HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Hands of the Ripper

An unsung classic from Hammer, HANDS OF THE RIPPER is one of the very best British horror films from the 1970s. It isn't particularly scary, violent or disturbing, but it is incredibly interesting and well-made. It has a muddied moral core to it, an element which results in a weird splitting of our sympathies and condemnations. It demands of us reflection and patience. It offers us little solace and even less joy. It is, in a word, tremendous, a film which deserves reevaluation and rediscovery.


At surface level, HANDS OF THE RIPPER is anything but extraordinary. A psychiatrist, John Pritchard, takes into his care a young girl named Anna. Anna has been under the care of Mrs. Golding since she was a child, helping her in her work as a fake psychic. After a rather theatrical seance one night - an event which Dr. Pritchard attended with his son Michael - Mrs. Golding had allowed a man, a high society member named Dysart, to ravage Anna for some money. But Anna wasn't having any of it. When Mrs. Golding finally interrupted the scrap that was going on in the bedroom, she attempted to toss Mr. Dysart out but Anna, seemingly hypnotized by the light reflecting off a piece of Mrs. Golding's jewelry, broke out in a sudden flurry of violence, killing Mrs. Golding before collapsing into a strange, almost catatonic, state. Having heard the madness from outside the home, Dr. Pritchard rushed to the front door in time to see Dysart leaving in a hurry.


Jack the Ripper Hammer film

Dr. Pritchard retrieved Anna from jail and is now looking after her. But his motives are not entirely unselfish. He knows Anna has committed the crime - something even the police are not sure of - but wants to look after her in an attempt to understand why she did it. It is also obvious that Dr. Pritchard is developing some rather un-doctorly feelings towards the young woman. Dr. Pritchard comes to learn that Anna's father was the notorious Jack the Ripper, the madman who had stalked the streets of London only a decade or so ago. Anna had been only a child when he father returned home one night, bloodsoaked and pursued by an angry mob. Her mother, quickly realizing what her husband had done that night, tried to call for help. But Anna's father was not in any mood for mob justice that night and, as Anna watched, he killed his wife. Now Anna suffers from a kind of split personality disorder. When she sees a flashing light and feels a kiss on her cheek, she lapses into a kind of trance, becoming her father, seeking to kill


As Dr. Pritchard continues his treatment of Anna, he finds circumstances quickly spiraling out of control. Anna kills several more people, Dysart grows unwilling to cooperate with Pritchard regarding the truth behind Anna's murders, and the arrival of Michael's fiance, a blind woman named Laura, brings with it the threat of discovery. All of this culminates in a climax that is both harrowing and devastatingly emotional.


Hands of the Ripper Hammer horror

The reason HANDS OF THE RIPPER works so well is because it is thematically complex while being straight-forward and fast-paced. While the film raises more issues than it can handle in the space of it's brief running time - there is ample examination of the place of psychotherapy in criminal rehabilitation as well as an examination on the practice of legally murdering those who murder others - it never feels preachy or heavy handed. But it isn't the subtext of the film I find so fascinating. It's the presentation of the two main characters, Anna and Dr. Pritchard.


The casting of Angharad Rees in the role of Anna was pure brilliance. Anna is a murderer. No two ways about it. But is she really responsible for her actions? The film makes no qualms about answering "no" to that question, but it is difficult to reconcile our feelings for the character with the terrible, graphic violence she causes. Rees is a very beautiful, very meek young woman and her on-screen presence is strangely soothing and definitely irresistible. So it's difficult to watch her commit these acts of violence. Not because she is meek and beautiful, but because she is so charming that we feel pity for her. We fear for her while simultaneously being afraid of her.


Angharad Rees Hands of the Ripper

Eric Porter's portrayal of Dr. Pritchard is equally conflicting. We immediately recognize both the sincerity and the downright opportunism of the character. He is a man whose humanism seems driven by his ego, or perhaps the other way around. He wishes to cure Anna not only out of love for her, but as a kind of personal challenge to himself, a way of cracking the code of the psychotic, a breakthrough that would bring him great renown. He places Anna in a position where she is happy - she confesses that he has given her the only happy experience of her life - but in great danger. Through his selfish action, he ends up costing several people their lives. We have the same kind of conflicted emotions towards Dr. Pritchard as we do towards Anna. We find ourselves impressed by his capacity for caring, but we also feel contempt for his egocentrism and his willingness to sacrifice people's well being for his own gain.


As the story unfolds, we find our allegiances tested a great many times. When Anna stumbles into the night in a murderous trance, we worry about her safety but we also worry about the safety of others. When Anna finally lashes out against Pritchard, stabbing him through the side with a sword, we fear that he may die but delight in the agony he feels as he uses a door handle to help pry the foot-long blade from his side. The complex ending of the film, set in the beautiful St. Paul's Cathedral, is one of the most emotionally satisfying endings in the entire Hammer catalog, not only because it is exciting, beautiful filmed and scored, and deeply moving, but because it resolves the story in a tragic way befitting the lives of the characters who populate it.


Hammer horror Ripper

The film contains a whiff of supernaturalism, not surprising for a Hammer production, but director Peter Sasdy and screenwriter L.W. Davidson handle it in a rather interesting way. The question of possession is raised earlier in the film during a conversation between Dr. Pritchard and Dysart, but it is a question left unanswered at that point. The film doesn't resolve the issue but it doesn't need to. Whether you subscribe to the notion or not changes the entire tone of the film's final scene. Having seen the film a couple of times, I find it interesting to switch perspectives regarding that issue. For me, which side of the fence you come down on does have an impact on the film, but not so much that it destroys or amplifies it. It is merely another interesting angle in a film positively full of them.


Essential viewing.