ERIC PORTER & ANGHARAD REES IN HAMMER'S 'HANDS OF THE RIPPER'

Title: HANDS OF THE RIPPER Year: 1971 Rating: ****1/2

In 1971, Hammer Films managed to get two films centering not really on Jack the Ripper himself, but his legacy: in DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE, the Robert Louis Stevenson-based antagonists slay like Jack in the fog-shrouded England, while HANDS OF THE RIPPER only opens with Jack murdering his wife, witnessed by young daughter Anna, who would (after being raised by an abusive charlatan) grow into the titular RIPPER...

But not intentionally, since all the killings occur during hypnotic spells after a psychologist... played by stern-faced character-actor Eric Porter, bringing a more cerebral, stage-like sophistication in the absence of legendary regulars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee... adopts the teenage Anna played by Angharad Rees, who's both girl-next-door-lovely (with a touch of Tuesday Weld) and intensely-enigmatic...

Angharad Rees and Eric Porter in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Not only the best Hammer Film of the somewhat inconsistent 1970's, when the studio had to compete with more modernly violent themes, but one of their all-time greats as RIPPER combines the kind of ultra-gory body-count violence (with victims ranging from a classy maid to a sassy whore) with their signature psychological-thriller built right into the connection between doctor and patient, sharing both intense and casual chemistry...

Although there's a kind of made-for-TV aesthetic in the lower budgeted Victorian sets that occurred after Hammer's plush-era of the previous decades, and a time-filling b-story involving Porter's son and blind daughter-in-law (Keith Bell and Jane Merrow) and a crafty blackmailer, HANDS perfectly combines Hammer's page-turning expository dialogue with the kind of anticipatory suspense that makes each build-up even more terrorizing than the actual murders.

Angharad Rees in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Angharad Rees and Lynda Baron in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Angharad Rees and Marjie Lawrence in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Angharad Rees in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Eric Porter in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Keith Bell and Jane Merrow in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Angharad Rees in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Lynda Baron in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Nadine Stapleton in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

April Wilding in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Danny Lyons in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

From HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Eric Porter in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Derek Godfrey in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Eric Porter and Angharad Rees in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Eric Porter and Angharad Rees in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Angharad Rees in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Eric Porter and Angharad Rees in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Angharad Rees in HANDS OF THE RIPPER

Jane Merrow and Angharad Rees in HANDS OF THE RIPPER