From Hell (4 Stars)

Jack the Ripper is one of the most notorious serial killers who has ever lived. His name is still known after 130 years. Or at least, the name given to him by the newspapers of the 19th Century is known. He was never caught, so his real name has never been revealed. It's remarkable that he should have captured people's imagination, considering that he only killed five women, much fewer than others like Ted Bundy and Harold Shipman. Maybe the fact that he was never caught has added to his allure.

Jack the Ripper killed five prostitutes over a period of ten weeks. Then he stopped. Why? Maybe he died. Maybe he left the country. Maybe he was clever enough to stop before he was caught. There are many theories that have been made over the last 130 years. Every few years there's a new book claiming the murders have finally been solved, but the truth is that the murderer has been lost in the passage of time.

The film "From Hell" is based on a graphic novel by the writer Alan Moore. It represents a theory that fits the facts of the Jack the Ripper case, but no one, not even Moore himself, would claim it's the true story.

The film presents a gigantic conspiracy theory. Queen Victoria's grandson Prince Albert secretly married a prostitute and had a baby with her. The Queen wanted to avoid a scandal, so she asked her advisers to discreetly deal with the matter. It was passed on to the Freemasons, who assigned one of their members, the royal physician, the task of killing the prostitute and her closest friends. If he had kept to this task he would never have become famous, but he felt he had a divine duty to protect the honour of not just the Royal Family but the Freemasons themselves, so he carried out the murders in a ritualistic manner. Instead of merely killing the prostitutes he removed organs from their bodies and placed the five corpses at the points of a pentagon in the city.

Johnny Depp plays Inspector Abbeline, an honest policeman who's struggling with an opium addiction. He's determined to find the murderer, even though his superior officer, a Freemason, tries to hinder the investigations.

The story itself is fascinating, but the mystical subplot of Inspector Abbeline having opium-induced visions of the killer is irritating. This is something that wasn't part of the original graphic novel.

Success Rate:  + 0.1

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