Oh, the darkness... oh, the pain...

Rating: 10/10 (27 January 2002)

"From Hell" is not a pleasant film. I tried to watch it with my usual shields against the "horror movie stuff" fully deployed - it didn't help. It got to me. To the very core of my fears and my deepest emotions. And that's it's success: It is effective.
First thing about "From Hell": Don't let it get you off guard - you'll feel sorry about it later, when the film is over and the lights are on. Frightening? Yes, of course. But not in the way acomplished by other films of the recent philmography ("The Others", come in mind, filled with cheap ghost tricks and "door opens - Booo!" frauds - despite the very interesting general theme and the great performance of Nicole Kidman).
No, it is more... subtle. The real terror is not the murders, the way they are being carried out, the beating heart in the hand of Jack or the (scarce, anyway) gore. Nope. The real terror is the fact that you can't escape. That malady is not a state of mind, it's a whole world.
The fact that for one to find hope, another must vanish. The fact that there is no action without reaction.
Dep delivers another excellent performance - might be his best so far. Despite the baby-face. The Hughes brothers do a great work with the light on their star - they use the light (or the absence of it) to wake inner feelings and make more point than other directors make with the whole film.

The semi-happy end is really a work of art (I haven't seen the comix so I don't know if it is taken from there or is genuine). And it only drags the helpless viewer even deeper into the abyss of this world.

Yes, it is not a *happy* movie. It ain't a "who done it" movie either - the basic storyline is used as the mean, not the goal. And it certainly ain't no *horror* movie - there are no ghosts, no supernatural beings, not walking dead, no gross details, very little gore, no detailed autopsies, no cataclysmic events.
I think I should give out an advice to those not seen "From Hell" yet: Do not go to watch a "horror movie". Or a thriller. Or whatever. Prepare yourself for a different experience.
It is a great movie and one I am happy to have seen. And at the same time I am very unhappy. Because I can't let that depressing feeling go away. I can't look at my world as I used to. Thousands of little details capture my attention. Previously innocent moves and words are not innocent any more. The world has a totally different meaning for me now. And four little words are in my mind 24 hours a day:
There is no escape