murders people and is told by a demonic voice "WE'VE FOUND YOU, DEADMAN." What the poor kid doesn't know is that his soul managed to escape from hell after his execution (during an interview with a very nasty Demon, whose name escapes me), and evidently, he's been taking refuge in unborn babies since then, this being his latest rebirth. But the long arm of demonic justice has finally reached out, and they are by God determined to drag this errant soul back to his sentence in the Inferno.

So it's a game of cat and mouse throughout the whole story, as the demons--some in human disguise-try to net him.

We've seen it before, but the neat thing about this movie is the casting, and the terrific, urban feel. It was all shot in New York City and Queens. . .and Brooklyn, it looked like to me, and it just has the right street feeling.

The cast is great. Robert Oppel is perfect as Rapturious. Classic tough guy with a sad childhood, which one black rapper accuses him of milking too much for his music. Even though you never get inside this guy very much he has a very edgy, sympathetic vibe, so you like him. This is a role Johnny Depp would have had before he broke out.

Amin Joseph, who plays the closest thing Rapturious has to a friend, is so good he doesn't even come off as an actor. Hoya Guerra, as the drug dealer, almost steals the movie at one point, in a scene where he's sitting in his seedy apartment, watching one of those awful Mondo Cane movies on his TV, laughing hysterically and repeatedly exclaiming "GET TH' F**K OUTTA HERE!" while slurping down what looks like a bowl of beans. There's a short scene in a bar where a fat Italian guy (Sal Argano) sits and rants about how Coney Island is being over run by "wiggers," white kids who dress like black kids, that is absolutely priceless. I don't know where writer/director Kamal Ahmed found his cast, but they worked great for him.

Horror fans will love Debbie Rochon as Rapturious's agent and they'll also love Joe Bob Briggs, who plays aslightly off center psychiatrist at Belle View and who. . .well, I'll let the movie hold *some* surprises, but I will say he has the best line in the flick.

I guess this will go direct to video--I hope not, I think it deserves a theatrical release--but one way or another, it's really worth seeing.

A straight-faced genre film that's interesting but flawed

[ThrownMuse · 6/10 · 8 October 2007]

Considering that "Rapturious" is a horror film about a white rapper that is directed by Kamal Ahmed (of Jerky Boys fame), I assumed it was going to be a low-budget goof-fest of Tromatic proportions. I couldn't be more wrong. It's a film that is very serious in tone and the only joke I recall is the pun in the title. The film opens with an old Western setting, where a remorseless murderer is being condemned by officials and the local priest. The monster is hanged. The film then flashes to the present day, with the story surrounding a young up-and-coming rap star named Raptorious. His days are booked with interviews and meetings with his pushy yet caring agent (played by indie horror queen Debbie Rochon.) When his aggressive drug dealer gives him a new street drug, Rap starts having bizarre hallucinations and dreams about demons that are after him. They become so heavy that it threatens his career and soon his life. Is it the new drugs? Or is he a paranoid schizophrenic? Or is he really being chased by demons? The film explores each of these angles and is mostly successful. The cast is surprisingly good, especially Robert Oppel as the lead and none other than Joe Bob Briggs as a doctor that he's unsure if he can trust. Debbie's good too, though not always believable as a big-time talent agent. While the film did create an effective feeling of paranoia, it's too ambitious for its budget. It's never as scary as it should be. There's a sequence (that may be a dream or a flashback or reality) where Rap is in Hell, and Hell doesn't look particularly threatening or difficult to escape. This scene leads to a controversial set-piece that had me giggling instead of shocked. While there are some delicious gore sequences, the demon masks mostly look like something out of a Halloween chain store. All in all, "Rapturious" is an interesting watch. It's got a neat concept going for it, but it doesn't always deliver.

Weird,but interesting

[xmachinex · 10/10 · 30 December 2007]

Although I found this flick not exactly in the horror or hip hop genre,the fact that it wasn't the typical fare you normally see for this kind of straight to DVD movie. Was it amazing? Not really. Was it weird and interesting? It sure was. Can I recommend it? Depends on the person,but it has a mind-game quality that I personally enjoy. Robert Oppel,who stars as Rapturious,isn't exactly the kind of personality you root for (he can act,but has a somewhat unlikeable persona)does well,as well as Debbie Rochon (who plays his manager),but the real star in my opinion is Rapturious' drug dealer Hoya Guerra (from the rock group Madball) He steals the scenes being an obnoxious,bugged out homey. Also,director Kamal Ahmed's demented visuals round out this interesting indie.

Different,definitely different

[romulus-balan · 8/10 · 21 October 2007]

Okay,so I read some reviews about this movie,and I was intrigued that people either liked it or hated it,so I checked it out and I must say what struck me the most was how different and unique it was. John Oppenheimer,who is Rapturious (Robert Oppel) gets haunted by his past,when demons realize who he became. When a series of creepy events happen,Rapturious starts to realize somethings awry. That's the basic storyline,but what I loved was the weird imagery director Kamal Ahmed used in the horror sequences. A lot of sex and bloody guts fused together in these hallucinations Rapturious gets when he takes a mysterious drug called "Afterlife". Some people wrote that this movie looked "Low-budget",I have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. This movie was shot brilliantly,with terrific composition and cinematography. I feel Ahmed was going a "static" old-school style on purpose,and me being from Europe,I loved the pacing of the narrative. This film is unlike the MTV influenced films America makes nowadays. I look forward to Ahmed's next project!

Great Flick

[dreamcade · 13 October 2007]

I picked this flick up one night at my local Kim's video. The jacket cover grabbed me and I thought what hell, I'll take it home and checked it out. Well,I must say it was a rather interesting indie horror. What surprised me the most was the fact that it circumvented the usual low budget fare with wild and trippy storytelling. I don't really like rap,but this really wasn't a rap film. It was more about the lead character's descent into Hell. It also contained strong performances by lead actor Robert Oppel as well as Debbie Rochon. What amazes me is that former Jerky Boy Kamal Ahmed this! After realizing this, I checked out Ahmed's first feature "God has a rap sheet" and thought that was even crazier than this. Real cool flick,I highly recommend it.

Trippy urban horror that delivers

[bateau82725 · 8/10 · 13 February 2009]

What will draw you to this movie is the extreme reviews of either thinking it's the worst movie of all time or the best. Neither is true,however I must say "RapTurious" delivers with a trippy -ness unseen in quite some time in the urban-horror genre. Robert Oppel stars as a sullen,up and coming hip-hop artist who believes demons are after him after he takes a new drug called "Afterlife". He believes he is the reincarnation of a killer cowboy from the old west named "Dead-eye Pete". What follows are bizarre fantasies and interesting visuals that keep you wondering where the film will go next. Debbie Rochon co-stars as "Rapturious'"manager and gives a wonderful performance. Clearly,this movie isn't for everyone but for those with a taste for 'artsy' horror flix ,this may be for you.