Bridge Across Time

The opening shot of the movie was made outside-at night when the desert temperature was over 105 degrees F. The opening shot for the movie depicted Jack The Ripper in a long black cloak running stealthfully down a fog ladden street in London. The scene skillfully suggested a clold damp evening in London. The actual special effects produced by the crew were classic Hollywood. It seemed very surreal to watch this scene being shot over and over between 12:30 and 1:30 in the morning. The final cut depicted cold when the entire crew was literally crumbling from the heat. It was truly a treat to watch the skill and professionalism displayed just to get a take on approximately five seconds of movie film.

'Bridge Across Time' aka 'Terror at London Bridge' is a pretty good 1985 made for TV film. It's a different twist on Jack the Ripper.

Basically, when The Ripper was shot and toppled over the London Bridge in 1888 he knocked over a stone with him into the Thames River. The original London Bridge was relocated to Lake Havasu City, Arizona and completed there in 1971. The film shows there was a missing stone, found and brought to Arizona in 1985 - this stone must have housed The Ripper's soul(?) or similar idea. Anyway, Jack is back in 1985 and he's killing the same way he did in 1888.

In away, The Ripper is resurrected via this stone and fresh blood (similar to the way a vampire is resurrected - ya know the dust of a vampire, fresh blood hits it and ta-dah we have a vampire - same with The Ripper and the stone in this film).

I quite liked this film - I can suspend my beliefs to see a vampire resurrected in a similar manner so it is easy for me to do that for Jack The Ripper as well.

The movie started out good, it hit a bit of a lull then picked back up into an exciting thriller.

Yes this is a good rainy day film.

7/10

If you are into horror, you always have to remain open-minded towards flamboyant premises and plot descriptions that instantly seem like a terribly bad idea. Otherwise, you are guaranteed to miss out on fantastically absurd movies like "Terror at London Bridge". How imaginative is this? The one and only Jack the Ripper - from Whitechapel in London, England - reincarnates in a small town in Arizona, USA, simply because the town rebuilt the original Thames Bridge where the most notorious serial killer in history allegedly died. Good old Jackie Boy cheerfully picks up his one-hundred-year-old habits and starts slicing the throats of local ladies.

Now, as silly as it sounds, I nevertheless reckon that "Terror at London Bridge" was quite a prestigious and successful production around the time of its release, especially for a TV-movie. The Jack the Ripper character always works in horror film, and there even was a whole hype and revival due to the 100th anniversary of the 1888 Whitechapel killings. Lead actor David Hasselhoff was hotter than butter on popcorn in 1985, since the film came right in between of "Knight Rider" and "Baywatch". Despite the slightly - just slightly, mind you - implausible plot, the film has a handful of tense moments and the murders are above-average gruesome for a TV-film. The Hoff receives good support from a couple of familiar faces, including Clu Gulager, Lane Smith and the ravishing Adrienne Barbeau.

Another in a long line of Jack the Ripper returns movies. Every cornball cliche in the book was in this dull, routine, totally predictable yawner. A big city cop moves to Arizona as a way to avoid stress after a bad incident in Chicago. However, he runs into even more pressure when he gets on the trail of a serial murderer who slays in exactly the same fashion as the notorious 19th century London killer. Gad, what a stupid film.

Terror at London Bridge (1985)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Silly made-for-TV flick starts off in 1888 as Jack the Ripper has just killed another woman and takes off running. He only makes it to the London Bridge where he is shot, falls over the side and takes one of the stones with him. Flash-forward to 1985 and Lake Havasu City, AZ where the bridge is now located. It's a special day as that one, long-lost piece of the bridge has been found and returned to its place. Soon murdered women start turning up and a detective (David Hasselhoff) begins to think that the spirit of Jack the Ripper has returned. There's way too much attempted plot in this rather horrid flick that really insults anyone who is a fan of Jack the Ripper movies. I'm really not sure what the point of this film was but there's no logic that can be found here and the story seems to go off in countless directions. Part of the time it wants to be a serious horror flick and other times it wants to simply show off the body of Hasselhoff who is either shirtless, acting sexy or simply walking around with the buttons of his shirt undone. He certainly tries coming off more as a playboy than a detective and his performance isn't much better. The supporting cast isn't too bad with Clu Gulager (THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD), Adrienne Barbeau (THE FOG) and Lane Smith (MY COUSIN VINNY) having small roles. None of them have much to do but it's fun seeing them. The screenplay is the main problem here as the movie just never paints any type of mystery that one will be excited about and things get off to a bad start and never pick up. By the thirty-minute mark you'll be bored out of your mind and you've still got seventy-minutes to go. The direction by Swackhamer isn't too bad even if it has all those cliché made-for-TV moments.