From Hell opens with a caption quoting (but not really) Jack the Ripper: “One day men will look back and say I gave birth to the Twentieth Century.” Towards the end, Sir William Gull (Ian Holm), the real-life individual that the movie, echoing a widely discredited theory, identifies as the Ripper, repeats (or coins, or whatever) the very same statement.
Never mind that, shortly after this, Gull is lobotomized and the person to whom he says those words dies from an intentional opium overdose, taking the plot’s many secrets to his grave (who exactly recorded the ‘quote’ for posterity, then?); the real problem is that never does the film ever even attempt to ascribe any meaning whatsoever to the phrase. If the Ripper had actually said (or, rather, written) that or something along those lines, well, it would still make no sense — but then it wouldn’t have to because the guy was obviously crazier than a shithouse rat.
Maybe that’s the point, though; Sir William equates murdering a bunch of whores with giving birth to a new century because he’s loonier than a motherfucker — as well he should be; after all, you don’t have to be crazy to be a character in this movie, but it helps, since the whole thing smacks of the inmates running the asylum.
For those familiar with actual Ripper lore, the “Dear Boss” letter, whether authentic or not, already provides the killer with a simple yet sufficient motivation (which of course by no means justifies his actions): “I love my work and want to start again.” From Hell, however, makes the mistake of coming up with an unneeded primary explanation, and then a secondary one that is necessary only in that they need it to explain the first explanation.
On the one hand, the Ripper’s victims are all “eyewitnesses” to the forbidden marriage of painter Albert Sickert/Prince Albert (Mark Dexter) to Ann Crook (Joanna Page), the mother of his illegitimate daughter, Alice (the real Albert Sickert was, long after the fact, suspected to be the Ripper himself — another discredited theory —, but no one ever accused him of secretly being Queen Victoria’s grandson), and on the other, they are all “traitors.”
Now, if what you want is to silence these witnesses, why not do it, you know, quietly? Why not have them all picked up and lobotomized (which, if this script is any indication, was all the rage) like Ann Crook was? Instead, the killings seem to have been designed expressly to draw everybody’s attention in general, and the police and the newspapers in particular.
In order to reconcile this disparity between the end and the means, the filmmakers spew forth some Masonic shit about how “the way that these women were killed … They’re reenactments, aren’t they? … The traitors who killed Hiram Abiff, founder of the Masons. That’s how they were executed.”
What the hell Hiram Abiff has to do with Prince Albert, however, is never made clear. Moreover, how can these women be traitors when you’re rubbing them out before they have had the chance to betray a secret that most of them aren’t even aware of? All things considered, I don’t mind that the villain is insane — but must he be dumb too?
90% of Everything is Crap 
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