Ripper's Revenge

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.

The opening moody shots across what is supposed to be Victorian London should be warning enough to give this movie a miss as it showed Portcullis House which was only opened in 2001 having been built in the late ninties. The plot was awful as was the acting, how this movie ever made it to the production stage is a mystery. The plot line was, at the very least, only suitable fo a pre teen viewing audience and even they would have found it tedious, even the "twist" at the end wasn't even worthy of a primary school exercise. A particular point was that all the costumes provided by the wardrobe department was always in a pristine, freshly laundered state, not commensurate with the period and setting at all. A very dismal waste of time, avoid at all costs.

Despite the link to the real-life Jack the Ripper case, the film Ripper's Revenge failed to deliver a captivating storyline. Writer/Director Steve Lawson's fictitious take on the infamous serial killer lacked originality and seemed to rely too heavily on the Ripper's reputation to keep the audience interested. Even with the casting of Rachel Warren as Iris, the lady of the night and Stubb's girlfriend, the film failed to add any depth to her character or the plot. The lack of character development made it difficult to sympathize with the characters and their struggles. The plot twists were boring and predictable, making the overall storyline unexciting. There were no special effects worth mentioning. In conclusion, Ripper's Revenge was a disappointing film that failed to live up to its potential as a sequel to Ripper Untold (2021). It lacked the necessary components to make it an exciting and memorable film. Waste of time.

As a massive Jack the Ripper fan I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this. Wasn't trying to be something it can't by doing rubbish killings. The cast were brilliant and I preferred this to some of the other Ripper films in recent years.

One year on from the notorious "Jack The Ripper" murders, the killings have stopped, but the identity of the killer remains a mystery. Down-at-heel newspaper reporter Sebastian Stubb has moved on to reporting on other scandals, but when a new "Ripper" letter appears on his desk and the killings start again, he unwittingly finds himself at the center of a new mystery. Has the "Ripper" returned, or is it a copycat killer? Or something else entirely?

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?