My quick rating – 5.2/10. Set against the deceptively peaceful backdrop of a quiet English town, The R.I.P Man takes a familiar slasher setup and gives it a deeply uncomfortable dental twist. A group of close friends realize they’ve been targeted by Alden Pick, a ghoul suffering from Anodontia – a peculiar oral disease that leaves him without teeth – who compensates by violently removing a single tooth from each victim like some kind of deranged, drill-happy Tooth Fairy. As paranoia spreads and everyone becomes a suspect, a beleaguered detective starts connecting the murders to a long-buried family secret.
My very first thought when Alden showed up was that he looked like a cross between Nosferatu and Billy Corgan, which honestly isn’t something I expected to think in 2025, but here we are. Owen Llewelyn clearly relishes the role, playing Alden with a creepy calm and a grin that suggests he’s having the time of his life performing amateur dental work, blood splatter included. The killer even has the courtesy to text his victims ahead of time to let them know they’re about to be R.I.P., which feels oddly polite for a man who’s about to introduce your mouth to a drill.
All the effects are practical, and thankfully so. You don’t need buckets of gore when you’re dealing with teeth and drills. Just the suggestion alone is enough to make most people squirm, and the film knows exactly how to exploit that discomfort. The dental scenes work very well, getting under your skin without trying to be flashy or excessive.
The problem is what happens when Alden isn’t around. The tone becomes extremely calm, almost sedated. Police interviews and dialogue-heavy scenes unfold in near silence, lulling you into a peaceful trance until Alden pops back up again. While that contrast is intentional, it also makes many of these scenes feel mundane and drawn out.
Among the young adult cast, Clarissa (Jasmine Kheen) and Jaden (Bruno Cryan) stand out the most. Clarissa’s birthday party scene is hilariously loud compared to the rest of the film’s hushed atmosphere, and Jaden, whom I recently saw in Popeye’s Revenge, takes an impressively long time to figure out what the chattering teeth symbolize…all while standing in front of an open iron maiden. Subtlety is dead, Jaden. Much like everyone else.
There’s a backstory involving Donnie (Maximus Polling) that I won’t spoil, but while the acting across the board is perfectly adequate, the characters themselves never feel developed enough to truly care who survives. The ending is abrupt and anticlimactic, though of course, there’s a sequel tease waiting patiently at the door.
Jamie Langlands directs a very nice-looking film. The cinematography is crisp, the camera behaves itself, and nothing feels sloppily shot. Langlands and co-writer Rhys Thompson clearly have talent and ambition, and yes, Thompson even sent this one over for me to sink my teeth into. Sorry. Had to.
Overall, The R.I.P Man is a smidge above average for its budget, full of promise. The Anodontia angle gives the tooth gimmick a twisted logic, even if it still feels like the most aggressive dental coping mechanism imaginable. But it doesn’t quite pull everything together. You also may never look at wind-up chattering teeth the same way again.
Releasing on streaming platforms on January 5th, 2026. Check Justwatch for links or stop back here in a few days, when I’ll have updated buttons for your easy tapping pleasure.
