21st Century Ripper Movies: Ripper – Letter from Hell

21st Century Ripper Movies: Ripper – Letter from Hell

I came across this one day at the video store. At the time, my husband didn’t want to rent it, but I kept my eye on it. Last night we finally saw it.

I really thought it was going to be terrible. It was clearly a Direct-To-Video production which had never seen theatrical release in the United States. And when I checked the Internet Movie Database to see whether or not it was even listed, I found a user review that went like this:

This movie helps the viewer gain a real insight into the minds of serial killers. It really does, because by the time this piece of utter garbage is over you want to do away with pretty much anybody who had anything to do with it. I mean anybody. The actors, director, writer, producer – even the best boy and key grip! They all need to be prevented from making any more movies.

Not a very promising start, I’d say.

But I sucked up my courage and stuck it in the DVD player. Turned out that it was actually a pretty decent little slice-and-dice teen slasher movie, but with a more sophisticated and clever plot. Now, admittedly, in order to appreciate it, you probably have to like teen slasher movies… and I know that a lot of you probably don’t. People who don’t have been giving this thing terrible reviews; people who do have been giving it excellent reviews. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground. You either think it’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen, or you think it’s totally brilliant.

BASIC PLOT: Ripper copycat movie, with an obvious, but fairly clever, nod to the SCREAM series (particularly SCREAM 2). Molly–the only survivor of a previous serial killer slaughter–takes a college class on the theory behind serial murder. Jack the Ripper, of course, is a primary focus of the course, especially since the professor is a well-known profiler who has written a book proving with DNA that the killer was (authentic Ripper suspect) Montague John Druitt. As the course progresses, students in the class start dying around the previous survivor, killed in ways that resemble the Ripper’s modus operandi. To complicate matters, the detective on the case is convinced that the killer they are facing is the same serial killer who nearly killed Molly five years earlier.

THE BAD:
1) After a really excellent, and intense, opening sequence, the film settles in on its first scene in a college classroom. In this scene, the behavior of the female students is way over-the-top, complete with brazen come-ons to the professor. In this scene–which introduces us to the characters–we come to believe that there is nothing resembling real people in this film. Thankfully, the rest of the film overcomes this problem. But some of the teens can still be pretty annoying.

2) The ending is mind-bending, which some people hate. (But I really love).

THE GOOD:
1) The makers of this film really did their homework on Jack the Ripper. The discussions of the case are extremely accurate. They’ve got the names of all the victims right. They have the killer’s M.O down to a tee. And they even manage to work all this Ripper stuff in to a plot that relies on the Ripper murders (and on elements of SCREAM 2), but without ever seeming too totally derivative or predictable. It’s commendably done.

2) The plot has more of the intrigue, amateur detective stuff and psychological issues involved in the giallo film, rather than just the rudimentary trappings of plot that most slasher movies possess. The film also has a lot of slasher and giallo in-jokes, which are fun for people who enjoy these sub-genres of horror. Ala nearly any Dario Argento movie, virtually the only thing we ever see of the killer is his black gloves. And, in a nod to Friday the 13th, kids are getting killed in the forest in the rain.

3) There are red herrings galore. The filmmakers establish about 5 or 6 people as potential suspects… at least in the viewers’ mind. And they play the potential suspects against each other, in typical Ripper (and yes, giallo) movie fashion.

4) The movie has a calculatedly grunge look that’s perfect for capturing the Pacific Northwest youth culture of this film. It also has terrific, adrenalin-pumping murder sequences, packed with suspense.

5) The ending is mind-bending, which some people (like me) really love.

This is actually one of the better Ripper copycat movies I’ve seen, and I think it’s actually the first Ripper-copycat sophisticated teen slasher movie that I’ve ever seen.

I rate it 7/10 (or 3.5 out of 5 stars).

Faux Ripper 101: New York Ripper

New York Ripper is not a Jack the Ripper film. It’s not even about a Ripper copycat (though Jack the Ripper—JtR for short) IS mentioned at one point during the investigation. This film is what I call a “Faux Ripper” movie (i.e. a film which uses “Ripper” in one of its titles—generally for marketing reasons—but which is not about JtR). This film uses “Ripper” in its original Italian title, and in all English versions.

At any rate, this film is an Italian giallo film, by ultraviolent filmmaker Lucio Fulci. The killer in this movie is extremely sadistic (in the film’s most famous scene, he slits a woman’s eyeball with a razor), and he taunts the NYPD by phoning them up and speaking in a duck-quack voice.

Though this film fits into the giallo subgenre of Italian horror, it is not really representative of gialli as a whole. The giallo subgenre generally combines murder mystery, high body count, variety of killing styles, dazzling cinematography, and the ultimate unraveling of the mystery… kind of like Halloween (part ONE!) and Friday the 13th (part ONE!)–though neither of those movies has the high cinematic style of the typical giallo.

FYI: gialli are pretty violent films. BUT in New York Ripper Lucio Fulci goes beyond the violence of the standard giallo film… particularly the gialli by filmmakers like Mario Bava and Dario Argento. That’s partly why I’m saying it’s not really a representative giallo. But in addition, it has a much more gritty look than any Bava or Argento giallo would. If you watch Bava’s Blood and Black Lace or Argento’s Deep Red—and then watch New York Ripper—you’ll quickly understand what I mean.

The ultraviolence in Fulci’s film is not really surprising, given that one of the script writers also contributed to the script of Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust… a movie so extreme that many people thought it was a snuff film. Actually, you could say it was so extreme that it got banned in ITALY!!! (I believe that it’s still banned to this day in the U.S.).

Despite its ultraviolence (and the fact that it’s not about Jack the Ripper), New York Ripper is well-made, presents an interesting mystery, and really explores the seedy side of New York. But this film is not recommended for anybody who does not have a very strong stomach or who does not want to watch extreme screen violence. I’m saying that as a critic who has seen the film for professional reasons, but who does not generally watch movies THIS violent for pleasure.

So consider yourselves warned! :-)

Resources:

Giallo, Visions of Terror: Giallo Movies—Good overview of giallo. This excellent horror movie site is friends with Hollywood Ripper. Pay them a visit!
Mario Bava, “Bava Speaks”—What the “creator” of giallo says about his work.
Dario Argento, Dark Dreams—A UK website devoted to the work of Dario Argento
Lucio Fulci, Official Lucio Fulci Website—includes a useful bio

Here’s the Bad and the Ugly

Okay, so I write this blog last night, spend over an hour on it, hit “send,” and it disappears into the ether. So here I am, trying it all over again.

You get what “bad” and “ugly” are all about, right? For bad, think “Angel Eyes.” For ugly, think “Tuco”; And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, stop what you’re doing right now and rent The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly before you watch another Ripper film! Just remember: we love Tuco.

Once again, these are all Jack the Ripper movies. In chronological order…

The Phantom Fiend (1935, US title; 1932, The Lodger, UK title)
Anybody see Gosford Park? If so, you probably remember the character Ivor Novello. He’s the guy who spends most of his time playing and singing at the piano. Early in that film, the catty elderly woman makes some comment about his most recent movie having been a flop. The 1932 Lodger is that film. Novello had starred in Hitchcock’s silent Lodger several years earlier, and decided to make a sound version. But Miles Mander and the other writers wrote the script more to show off Novello’s musical talents than to tell a compelling story. The end result is a vanity production, in which Novello’s lodger woos the leading lady through song (and highly melodramatic speech). The movie does have some fine moments, but most of them occur when Novello is not on screen. RATING: UGLY

The Man in the Attic (1954)
In 1944, the most famous version of The Lodger, starring Laird Cregar, was released. Only 10 years later, this inferior (not to mention, gratuitous) version of virtually the same script appeared in theaters. It’s not all that bad if you haven’t seen the ’44 Lodger. But if you have, it’s kind of laughable. Mediocre cast, with the exception of Jack Palance (who’s always interesting to watch). RATING: UGLY

“Knife in the Darkness” (1968 )
Episode of Cimarron Strip. Script writer Harlan Ellison, as always, blames this one on the director, but I’m not so sure. Was it the director who decided to have Jack kill an unlikely 8-10 people (I lost count somewhere), all in one night? This is fun and silly Ripper fluff. Kind of lame, but definitely watchable. RATING: UGLY

Jack the Ripper (1976)
I’m sure there are Jess Franco and Klaus Kinski fans out there who will object. But let’s face it, folks… Klaus can do better— heck even Jess can do better—than this! Granted, I have not seen Der Dirnenmörder in the original German. And yes, my rating for this film is partly the result of having suffered through the really really really bad English voice acting in the English dubbed version. But I would have problems anyway. Franco turns Jack into a dismembering killer, who dumps body parts in the Thames. I can take several variations on Jack’s modus operandi, but this is not one of them. Klaus looks like he’s getting ready for his moody turn in Nosferatu, which means, of course, that Jess is spending way too much time on Klaus’s face— and that just doesn’t work. This film is a killer vs. detective story, so it needs to move faster. It’s waaaaaay tooooooo slooooooow for its genre. And then there’s the necrophilia. Yeah, it’s possible that the killings did go down that way, but I don’t need to see it. RATING: Somewhere Between BAD AND UGLY—really really UGLY.

Lulu (1978 )
Pretentious silent art film version of the Wedekind plays, directed by artist Ronald Chase. Too busy being “arty” to do anything really interesting with the story. Yes, there is some nice cinematography, some bizarre set design, and a really studious re-creation of certain elements of silent cinema. But the film is boring, long, and just not very good. Before you think that I just like films geared towards action, let me add that I love Andrei Rublev and The Sacrifice by Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. Those are extremely slow moving and extremely arty 3-hour films. The difference between them and Chase’s Lulu is that they are good. RATING: BAD

Lulu (1980)
Directed by Polish erotic filmmaker, Walerian Borowczyk. Borowczyk is supposed to be an artistic director of eroticism. You would never know it by this movie (which, granted, is one of the most obscure in his oeuvre—so apparently there is some agreement on its worth). The version I saw was in French with Greek subtitles. It is possible that this version was edited down so that only the (un-erotic) “erotic” scenes remained. Regardless, what I saw had almost no plot coherence. You get the hint of Wedekind’s plays, but nothing to tie the story together from one of Lulu’s lovers to the next. Borowczyk also transforms the beautiful lesbian Countess Geschwitz into an old crone figure, who, yikes!, masturbates with her cane and on top of a portrait of Lulu. Just icky. Oh, and Udo Kier delivers a terrible performance as Jack the Ripper. This is almost impossible to find, and I would say: “Don’t seek it out”— not even if you’re a Borowczyk or Udo Kier completist. RATING: BAD

The Ripper (1985)
This is Tom Savini’s infamous Ripper movie. Savini has never stopped apologizing for this Direct-To-Video production, but actually, he’s one of the better elements in the movie. The Ripper has a great concept, but terrible execution. With the exception of Savini and Tom Schreier, the rest of the cast is… well, how do I put this nicely?… amateurish. They deliver what you would expect if someone turned on a video camera at a college dorm party and asked everybody to play a role, sight-unseen, from a script. Yes, the acting is that bad. And where was Savini when they shot the SPFX gore? The mutilations sure don’t look like his work! Still, the movie does get points for trying. The concept really could go far with a moderately budgeted remake, and there actually are some (intentionally) witty moments in the script. (The Conqueror Worm sequence is an absolute hoot, if you know that movie and pay attention to what’s actually coming out of the television). RATING: Somewhere Between BAD AND UGLY

Terror at London Bridge (1985)
Ever wonder what it would be like if you put Jack the Ripper at Havasu City and made a movie with David Hasselhoff and plenty of water sports? No? Well, apparently the makers of this made-for-TV-movie did. Lots of red herrings and plot twists. This movie is fun for awhile, but eventually it starts to drag on… and on… and on. Silly fluff. RATING: UGLY

Edge of Sanity (1989)
Ick! Yuck! I need to take a shower!!! Sleazy, voyeuristic, Ripper movie which in which pornography director Gerard Kikoïne makes an intrinsic association between sexuality and fatal violence. Too bad it’s one of Anthony Perkins’ last performances. RATING: BAD

Best Ripper Stuff on TV and Film

This list is limited to Jack the Ripper television and film. There are no Faux Rippers, False Sightings, or Copycats here. I’ll give a separate listing later for the best of those.

Alphabetical listing:

“Comes the Inquisitor” (1995)
Brilliant episode of Babylon 5, and one of the Ripper’s finest hours on screen. Of course, this is science fiction, so folks who hate that genre will probably not enjoy this episode.

Deadly Advice (1993)
Wickedly funny black comedy, complete with murderous advice from Jack the Ripper… among other infamous killers.

From Hell (2001)
Okay, this is not on the list because of the story. (I kind of have “issues” with turning Inspector Abberline–a real person–into a hop-head who dies young). It’s on the list because it is the most realistic depiction of the crimes and crime scenes on film. Production Designer Martin Childs did a tremendous amount of research into the actual scenes where the bodies were found. He used photographs from 1888, among other things, to help him design the set of Whitechapel. This film also provides a realistic, gritty, look for Whitechapel. It’s not as bad as Whitechapel actually was, but the Hughes Brothers know that audiences don’t really want to watch anything that horrific on screen.

Jack the Ripper (1959)
Clever script, with plenty of red herrings. Does not deal with the actual killings (has none of the real victims mentioned or shown). But it’s got an entertaining plot, nonetheless. And it’s also the first Ripper movie to show the riotous conditions in Whitechapel during the Ripper slayings.

Jack the Ripper (1988 )
This movie was made-for-TV during the Ripper centenary. Michael Caine plays Inspector Abberline (as an alcoholic, who happens to be brilliant). This movie does a fabulous job of re-creating the atmosphere in London during the autumn of 1888. It has one flaw, though, in my opinion: it goes on for 3 1/2 hours just showing what is known, then in the last 1/2 hour, it reveals who it thinks the killer was. Sorry, but any film that is trying to go for the “real thing” should leave the case as unsolved as it remains today. (I guess that answers the question: “So what do you think of Patricia Cornwell?”). A Jack the Ripper must-see.

The Lodger (1926)
This film is of interest, obviously, because it launched Alfred Hitchcock’s career. It was, in fact, the first film by Hitchcock to make it off the shelf and into the theaters. And when it did, it caused a sensation. The young Hitchcock was quickly hailed as Britain’s finest filmmaker. Hitchcock was already using lots of trick shots and doing complex maneuvers with the camera. The image of the Lodger appearing at the door is one of the great moments in early British cinema… as is the moment when we see the shadow from the window making a cross over his face. The film has great atmosphere and technique, and it hints at great things to come in this young man’s future. A Jack the Ripper must-see.

The Lodger (1944)
This is the best screen version of the novel. (Yes, it is better than the Hitchcock version, which is very good in its own right). And it has a legendary performance by Laird Cregar as Jack the Ripper. This is just classic era Hollywood doing its finest in making a suspense film. A Jack the Ripper must-see.

Lulu (1962)
This film is unknown to American audiences. But it’s a brilliant Austrian interpretation of the Lulu story (by Frank Wedekind). Incredible black and white cinematography and shot composition. This is just a beautifully filmed, and well acted film. Excellent direction, excellent set design, excellent costuming and casting. Too bad it’s so hard to find. I had to fly across a continent to watch it in a film archive!

Murder by Decree (1979)
Sherlock Holmes meets the Stephen Knight theory. Don’t know what the Stephen Knight theory is? It’s the Masonic Conspiracy theory… same one that they use in From Hell. Personally, I think the theory is preposterous, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make good films based on it. And this one has the added advantage of forgetting about Abberline entirely and just focusing on Sherlock Holmes’ investigation into the murders. Wonderful performances by Christopher Plummer as Holmes and James Mason as Watson. Though I would disagree, many regard this as the best Ripper film.

Pandora’s Box (1929)
Fabulous silent version of the Lulu story, with a legendary performance by Louise Brooks as Lulu. This is a Jack the Ripper must-see.

Room to Let (1949)
Clever re-working of The Lodger, with a fine performance by Valentine Dyall as the menacing Dr. Fell. Too bad the full 68-minute version is not readily available. Steer clear of the 55-minute version if you can. It’s badly mutilated for television viewing.

Study in Terror (1965)
This is the first “Sherlock Holmes Meets Jack the Ripper” to get onto the screen, and it is very good. Plus, John Neville (the Well-Manicured Man in The X-Files) plays Holmes. This is one of my personal favorite Ripper movies.

Time after Time (1979)
This is a fun science fiction Ripper fantasy, complete with time travel. There are better Ripper movies, but there aren’t many good ones that are as entertaining as this. Malcolm MacDowell and David Warner are great as H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper, respectively.

“Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” (1961)
This is a brilliant television adaptation of the Robert Bloch short story. Made for Boris Karloff’s Thriller, it is nicely directed by Ray Milland, with an excellent score by Jerry Goldsmith. This is first-class Ripper stuff (one of my personal favorites). Too bad it’s almost impossible to find. It is unfortunately not one of the Thriller episodes available on VHS or DVD. And, so far as I know, it never plays on television. Basically, you have to know a collector to find this one.

Best Performances as Jack the Ripper

I think that most people would agree that the majority of these performances should qualify for a “Best of” Jack the Ripper.

10. Jack Palance in The Man in the Attic (1954)
Probably the most controversial choice on the list. Some people call Palance’s performance “somnambulistic.” I disagree. His performance in this film is generally low-key… but that serves as good contrast for the moments when his character becomes intense and threatening. In those moments, Palance is superb. In addition: The rest of the cast is so mediocre that Palance may have keyed down his on-screen interaction with them in order to avoid seeming “over the top.” He doesn’t have to worry about that, of course, when his character shifts more into his Ripper persona.

9. Charles Regnier in Lulu (1962)
Regnier does not have a large role, but he does have an important one. His Jack the Ripper dispatches Lulu in the final sequence. But in between “Acts,” he also serves as a sort of “Greek Chorus” on Lulu’s behavior. Having Jack the Ripper provide the moral voice of the citizenry is a rather ironic choice, and Regnier does a fine job with it. Also, he provides a Ripper who seems more like a bureaucrat than a homicidal maniac. Good casting. Interesting interpretation. Unfortunately, this Austrian interpretation of the Lulu story is not readily available in English (or even in German).

8. Sir John Mills in Deadly Advice (1993)
Once again, the role is not large, but it is significant. And Mills provides an ironic flair to the character, as he instructs an “up-and-coming” serial killer in how best to remain undetected. Excellent black comedy. And wonderful casting for Jack the Ripper. Mills plays the Ripper as a quiet, unassuming man who would be the last person anybody would suspect… which is precisely the point.

7. Peter O’Toole in The Ruling Class (1972)
O’Toole does not technically play Jack the Ripper in this “False Sighting” film. He plays a schizophrenic aristocrat who comes to think he’s Jack the Ripper. But his performance is so chilling that any “Best of” list would be incomplete without it. By today’s standards, the film’s commentary on British class structure and the aristocracy seems a little heavy-handed. But none of that undermines O’Toole’s magnificent performance as Jack Gurney, the 14th Earl of Gurney.

6. David Warner in Time after Time (1979)
This is the first film mentioned so far that nearly everybody has heard of. You probably know the concept: H.G. Wells uses his Time Machine to track down Jack the Ripper, who has fled into the 20th century. Warner is… well, Warner. He’s always good at playing detached, ironic, sociopathic characters. His interaction with Malcolm McDowell (as his former friend Wells) is excellent. He also delivers that great line that From Hell quotes as coming straight from Jack the Ripper: “I am the 20th century.” So far as I can tell, that line is actually by the makers of Time after Time and has been put into the mouth of their Jack the Ripper. But that’s a small quibble, since at this point in history, Jack is more myth than man anyway.

5. Sir Ian Holm in From Hell (2001)
Okay, the film may have some problem areas, but Sir Ian Holm is not one of them. He is excellent both as the mild-mannered Sir William Gull, and as the maniacal Jack the Ripper. In fact, his part requires tremendous range, and he delivers it. But then, he also makes a great Bilbo, a great Ash, a great Polonius… I mean, the guy can act.

4. Gustav Diesel in Pandora’s Box (1929)
The absolute finest Ripper cameo ever committed to film. This movie belongs to Louise Brooks, who plays Lulu. But in the few minutes he’s on screen, Diesel provides a wrenching and haunting pathos to his Jack the Ripper. He and Brooks together electrify the screen. Absolutely brilliant.

3. Valentine Dyall in Room to Let (1949)
This film, unfortunately, is one of those long-forgotten Ripper programmers from the beginning of the television era. In its full 68-minute version (not the 55-minute version that sells on Movies Unlimited), it is a complex and multi-layered re-working of The Lodger. In either version, it features a fabulous performance by Dyall as Dr. Fell—a man suspected of being Jack the Ripper. Dyall’s Fell/Ripper is a controlling lodger who begins to dominate the lives of his landladies and dictate what they will and will not do. If nothing else, it is a chilling portrait of a man who must always be in control. Dyall, though, also plays Fell/Ripper as a haunted man, longing for something unattainable. Great job.

2. Laird Cregar in The Lodger (1944)
Surprised that I ranked Cregar so “low”? I know, he is generally accepted as having given The “Best Ripper Performance.” There’s no question, really, that Cregar’s performance belongs in either the #1 or #2 slot. He is iconic as Jack the Ripper, and the entire film is dependent on Cregar’s performance, and he and his co-stars (Merle Oberon and George Sanders) all deliver the goods. Cregar’s interaction with Merle Oberon (as potential victim Kitty), though, is what really “makes” this film a classic.

1. Wayne Alexander in “Comes the Inquisitor” (Babylon 5) (1995)
American actor, Wayne Alexander, beat out a regiment of British actors to win the role for this B5 episode. When you watch it, you can see why. His Inquisitor/Ripper is utterly chilling. All he has to do is walk off the Vorlon ship he has travelled on, and the hair on the back of your neck stands on end. No other Ripper actor has ever created such terror before ever saying a word. I know this choice for #1 Jack the Ripper goes against the common wisdom. But the writing for this episode is outstanding, and Alexander makes the most of it–in both his silence and his dialogue. All I have to say is that, IMHO, it’s “Sorry, Laird. You have to move over for Wayne.” In his performance, Wayne Alexander brings us the most menacing Jack the Ripper Ripper ever put on screen.

A challenge: Watch as many of these performances as you can and see how you would rank them. Then write me and let me know how your list matches with mine.

Regnier’s peformance will be nearly impossible to find. Cregar’s is not commercially available, but it does play on cable. All the others are either commercially available, have been commercially available (and therefore probably available on ebay), will be commercially available, or are at least available through Movies Unlimited.

Happy hunting.

The Ripper and the Supernatural, No. 1

The Star newspaper wrote on the day after the first canonical Ripper murder (and the third appalling murder in Whitechapel):

Nothing so appalling, so devilish, so inhuman—or, rather, non-human—as the three Whitechapel crimes has ever happened outside the pages of Poe or DeQuincey.

If only the Star knew what was yet to come—increasingly brutal mutilations committed against victims found on the streets of London, after which the killer would slip off into the night without a trace.

How could he possibly be human?

At the end of September, 1888, police found two victims in one night. The second one was more severely mutilated than any previous victim. And not long after that, the first Ripper ghost story got published. Actually, it was the first piece of any type of fiction written about the Ripper. An excerpt:

The men were almost dead with fear. What was yon cloud? Why did it not move? The tempest seemed to gather round it, the lightning struck at it a dozen times. It slowly lifts and utters a hollow, dreadful laugh. Is it ghost or fiend? It seems diminishing in size. Horror! It assumes the shape of a man! What is it that it holds aloft? Again the lightning struck at it, and its ghastly head was seen.

Another crash of thunder, and a naked arm appears, holding a blood-stained dagger. Oh, what is it that it strikes with such a demon fury? Why that final, dreadful cry?
From The Curse Upon Mitre Square by J.F. Brewer, October 1888

Think about it. The first guy to write a fictional story went straight for the supernatural. And why not? Nobody knew who the Ripper was, what he looked like, why he left no trace. You could tell just about any story about him that you wanted!

Last night, I asked why the films inspired by Ed Gein always have a thoroughly human killer, while movies inspired by the Ripper can do anything they want with him.

Well, I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Gein committed his deeds in private. Nobody knew about them until a fresh body was found in his shed. Once that body was found, everybody knew. There was no mystery about who the killer was. The only question was how many other “disappearances” in the area might have been murders.

The Ripper, on the other hand, left plenty of public evidence about his crimes. The women were found on the street—either killed there or dumped. The crimes created panic in the East End. When the crimes remained unsolved, the chief of Scotland Yard had to resign, the Home Secretary nearly lost his office, and the panic threatened to turn riotous and possibly even bring down the British government. There was nothing private about the Ripper’s doings. But the case was never solved. (Maybe we’ll talk about Patricia Cornwell someday).

When you’ve got a mystery killer, he can be anybody or anyTHING. He can be a ghost, or an immaterial entity that travels the galaxy feeding off fear, or an occultist who has prolonged his natural life by performing strange blood rituals. Those are just a few variations, and they have all been done. In the past 7 years, in fact, there have been two Ripper movies dealing with the subject of reincarnation: Ripper Man and Hell’s Gate.

Jack is great fodder for science fiction and the supernatural. After all, nobody alive really knows what happened. Nobody alive was there.

How the Ripper Lady Got Interested in Ripper Cinema

I’m a writer. And several years ago, I was doing some research for a book chapter on Psycho. Anyway, some college students had asked me a question about the similarities between a Faulkner story and Psycho. There was no question that the similarities were there, and there was also no question that both Faulkner and Hitchcock had worked in Hollywood in the 1940s. So I got curious and decided to explore that angle.

Well, there wasn’t any connection. The similarities were coincidental–sort of a convergence between cultural trends and the necessities of storytelling. However, in the course of my investigations, I did some reading from a book about the psychology of murder, published in 1959–shortly before Hitchcock made his movie. I wanted to know what that book had to say about Ed Gein, since Bloch loosely based Norman Bates upon Gein.

The book had an entire chapter on Gein. But I didn’t stop there. I read about nearly every infamous murderer catalogued in that book. Along the way, of course, I came upon Jack the Ripper. When I read about the injuries he inflicted on his victims, I wondered: “Why didn’t I know about this? Why did I only know that he cut their throats but never knew that he also disembowelled them?”

The answer was obvious: nearly my entire source of information about the Ripper was from television and movies (most of which I’d seen on television). Pop culture, for the most part, had sanitized and softened the Ripper. So I became curious about how the culture interprets Jack the Ripper–not just now, but ever since the Autumn of 1888.

Maybe I’ll blog about various trends in the coming days. But for now, I’ll just settle on the victims. Okay, I’m assuming that anybody reading this has some kind of interest in Jack the Ripper and/or Ripper movies. So tell me: what do you know about the victims? You probably know their occupation, right? I think nearly everybody knows that. Do you know the average age of the victims or their names? Unless you’re a hardcore Ripperologist (or serious fan of the Johnny Depp From Hell movie), probably not.

I gave a questionnaire to a film club a few years ago, and most people thought that the victims were young and beautiful. So did I before I began to study the case. I do have a theory on why many people think that. Many of us have gotten our impressions of the case from pop culture. And, of course, pop culture knows that beautiful young women sell product a whole lot better than decrepit middle-aged alcoholic prostitutes do. Hence, the first “distorted” presentation of the victims in cinema.

Now, I’m not complaining about the distortion. I just find it interesting… just as I find it interesting that the Ripper can be used in supernatural horror movies, science fiction, and virtually anything else that writers can dream up. Every character inspired by Ed Gein–whether it’s Norman Bates, Leatherface, or Buffalo Bill–is a character planted at least marginally in the real world. Okay, Texas Chainsaw is kind of a surreal world, but there’s nothing supernatural about it.

Why does the Ripper get to be immortal (or whatever) and Gein-based characters do not? Well, I have a theory about that too.

I think I’ll save it, though, for tomorrow.