Horror Movie Review: Ripper Untold (2021)

One of the world’s most notorious serial killer to never actually be identified, Jack the Ripper is an iconic figure of London history. A killer that is said to have been responsible for the murder of five, maybe more, female prostitutes in the Whitechapel district of London in 1888.

The crimes were never solved and the legend of Jack the Ripper has grown and grown over the subsequent centuries since. A blend of folklore and historical research has made Jack the Ripper infamous even to this day.

You don’t have to look far for some form of entertainment surrounding Jack the Ripper. Books and documentaries both based in fact and fiction, shows, movies, podcasts, music and more… Jack the Ripper continues to casts a dark shadow over things.

Which brings us to this movie, Ripper Untold. A low-budget re-telling of the legend.

Written and directed by Steve Lawson, Ripper Untold stars Jonathan Hansler, Jacob Anderton, Chris Bell, Dawn Butler, Marcus Langford, Phil Molloy, Shady Murphy and Sylvia Robson.

The year is 1888 and a string of horrific murders are occurring in the Whitechapel district of London. Ladies of the night, butchered and left to bleed in the street with no clues left behind for Inspector Reid of Scotland Yard to work with.

As the body count increases, the pressure to catch the murderer becomes more intense. Will he be able to find the identity of the killer and should he be looking a little closer to home?

Let’s talk about the good things first.

Ripper Untold does capture some of the period nicely. You won’t necessarily feel as though you’re in 1888 but you will feel as though they’ve tried to make it so. Good costumes and props help that, as do decent performances from most of the main cast.

It’s important to remember that this isn’t a documentary. It’s called Ripper Untold and decides to take some serious liberties with the source material. Considering how little truth is actually known about the crimes of Jack the Ripper, that is hardly a problem. What Ripper Untold does with its story payoff is fun.

Which brings us to the first major problem with the movie and that is the journey to that payoff. A journey that is mind-numbingly slow a lot of the time. Characters spend so much time just talking. Scene after scene of characters just talking and it is horrid to watch. Tension or atmosphere? Not with this sort of story-telling. Add that most of this takes place indoors in a very limited number of sets using the same static camera angles and staying awake becomes a real challenge.

Do you know what it ends up feeling like? Like a play. The only thing that makes it slightly different than an on-stage performance is the score. Something that is both hilarious and annoying. To seemingly to make up for the shortcomings elsewhere, they have gone to town with the score.

Ripper Untold deserves some credit for trying and you can imagine, with a bit more money, just how much better it could have been. That doesn’t matter though as this is the end result. A tame, boorish and limited horror re-imagination of an over-told story.