Ripper's Revenge

As a fan of all Jack the Ripper movies and tv shows ( RIPPER STREET and WHITECHAPEL the best), I watched Rippers Revenge. Well it's not terrible. The majority of film takes place in Maggie's room. She shares it with Sebastian the newspaper reporter who want to be famous. She pays the bills as each " evening she goes out to work". Sebastian decides he will create another Jack the Ripper frenzy here in London. He plants letters at newspaper. And a murder happens. At newspaper is another writer named Lenny. Sebastian brags that Jack is back. Lenny asks how he knows? Then another murder. And another. But Sebastian swears it wasn't him. Who was it? The Real Jack? It's not a bad film. Very slow paced though. I was mesmerized by Sebastian . He really hates his life!

There's something very eighties about these movies by Steve Lawson. By that I mean that back in the days of video stores, we all used to judge the quality of the movie by how the front cover looked on the shelf. The better the cover, the more likely we were to rent the movie. The number of times that we took home movies only to be disappointed by them within the first half an hour. Just like Rippers Revenge.

In truth, the set up is not that bad. The problem with all Lawsons movies is the lack of budget and thus production values.....and maybe talent.

Nevertheless, I must give credit for getting the thing made.

Just one question. Why the naked woman committing suicide in the opening scene?

There is good acting in this and also the pacing is decent. The story is okayish, it's a jack the ripper is back murder mystery, or is he? Main character is a news reporter figuring things out.

It's obviously low budget with most of it happening in 3-4 locations, it could work as a stage play. It's dialogue heavy. Even though it's lower budget the makeup, costumes and locations all look decent. No low budget mishaps, lighting, camera work etc. Are all good.

There's a couple of dead women in rather gruesome fashion but I didn't find it too extreme, there is also some bare breasted lady. Minimal actual violence the dead bodies are just laying with blood on them.

If your looking for a FROM HELL type of film then your gonna be disappointed with rippers revenge. I gotta admit i was expecting more gore and horror and more thrills, but; I gotta say the characters made this film what it is. They do very well to keep you watching and the twists are very good. I would say its more of a drama than a horror though.

I havent seen the first one of this film and don't think i need to by all accounts. I have seen a few films now from this director and he does appear to use a small cast but the actors he uses are definately getting better, as are his scripts.

Overall ive given them a generous 6/10 as it did keep me gripped and was well done.

I went into this with no expectations whatsoever. Well that's not exactly true. I really expected it to be another 'churn 'em out, never mind the quality just get the money in', waste of resources with no artistic or even commercial merit. I was quite wrong.

First thing to say is that this isn't a Jack the ripper story, nor is it a morally dubious slasher movie. It's more of a whodunnit, thriller type story set against the background of the Whitechapel murders. Anyone looking for a gory horror is going to be very disappointed. As for the storyline, there are so many twists in the second half of the film a comparison with 'Double Indemnity' is quite fair. A couple of times I found myself thinking "Yes! I knew it, it was obvious....er...oh! I didn't expect that...".

The design, costumes, make-up, dialogue and photography are generally good, evoking real life in 1880s London, but the errors are intensely jarring - the use of what looks like a farm building to represent an East End warehouse, the sight of Portcullis House in the views of Parliament, and no woman would ever be seen on the streets dressed like the prostitutes here without being arrested. A lot of things can be forgiven when the filmmakers have a very tight budget, but the film is really let down by these. The biggest flaw, though is the music. It's far too intrusive. When the audience pays more attention to the music than to the drama, you know it's wrong.

All those criticisms aside, I still really enjoyed the film, and it's worth another viewing.