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I went into Hands of the Ripper completely blind. Based on the title, I expected this to be a giallo along the lines of The New York Ripper. It’s not, though. While the title is lurid enough, this is a Hammer film, and one of the last of Hammer’s Gothic horror movies, and close to the end of Hammer’s productions until they were brought back in the mid-2000s. Knowing that this is a film that takes place in that time period, and given that this is a British production, your first thought is almost certainly that this is referencing Jack the Ripper. Your first thought is going to be right.
To get things going, we’re going to see Jack the Ripper pursued by a mob (an uncredited Danny Lyons). He arrives home to a wife who realizes who he is and murders her in front of their young daughter. We jump a good 15 years into the future and that young girl is now Anna (Angharad Rees), living with Mrs. Golding (Dora Bryan), who does séances in her home. Anna, more or less, plays the spirits. At one such séance, we are introduced to Dr. Pritchard (Eric Porter) and his son Michael (Keith Bell). We also meet Dysart (Derek Godfrey), a member of Parliament.
What we see after the séance is that Pritchard can see through it immediately. We also see Dysart hanging around afterward because Mrs. Golding, needing money, has decided to sell Anna’s virginity to Dysart. He, attempting to give her a bauble, triggers some sort of memory in her, and she picks up a poker and murders Mrs. Golding, something that Dysart observes. Naturally, Dysart becomes suspect number one, but Pritchard is determined to believe that it is Anna who is responsible for the murder, so naturally he takes her in to figure out what is happening. Of course, every time Anna sees a shiny bauble and gets a kiss on the cheek, she channels her father and kills.
We’ve got to throw in some additional tension here as well, so Pritchard’s son Michael is engaged to be married. His bride-to-be Laura (Jane Merrow) is blind, because how else would we increase the tension of what is going to happen? Things naturally take their course, because Anna is not merely Jack the Ripper’s daughter but someone who is becoming literally possessed by him at certain times. Why? Because this is a movie from 1971.
There’s a lot to take in to make Hands of the Ripper work, but honestly, it’s not a great deal more than you need to assume for many other Hammer films of this period. Pritchard, of course is a doctor, but is naturally interested in psychology, which is why he is able to hypnotize her and why he frequently references Freud. You also have to take on the idea that people can be possessed by the spirit of their murderous father.
This isn’t a wildly successful movie in any real respect, but it’s as successful as it wants to be for what it is. It’s one of those movies that is entertaining in the moment and pretty forgettable afterward. This is even more the case when you realize that a good deal of this film is a vaguely post-Victorian version of Marnie where the person in question isn’t triggered by the color red, but by shiny objects.
And that’s the problem here—there’s no way that she could function like this, just like Marnie couldn’t function with the color red being a trigger. Anna could be set off by someone picking up a fork at dinner or someone’s glasses catching a hint of light.
I’m not a fan of Marnie, which is a clear knock against this film. Another issue is that Eric Porter genuinely looks a great deal like F. Murray Abraham, especially in Amadeus, to the point that I genuinely thought it was him. Additionally, Derek Godfrey’s Dysart looks a great deal like a young version of what it would look like if Don Ameche and Alfred Drake from Trading Places were put into the teleporter from The Fly together.
I will say that at the very least this doesn’t skimp on the killing. We’re going to get violent murders throughout, and while we aren’t necessarily going to focus on them the way we would if the film were made today, for 1971, these are pretty brutal.
Is it good? Not really. Is it fun? Kinda. It’s interesting for what it is, but there’s no reason to see this a second time.
Why to watch Hands of the Ripper: It’s a last gasp of the Gothic Hammer films.
Why not to watch: You know exactly where this is going to go.
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