morrison-dylan-fan With having enjoyed the commentary that Kim Newman had done with Alan Jones for Dario Argento's The Bird With The Crystal Plumage,I started to search round for other commentaries that Newman was involved in,and I stumbled upon a title which was made during the last days of Hammer Horror,which led to me getting ready to shake hands with the ripper.The plot:Returning home from his latest murder,Jack kills his wife in front of their child Anna. Traumatized by the sight of her dad killing her mum,Anna finds her subconscious inheriting her dads murderous legacy.15 years later:Visiting a medium with some friends, psychoanalyses Dr. John Pritchard discovers that the sounds of the "spirits" have actually been made by a girl called Anna,who was hidden away from view.Leaving with the group,Pitchard notices an MP enter the building,and pay to have sex with Anna,in what Pitchard realises is a secret brothel.Waiting round for his carriage (as you do!) Pitchard hears a blood curdling scream.Rushing in,Pitchard is horrified to find that Anna has brutally killed the medium.As the MP threatens to put Anna in the "nut house",Pitchard stops him in his tracks,by saying that he believes that a cure can be found for Anna's psychological problems,and that if the MP lets him take care of Anna,then he will not report the MP for visiting a brothel.Finding himself cornered,the MP agrees to Pitchard's demands.Wanting to give Anna a life which will give her a chance to get away from her horrible past,Pitchard starts introducing Anna to his friends & family,but soon discovers that he is unable to stop the return of the hands of the ripper.View on the film:Made just as Hammer was to enter a decade where it would fight for its survival,director Peter Sasdy & cinematographer Kenneth Talbot tear the traditional primary colours of Hammer Horror down,to instead grind murky browns and blacks into the film,which along with giving the title an excellent grim atmosphere,also perfectly shows how murky Anna's mind has become.Backed by a smooth score from Christopher Gunning,Sasdy shows a remarkable skill in making sure that the psychological terror is not drowned out by the blunt-force set pieces,with Sasdy using restrained camera moves which allow the viewer to decide if the killings our either being done by the traumatised Anna,or the "spirit" of Jack the Ripper.Gripping the viewer with a short,sharp,shock of a pre-credits sequence,the screenplay by Lewis Davison (here credited as L.W. Davidson) and Edward Spencer Shew takes an impressively mature approach to Anna's psychological troubles,with Pitchard being a flawed,but well-meaning man,who believes that Freud's teachings can be used to save Anna from the darkness inhabiting her.Making sure that the film does not become too serious,the writers cut into a vicious proto-Slasher body count,as Anna's killing spree follows that of the real life Jack,with each stylish set piece murder being even gorier than the last one.Looking absolutely angelic, the cute Angharad Rees (whose dad was distinguished psychiatrist Linford Rees!) gives a marvellous performance as Anna,thanks to Rees giving Anna a real frailness which turns to stone when the blood-socked hand of her dads past returns.Desperate to help Anna, Eric Porter gives a fantastic performance as Pritchard,with Porter dipping the movie into My Fair Lady,as he gives Pritchard a real caring nature towards Anna.Sharing most of their scenes with each other,Rees & Porter wonderfully complement each other,with both of them bringing a real sense of parental bond to Anna & Pritchard's relationship,as the hands of the ripper strike again.

gavin6942 The infant daughter of Jack the Ripper is witness to the brutal murder of her mother by her father. Fifteen years later she is a troubled young woman (Angharad Rees) who is seemingly possessed by the spirit of her father.I just finished watching Hammer's "Demons of the Mind" and was rather disappointed, so I decided to watch another Hammer of the same era to wash my palette clean. This was Peter Sasdy's third film for Hammer, following "Taste the Blood of Dracula" (1970) and "Countess Dracula" (1971).The use of Freudian psychoanalysis (and the illness of "hysteria") is an interesting touch, particularly considering the age Jack the Ripper's daughter would have been. I also particularly like the men's pointy mustaches.Why do films about killers systematically hunting prostitutes never get old?

Ali Catterall From Hitchcock's The Lodger to Murder By Decree, Time After Time and From Hell, the legend of Jack the Ripper has provided cinema-goers with plenty of ripping yarns over the years. Among the better efforts is Hands Of The Ripper (originally screened in a double-bill alongside Twins Of Evil), an absorbing melodrama in the Hands Of Orlac-mode from Hammer at their most experimental.Angharad Rees stars as Anna, who as a toddler witnessed her mother's murder at the hands of her father, Jack the Ripper. Raised in near-feral isolation by her aunt, the phoney medium-cum-brothel keeper Mrs Golding (Bryan), the first indication of her troubled past comes when she slaughters her guardian by pinning her to a door with a poker.Dysart (Godfrey), Anna's aborted trick, and an oily but influential MP, believes she's possessed. "If she wasn't, how could she manage, a frail girl, to drive a poker through the flesh and bone of a human body plus an inch-and-a-half oak door?" Recently bereaved physician and nascent Freudian Dr John Pritchard (Porter) isn't so sure. "The hysteria accompanying certain mental disorders can produce great strength," he muses and, blackmailing Dysart, Pritchard (whom Anna amusingly calls "Dr John") takes the hairy-handed girl into his patronage with a view to getting to the root of her psychopathic tendencies. "'Pygmalion' with blood," a reviewer called it at the time. It soon transpires that a particular chain of events makes Anna go ape; either by accidentally being put into a trance-like, highly-suggestible state by a proximity to glittering lights (resembling the flickering fireplace her father slaughtered her mother in front of) - or kissed (just as daddy Jack did to her, before fleeing into the night).Thus, the plot is driven along by shoehorning any such occurrence into the film at regular and grisly intervals, all but prompting viewers, panto-fashion, to yell at Anna's would-be victims to hide their sparkly necklaces under a roll-neck sweater or proffer a handshake instead. "Miss Anna," coos Pritchard's maid Dolly, draping a twinkling locket round her neck, "you look just like a little doll, all done up to meet the Queen," seconds before she has her throat slashed. And stabbed - can't be too careful. "Rest and care," thinks the irresponsible Pritchard, privately disposing of the body. After all, what price a dead maid or prostitute when ranged against the great Freud? "Don't you see?" he berates a highly unimpressed Dysart, "I'm on the way to a discovery that might change the whole perception of crime and punishment." "The only cure for her," comes the blunt retort, "is a length of rope." It's like a column-off between the 'Guardian' and the 'Daily Mail'.A visit to esteemed psychic Madame Bullard (Rawlings) finally uncovers Anna's parentage, if not her father's identity: "I can't tell you who Jack the Ripper is," she trembles. "But I warn you, the violence of that man is still in this girl. She is, what I would call, possessed..."Directed by Peter Sasdy, who'd go on to direct cult items Doomwatch and Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape, Hands Of The Ripper - based on a short story by Edward Spencer Shew - remains a laudable attempt by Hammer to try something a little different. Suffused with a sense of melancholy throughout, it ranks among the studio's greatest achievements, owing to its combination of terrific scripting, nuanced performances (Porter's being stand-out) and a superior score from Christopher Gunning, along with its particularly gruesome and inventive set-pieces (censored by the BBFC at the time, and later restored).Its recreation of turn-of-the-century London is highly convincing (the credited gallery of 'Cell Whores' and 'Pub Whores' give some indication of its flavour), while the climactic fall from St Paul's Cathedral's Whispering Gallery is justly celebrated as one of the most moving and poetic climaxes in the genre; not bad going for a low-budget horror flick.It has its flaws, certainly: if Hammer hoped to provide fuel for the nature v nurture debate, the 'Freudian' reasoning behind Anna's condition seems a little pat, and there are some unintentionally comic moments; everyone seems to take Anna's catatonic trances for granted, burbling away to her as if they haven't noticed she's started to attract woodworm. Jack's whispered refrain of "Annnaaa..." in her ear every time she's kissed is hammier than a pig farm, while the 'will-he-won't-he-kiss-her' subtext between Anna and Pritchard is distracting. The subplot, featuring Pritchard's son and his blind fiancée is also a transparent contrivance - their inclusion, an over-indulged set-up for the finale.Nevertheless, Hammer must be applauded for jettisoning the usual supernatural suspects in favour of psychology, yet there's even a subtly suggested ambiguity about that too. Is Anna simply traumatised or genuinely possessed? Dysart and Pritchard's sparring might be seen as a microcosm for the superficially opposed dialectics of spiritualism and science then galavanising the nation, until the psychic fall-out from the Great War tipped some of our most enquiring minds headlong into reactionary occultism. In fact, the most chilling moment in Hands Of The Ripper doesn't concern itself with the murders at all. It's when Jack the Ripper talks to his daughter, hopelessly lost in her own head: "What are dreams, and what's real, Anna? I never know."

minamurray Classy, elegant and atmospheric Gothic thriller, based on excellent script by L.W.Davidson and Edward Spencer Shew. Jack the Ripper's daughter murders people in Edwardian London. Sets and colours are rich and gorgeous in true, cozy Hammer Gothic style, and psychotic Anna is fascinating and even sympathetic character: so sweet, so innocent ... and oh, so lethal. There is also nice - and definitely unintended - irony: slimy, hypocritical politician tries to violently rape insane Anna and later yells how only gallows can cure her from criminal insanity. At least Anna is mentally ill. What is HIS excuse? Murders are nasty, but they are genuinely horrifying instead of disgusting and sleazy.