This creepy period flick is set in the late 19th century during the Jack the Ripper murders. The movie is a very well done take on one of the more popular theories of who may have actually been the Ripper. The character of Inspector Frederick Abberline is played by none other than Johnny Depp. Fittingly, Depp delivers an excellent performance of the Inspector who was given the task of investigating the brutal slayings of the prostitutes in Whitechapel.
Inspector Abberline and his partner, Inspector Sergeant Peter Godley, (played by Robbie Coltrane, best known as Hagrid in the Harry Potter movies), are called to the scene of a brutal murder of a prostitute named Martha Tabram, the first of Jack the Ripper’s victims. At first this just seems like another day in Whitechapel and that Martha Tabram was a message being sent by some pimps/gangs to the working girls to pay up or lose their livelihood and lives. But, as history has documented, Abberline and the rest of the Whitechapel police force soon realize there is a serial murderer in Whitechapel stalking the ladies of the night.
This film is based as much on history as it is theory, with a fair bit of Hollywood artistic conjecture thrown in it becomes a very well done dramatic period piece with plenty of creepy, edge of your seat action and suspense. Dark, brooding, bloody and somewhat disturbing, this movie will draw you into the filth, misery and brutal poverty that was Whitechapel, London in the 18th century. Enter the world that was the hunting ground for a brutal killer that was never identified or officially brought to justice for the horrific butchering of at least five to six women.
The women officially attributed to Jack the Ripper are Mary Anne Nichols, Catherine Eddows, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride and Mary Jane Kelly, along with Martha Tabram, are the victims represented in the movie. While there have been many theories as to who Bloody Jack may have been, the movie goes with the premise the theory that Jack the Ripper was someone within the medical community, a surgeon, who had ties to the royal family.
This theory being based on the physical facts obtained from the bodies and crime scenes. Theory goes that whoever the Ripper was he clearly had knowledge of human anatomy to have been able to perform the sort of cuts and removal of the uterus and other sexual organs of the women in very low light with a speed and dexterity usually attributed to doctors. In other words he knew where to cut to get what he was after. This leads to the conspiracy theory that, since most doctors of the time were also Freemasons, the Ripper was possibly tied into the higher echelons of society and was helping to perpetrate a cover up that would have created an uproar in the royal family and it’s lineage.
This particular take on the Ripper murders is particularly well done and entertaining. rating 8.5
