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The title of this early 1970s horror film from the fondly-remembered Hammer studio might lead one to believe this is a film primarily about the exploits of real-life 19th Century serial killer Jack The Ripper. Indeed, the film opens with the Ripper fleeing the scene of his latest murder. Whilst a dollop of accuracy is supplied in the use of the name Berner Street (one of the actual murder sites), but all attempts at adhering to fact would appear to end there, for the Ripper is yet again portrayed in the stereotypical, but ludicrous, image of top hat and flowing cape, with his modus operandi taking the form of savage, frenzied stabbing rather than the more calculated throat-cutting and mutilation that were the hallmarks of the actual murders.
This Jack arrives home and suddenly decides it would be a good idea to murder his wife too, watched by his infant daughter. So ends the set-up, and after the credits the story moves forward 15 years or so.
We never find out what happened to Jack, but his daughter, Anna, has now grown up and is the ward of the uncaring Mrs Golding who uses Anna not only to assist with the fake séances she holds to gain money from the gullible, but also to force Anna into prostitution.
However, Anna has a habit of falling into a trance, whereupon she savagely murders the nearest person. It is all a little vague as to whether she is possessed by her late father's spirit or whether this has just come about because of the trauma of witnessing her mother's brutal murder.
Mrs Golding falls prey to this murderous behaviour, at which point Dr John Pritchard takes custody of Anna. He has heard from the only witness to Mrs Golding's murder, Dysart, how Anna kills and is keen to study the minds of murderers so that he can identify precisely what makes them kill and, perhaps, effect a cure. This obsession of his leads him to protect Anna from the police after she kills one of his maids, a prostitute, and a medium.
Whilst there are some interesting concepts, the whole films lurches from one gory killing to another without much sense of direction or progression. Anna, we are expected to believe, kills somebody every time she is kissed. If, indeed, this is the case, it seems very far fetched that her murders have never attracted attention before.
Dr Pritchard seems a very unsympathetic character, showing absolutely no remorse when one of his servants is killed or taking any steps to safeguard his other staff, friends, family or anybody else. We don't see very much of his attempting to find the reason for Anna's homicidal mania, he actually finds out more about her from a royal spiritualist with whom he and Anna had an appointment not of his making. When Anna kills this spiritualist he just takes her away, apparently without any worry that they will be obvious suspects for this crime! Thrown into the mix is Pritchard's son and his fiancé Laura, who is blind. Laura's blindness serves very little purpose in the plot, though it would appear that most of the other characters suffer a degree of blindness too: the police fail to take notice of the sudden spate of murders, nobody seems to notice when Anna is in one of her trances, Anna herself doesn't seem to question her blackouts...
Ultimately Pritchard himself falls victim to Anna's violence, having a sword plunged through him. We assume this staunches the bleeding, since there is surprisingly little sign of blood, so being a medical man he pulls the sword out again (probably the worst thing you could do). He then miraculously has the strength to get all the way to St Paul's where Laura has taken Anna for a rousing climax in the inspired backdrop of the cathedral's whispering gallery.
Too many plot threads are just forgotten about or don't go anywhere. Why was Pritchard at the fake séance at the start of the film? Why does police interest cease after the first murder rather than increasing with each successive one? Why does Pritchard wisely start using restraints on Anna, then stop again? Ultimately this film might have been more tense if there was a feeling that the net was closing in around Pritchard, and that both he and Anna were wrestling with their own consciences but there is none of this, and the ending subsequently feels rather inconsequential. On the plus side the period setting looks very good (if a little clichéd at times - why must all vigilante mobs carry flaming torches?) and there are some reliable actors at work here, not least Eric Porter in the main role of Pritchard. It's not a poor film, but the plot is more lightweight than it should have been given the premise, and relies on the shock-factor of its killings to maintain interest.
score 5/10
DPMay 5 April 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2047747/ |
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30-11-2019 02:48:21