"Excellent late offering from Hammer."

jamesraeburn2003

POSSIBLE SPOILERS

A young girl called Anna (Angharad Rees) turns out to be the daughter of the infamous Whitechapel murderer Jack The Ripper and even more sinister she is possessed by his evil spirit! Excellent late offering from Hammer with good direction by Peter Sasdy who made his successful feature-film debut with the company's TASTE THE BLOOD OF Dracula (1970). The lighting of Ken Talbot is exemplary as is the art direction of Roy Stannard. HANDS OF THE RIPPER is one of Hammer's goriest films and the shock sequences are handled with skill and economy and achieve their object - to horrify! Good performances too especially from Rees as the possessed Anna, Eric Porter as Dr Pritchard, the medical man who tries to cure her and Dora Bryan is amusing in a cameo as a phony medium. All these virtues succeed admirably in papering over the indifferent development of the plot.

score 9/10

jamesraeburn2003 20 December 2004

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0982465/