Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on Originally published February 19, 2002, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Ripper is subtitled Letter from Hell on Lions Gate’s DVD packaging and in the end credits, but since no actual mailings occur in the movie, it’s obvious that the intention was to ride the coattails of last year’s Jack the Ripper thriller bearing the title’s last two words. Even without the unflattering comparison, though, Ripper is a fumbled, overlong attempt to graft Saucy Jack’s crimes onto an imitation-Scream chiller.
The story centers on a group of college students taking a serial-killer class who start falling victim to savage murders, and eventually realize that the culprit is replicating the Whitechapel crimes. The connection doesn’t rise above the level of a gimmick—wouldn’t you know it, the youths all bear the same initials as Jack’s victims, and while they vow more than once to study the historical slayings to help save their skins, we hardly see them do it. But then, you couldn’t expect much intellectual activity from a group of kids who, knowing a maniac is after them, have no problem trekking to an isolated cabin in the woods with a sinister professor (Bruce Payne) who has faked a bloody murder in his classroom.
With no real dramatic interest in the characters, director John E. Eyres tries to compensate with murder setpieces that are more elaborate than usual. Some of these are fun on a surface level, but aren’t really scary because their flamboyance clashes with the down-to-earth reality of the rest of the presentation. Not to mention that their circumstances sometimes feel contrived; has there ever been a real sawmill where one switch activates both the lights and the machinery? For these scenes to really work, the whole film needed the heightened reality of a Dario Argento work—a comparison that is entirely warranted, given Ripper’s black-gloved killer and an early murder bit clearly inspired by Suspiria’s memorable opening.
At least the movie looks good; although shot on a low budget, it has a theatrical veneer when viewed on Lions Gate’s DVD. On the disc’s audio commentary, Eyres states that he was going for a dark, ominous look, and indeed the 1.85:1 transfer boasts very good, stable blacks and colors, bearing a minimum of grain and artifacting, and strong Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. In addition to the commentary, the DVD includes interview snippets with the filmmakers and cast (none of whom are identified on screen), briefly addressing the Ripper’s history, the characters, the appeal of genre films (Payne says they make “great dates,” while later asserting, “I don’t think [Ripper] is a horror movie”) and what it’s like to make them (heroine A.J. Cook maintains that it’s “not as much fun as it looks”).
Eyres’ commentary is on the dry side, eschewing significant anecdotes to focus on the process of shooting the movie, with an emphasis on the problems and restrictions of working in “the independent film world.” While he occasionally discusses the storytelling (as when he does his best to justify the ludicrous Cook/Payne love scene), he devotes too much time to simply narrating the onscreen action. The commentary’s lack of true insight into anything but the nuts and bolts only serves to point up the film’s status as a technical exercise, and nothing more.
