From Hell

In this gothic thriller about Jack the Ripper, Johnny Depp plays Fred Abberline, a police inspector and drug addict in London in 1888. In his dreams filled with clouds of opium intoxication he has visions of murdered women. The dreams soon come true and a horrific series of murders is committed, all of prostitutes from the London slums of Whitechapel. After the murder, the innards of the prostitutes are removed, a detail that makes Abberline decide to call in the help of Dr. William Gull, a prominent doctor who is also personal doctor to the royal family. The inspector makes friends with Mary Kelly, one of the whores from the district whose life is threatened. The closer Fred Abberline gets to the truth, the more dangerous Whitechapel gets for him, Mary and the other whores.The film, based on a well known comic strip, was shot in Prague, where a very atmospheric Whitechapel was reconstructed that looks very authentic. While From Hell is a costume drama, in their theme, the Hughes brothers come close to their first film Menace II Society by calling the film a ghetto story and to state that they wanted to make ‘a genre film about street violence’. Supported by a great Johnny Depp who excels as the clever and addicted inspector, the Hughes brothers turn the mystery surrounding Jack the Ripper into a gruesome prelude to the twentieth century.