Matty dissects a slick but frustratingly po-faced slasher flick with delusions of grandeur.

Feigning just enough shock to sound convincing, producer John A. Curtis was quick to minimise RIPPER’s passing resemblance to From Hell (2001), insisting that the similarities to Fox’s lavish graphic novel adap were simply because the market craved Jack the Ripper material. In fact, Curtis claimed, the core idea for Ripper was conceived a few years prior, amidst Scream (1996) fever — though as the teen slasher bubble had now burst and ‘horror’ had become a dirty word, you better believe that mention of the film alongside I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) et al was quashed as well.

Tellingly, that’s Ripper’s problem in a nutshell. Better than fellow From Hell cash-in Bad Karma (2001) in almost every other respect, Ripper suffers due to Curtis and helmer John Eyres’ reluctance to embrace its lineage. Attention-holding but lacking bite, at its heart the film is part of the same weirdo Canadian carve-‘em-up dynasty as Curtains (1983) and Happy Birthday to Me (1981), right down to its overstuffed plot and flabby approach to pacing (note the bloated run time). Curtis and Eyres, however, seem to be under the impression that their mix of Dawson’s Creek posturing, split personalities, murder, psychosexual kitsch, and histrionic Ripperology as a Saucy Jack copycat hacks their way across a college campus warrants a deathly serious touch and suck the fun out of proceedings with a dour and depressing tone. “It’s more of a psychological thriller,” opined Curtis frequently. Disappointing, really: on a purely technical level, this glossy number ranks among veteran DTV practitioner Eyres’ best-looking work, and several dizzyingly staged sequences demonstrate the sort of stylistic wizardry that a contemporaneous Argento needed (and, I dare say, still does). 

Performed with conviction by a cast of Hot Young Things™ (including A.J. Cook, Emmanuelle Vaugier, and British glamour girl Kelly Brook) and a pair of seasoned veterans (Jürgen Prochnow and Bruce Payne, in roles that subvert their usual screen personas), Ripper serves as Eyres second swing for the fences following his equally tepid 1993 sci-fi action opus, Monolith. Having shuttered his own company, EGM Film International, at the start of 1999, Eyres started touting his trade as a gun-for-hire. Wanting to pursue heftier scaled fare, Eyres initially found employ with his Project Shadowchaser sequel collaborators, Nu Image, on natty creature feature Octopus (2000) before old pal Curtis — with whom he’d assembled Empire of Ash III (1989), Slow Burn (1989), Xtro II: The Second Encounter (1990), Ultimate Desires (1991), and the original Shadowchaser (1992) — poached him for Ripper, teasing the Mancunian maverick with the promise of a wide U.S. cinema release and one of the largest budgets of his career ($6million).

Of course, the theatrical run didn’t happen. Ripper played screens in Canada, but, stateside, the film was sent straight to tape and DVD, landing via Lionsgate in January 2002 — six months ahead of Bad Karma’s home video premiere — and, amusingly, wrapped in the slasheriest cover imaginable. Here in the U.K., meanwhile, Ripper was given the obligatory ‘Scream ensemble’ art (witness: every hack-a-thon of the period) and wound up being an ubiquitous title in bargain bins the country over thanks to its numerous pressings through cheapie kings Hollywood DVD and Boulevard Entertainment.

Frequently marketed as the eyebrow-raising ‘Ripper: Letter From Hell’ and joined by the Eyres-less — and seldom seen — Ripper 2: Letter From Within in 2004.

Canada/UK ● 2001 ● Horror ● 110mins

A.J. Cook, Bruce Payne, Ryan Northcott, Jürgen Prochnow ● Dir. John Eyres (as ‘John E. Eyres’) ● Wri. Pat Bermel, story by John A. Curtis & Evan Tylor