Ripper - Mensageiro do Inferno

This is another one let down by some horrible acting from certain cast members and some clunky script work.

Story wise I really enjoyed it. It's the sort of film that in the right hands would of been great but it got someone elses hands so it was more just ok.

I rented this movie thinking that with a title like "Ripper: Letters from Hell" that it might have something - anything, to do with Jack the Ripper. WRONG! This movie starts off with a young girl surviving a serial killer's attacks, than jumps forward several years to her as a college student studying other serial killers and obsessed with all things Gothic (the girl is obnoxious, so you have no interest in her or anything she's doing here) Then, about 45 minutes into the movie, someone mercifully starts killing off the various assortment of college low life, and the characters seem to think that the killings are reminiscent of Jack the Ripper's killings over a century earlier. This connection is nominal and if you don't pay attention you'll miss it entirely - and the ending of this horrendously overlong movie explains nothing, which is extremely aggravating and anticlimactic.

They figured that if they just automatically set it up for a sequel they could get away with the movie not making any sense, and the gaping holes in the plot, and whoever does a sequel will either have to explain that themselves, or it won't be mentioned at all, and either way the makers of this movie would be off the hook for any resolution to this story.

Indeed, there are more violent and gory movies than this, there are movies with pointless endings like this, but this one somehow manages to beat all of them and take the cake for some reason. This is a loud, boring, obnoxious movie that just goes on forever, not even good for unintentional humour since it takes itself way too seriously for that. There's utterly no redeeming quality or value to this one at all.

Girl-running-in-a-thunderstorm-with-killer-close-behind-girl-trips killer-gets-her kind of story. Lots of blood, no originality. One would expect more from a movie which promises serial psycho killers copying Jack the Ripper. No real motivation for the blood bath, least of all a psychological one. Except for the ending which at least creates a little bit of confusion, one could predict every scene at least 10 minutes before it unfolds. Everything in this movie has been done, redone and overdone. It's like watching Scary Movie and taking it seriously. It's been a real disappointment. Where are the calculated blood thirsty psycho killers? What happened to movies like Seven or Silence of the Lambs, with original plots and motifs? Because personally I'm tired of watching helpless blonds being butchered like cattle while instead of defending themselves they scream in agony and then always manage to trip and fall.

Molly Keller (A. J. Cook), the only survivor of a violent massacre when she was sixteen, is now a student enrolled in a forensic science course at Berkeley. When her fellow classmates start dying at the hands of a mystery killer, who is following the modus operandi of the infamous Jack the Ripper, she suspects that the murderer from her past is back to finish the job.

Molly and the remaining students from her study group pool their profiling talents in an attempt to discover the identity of the maniac.

Director John Eyres directs this slab of stalk 'n slash with both eyes firmly fixed on the teen market, and what may have been a nice addition to the genre becomes an annoying and unwatchable piece of garbage due to its MTV trappings. So obnoxious are the trendy narcissistic teens that make up teacher Marshall Kane's (Bruce Payne) class of wannabe Clarice Starlings, that you'll find yourself rooting for the killer. Main character Molly is perhaps the most annoying character of all; her emotionally troubled, spunky, grunge-chic heroine is carefully designed to appeal to the widest possible teenage demographic; angst-ridden loners, trendy fashion followers, horny guys—she's supposed to appeal to them all. Well I'm not a teenager anymore, and I hated her with a passion! And while I'm having a rant about the students, could someone please explain to me how they all became so damn erudite. From hacking into a police computer undetected, to conducting an autopsy, to fixing a satellite dish, nothing seemed to be beyond their capabilities.

And now onto the death scenes. The first murder is the most impressive—a multiple stabbing followed by defenestration—and it is also the bloodiest. The rest of the killings are relatively gore free and disappointing. The nastiest deaths actually occur by accident, when two characters fall in front of the whirring buzz blades of a sawmill.

Toward the end of this drivel, which at 115 minutes is way too long, I gave up following the ludicrous plot. There was some rubbish about the victims sharing the same initials as those killed by Jack the Ripper, a pointless (non-explicit) sex scene, and various characters were revealed as red herrings. The finale is completely confusing and I ended up unsure as to who the killer really was.

Apparently, the director deliberately wanted the ending to be ambiguous, with the viewer making their own mind up about who was responsible. Well I'm not going to be ambiguous about what I think of this film—it was awful.

When I saw the title and cover I was hoping that the movie would be like "Ripper" (videogame 1996 starring Christopher Walken). It was an excellent game that combined the old legend about Jack the Ripper with cyber technology. The result a "killer" thriller. But sadly I have to report that "Ripper: Letter from Hell" is nothing like that game. It is just a slasher movie with a very pretentious story. First of all there were some good moments. But overall I missed tension. The murders seem brutal and bloody, but the violence isn't explicit. Also a big problem is that the characters are not very likable. So you won't care for them if they die. The only exciting thing is wanting to find out who the killer is. When the characters have a dialog in one scene it somehow doesn't connect with what happened before the scene. I got the feeling that scenes were missing. This should not have been a problem if the the story was straightforward and clear. This is not the case. The story is confusing as hell. (Maybe that is why we would need a letter to explain things.) And if you were hoping for a decent climax than you will be disappointed. The way it is presented leaves room open for different interpretations. Normally I would love such an ending. Here it isn't very effective. The ending doesn't clear up motive for the killings. Also the connection between Jack the ripper and the killer is not explained very well. There is very little background given on the original Jack the Ripper murders. Assuming that you are not familiar with the murders committed by Jack the Ripper you could easily put some other famous serial killer in his place. The end result would be the same. Since good old Jack still makes quite the impression today he deserves much better treatment. I could have forgiven the pretentious ending if the movie would have been entertaining and exciting but as I said earlier the movie lacked tension and is quite boring. Jurgen Prochnow and Bruce Payne should be ashamed with their performances. It clearly shows that they don't believe in this project and only are in this movie for the money. You know I get it sometimes you have no choice but to be in certain films in order to make a living. But is it that too much too ask that once you are involved you can give it a little effort.

I know that like me some of you will be intrigued because of the name Ripper but believe me that nothing remotely interesting has been done with it. A giant waste of your time.