From Hell
The mystery and aura surrounding the legendary Whitechapel killings by the assailant who was coined “Jack The Ripper” is ironically not a mystery at all when one considers some recorded history and obvious logic. Jack The Ripper was of course Sir William Gull, the official physician to Queen Victoria and the British Royal Family who undertook his actions to protect the reputation of both The Queen and her grandson (Prince Edward Albert Victor) who had been expected to assume the throne as King until his untimely death at age 28 from either syphilis or influenza depending on the source. Turns out that the Prince had a habit of disguising his identity under an alias so that he could frequent amongst the commoners in the Whitechapel district, eventually falling in love, marrying (though not legally under Royal Standards) and then siring a child with one Annie Crook, a shop girl and former prostitute (also known as an “unfortunate”) who far and away would have been considered a completely unsuitable choice for him to marry (again, by Royal Standards), so when the time came, the authorities would sweep away the wayward Prince, place the child in an orphanage and then spirit poor Annie off into a mental institution in order to keep her quiet and away from society. But a loose end had been discovered in the form of Annie’s best friend, Mary Kelly (a.k.a The Fifth And Final Ripper Victim) who had full knowledge of Annie’s relationship with the Prince and may have even threatened blackmail over it. That’s where Gull came in: besides being the doctor for The Royals, he was also a proud Freemason and vowed to have their full assistance and cooperation in not only eliminating Kelly, but also to fulfill what was (to them) a more important priority than just protecting the worthless hide of the Crown Prince. Gull was a sexual psychopath whom like his brethren, had always satisfied their own appetites within the confines of their sacred lodges up to and including ritual sacrifices, and it was decided that now was the time to go mainstream with it, targeting not only Kelly but four other women as well (who may or may not have known each other) in carrying out unprecedented public sacrifices while also using their control of the London newspapers to create the fictional Jack The Ripper persona which would not only create fear and panic amongst the population, but also INSPIRE others to dare to dream as by introducing these demonic elements onto an unprepared society, it was now expected that others would carry out further acts of depravity long after the Ripper had engaged in his bloody rampage. Indeed, copycat killings of prostitutes started happening about a year after Kelly’s death and hence the popular notion that serial killers are always walking amongst us was born and continues on to this day. Naturally, the Gull as Ripper postulation was almost always dismissed by so called “scholars” usually on the notion that Gull was “too old” to have committed the murders but there is no reason to believe that he was necessarily acting alone since it was the London press that created the myth that he was a singular person walking out of the shadows and fog all by himself. Worse, much of the corrupted media establishment even today enjoys putting out literally hundreds of theories about whom the Ripper might have been, in many ways to purposely dilute the truth about Gull and have him be lumped in as just being one of the many suspects even though a number of historians through diligent research had thoroughly established Gull as being the killer using both private journals of the man himself (although they were never released verbatim to the public) and the now confirmed historical connection between Kelly and Crook which explains why Kelly was obviously targeted (with those same doubting “scholars” dismissing it as a mere coincidence that she also turned out to be a Ripper victim). But even though the truth is pretty much plain as day, neither the British government, The Windsors nor Scotland Yard have ever confirmed Gull as The Ripper, which is fine since The Freemasons did succeed in threatening at least a couple of historians into retracting their findings which doesn’t change much of anything because THIS film released in 2001 (and the Alan Moore graphic novel upon which it was based) still managed to give a stylized, yet partially accurate account of that truth, not only implicating Gull (played here by Ian Holm) as the killer but also trying to imply that he had gone a little bit rogue by Freemason standards, carrying out their objective but nonetheless taking it so far to the extreme that the Masons are made to appear here that they are holding him accountable not so much for his actions but rather for his methods (which is not true). That along with the heavily implied notion portrayed by the film that Gull was also possibly suffering from demonic possession (hence the idea that Satan was the one who had chosen to “mainstream” sick and depraved forms of murder) do little to change the fact that what IS depicted here is the most frank and open cinematic display of secret societies this side of Eyes Wide Shut. The stars here are Johnny Depp as the real Scotland Yard inspector Frederick Abberline and Heather Graham as Kelly, playing her as a wide eyed street waif who somehow climbs into Depp’s head in order to trigger his protective instincts for her own benefit. The film takes great pains to throw some red herrings at us starting with a street gang looking to traffic the girls for their own profit and then there’s the scene with Depp’s commanding officer (Ian Richardson) where he throws out every possible racist notion of who the killer might be simply because he feels that an “educated man” would never do such a thing even though Depp has already ascertained that the killer has an excellent knowledge of human anatomy and an almost surgical skill in his cutting method (Gull) although the pressure is already being put on him to find some kind of scapegoat to anoint the blame onto so that Gull and his Freemason buddies can be let off the hook. Depp pieces together the relationship between The Prince and the street girl Crook and then amazingly Gull himself starts to consult on the case, playing sick whenever he is around Depp but then getting all fired up when it’s time to kill accompanied by his loyal coachman Netley (Jason Flemyng, also playing a real and confirmed historical figure who was The Ripper’s only known accomplice). Certainly, the film is quite a stylistic affair, focusing more on camera tricks and some over the top acting to get us to the final reckoning. Depp’s Abberline is strangely enough portrayed as being an opium addict who has to be constantly roused out of his stupor by his partner (Robbie Coltrane) and in possession of clairvoyant abilities as well, but much of it is mere window dressing when it comes to revealing the truth about the Ripper killings and the very fact that the film even got made under the presumed auspices of modern day Freemasonry are probably because 1) the case is now over 130 years old and so having this story told on film is probably not such a big deal to them anymore and 2) at the end of the day, the entire “just one of many possibilities” argument will continue to win out, thus protecting one of the greatest scandals of all time that was used as a justified pretense to introducing the world to yet another worthless pursuit that being in the glorification of serial killers…
8/10