Hands Of The Ripper (1971) was the second half of a Hammer Horror double feature.....(we covered the first half, "Twins Of Evil" in yesterday's post.....)
With the glaring exception of its stark, unusually arty finale, the film follows a predictable trajectory for Hammer, livened up by some psycho-sexual perversion and bloody corpses.
Proceedings get off to a roaring start with our favorite London slice'n-dicer fleeing through fogbound back alleys, a raging mob at his heels.
Fresh from butchering his latest whore, Jack seeks sanctuary with....hold on....his lovely wife and toddler daughter. How comforting. A family man, after all.
But Jack's gotta be Jack, which means a quickie divorce by carving up Mama while his shrieking 3 year old baby girl looks on. Hmmm.....do you think this poor kid's going to have problems in later life?
Heh, heh, heh, heh........
15 years later (and still child-like) orphaned Anna (Angharad Rees) earns her keep providing ghostly voices for a fake medium (Margaret Rawlings). If anyone makes the fatal error of showing the vulnerable girl close affection, Little Orphan Anna's possessed by Daddy's spirit and commences slashing.
(You'd be amazed how many people make that fatal error throughout the course of the film and lucky Anna, she's always within close proximity to something really sharp.....)
She finds herself in the custody of earnest Freud-ian Dr. John Pritchard (Eric Porter). Unaware of her horrific backstory, he dedicates himself to delving into Anna's long suppressed childhood trauma. Uh....bad idea, Doc....there will be blood.
What sets this Hammer entry apart from all others is its visually stunning climax at London's famed 'whispering gallery' in a high tower of St. Paul's cathedral. (which Hammer surprisingly replicated on a sound stage when denied access to the real gallery)
In its final moments, the film reaches for a quietly reflective, somber and brutally tragic finish....... and way out of the ordinary for a "The End" to a Hammer film. A weighty moment indeed, but the film itself does little to generate the kind of emotional heft to make that ending the knockout it wanted to be.
But you will find the usual Hammer good stuff.....the meticulous attention to period detail, the superb cast of British character actors headed by Eric Porter, who goes at like it's "The Forsyte Saga" with multiple impalements.
BQ says cook up mass quantities of popcorn and watch 'Ripper' along with its companion 'Twins Of Evil'. A fun, 3 star (***) double feature of classier Grindhouse.
No comments:
Post a Comment