The Whitechapel Murders: Jack the Ripper

The Whitechapel Murders began during the second half of 1888. The murderer, who later became known as Jack the Ripper, was never caught, and his identity continues to be the subject of much study and speculation by so-called "Ripperologists".

The victims where always prostitutes, and the murders savage, including, but not limited to, abdominal mutilations wherein various internal organs were removed. Whether or not the victims were murdered prior to those mutiliations is not known, but it is thought by some forensic experts that they were strangled before being cut open.

All of the Whitechapel Murders were perpetrated at night.

The Victims of Jack the Ripper

Below are the names of those women believed by most Ripperologists to have been victims of Jack.

 

1) Mary Ann Nichols, (maiden name Mary Ann Walker, nicknamed "Polly"), killed on Friday, August 31, 1888.

 

 2) Annie Chapman, (maiden name Eliza Ann Smith, nicknamed "Dark Annie"), killed on Saturday, September 8, 1888.

 

3) Elizabeth Stride, (maiden name Elisabeth Gustafsdotter, nicknamed "Long Liz"), killed on Sunday, September 30, 1888.

 

4) Catherine Eddowes, (used the aliases "Kate Conway" and "Mary Ann Kelly," from the surnames of her two common-law husbands Thomas Conway and John Kelly), killed on Sunday, September 30, 1888.

 

5) Mary Jane Kelly, (called herself "Marie Jeanette Kelly" after a trip to Paris, nicknamed "Ginger"), killed on Friday, November 9, 1888.

 

(This list was culled from the notes of Sir Melville Macnaghten who was Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police Service Criminal Investigation Department in 1894.)

For a detailed and unique essay on Jack the Ripper, contact me at jebric_(aT)_fastmail_dot_fm.

 

                                                            

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Dark Water & The Ring 2

Dark Water and the Ring 2 are the same movie, written by the same Japanese hack. What the fuck is it with these drowned white/Japanese girls? Or, better yet, what the fuck is it with these movie producers? I know it's good business sense, aiming for the lowest common denominator and all that, but I could have seen one of either of these movies and saved money and time.

They are both empty movies, meaning nothing much happens. Long empty stretches of film where you wait. This is called "building suspense" and it only works in the theater. On DVD you fast forward till you see something jump out at somebody or appear out of nowhere, something ugly usually. Give Dark Water credit for not having some overblown CGI character ripping off the The Exorcist walking on the ceiling or whatever, but both movies have the same audience: young hysterical women who have never seen a real horror movie. Young hysterical women of both sexes.

Truth is, for either one of these movies to actually scare you, or any movie out of Hollywood now, you have to be already emotionally overwrought.

Dark Water is about a recently-divorced mother (Jennifer Connelly) who moves into an apartment with her daughter, and they are haunted by the little girl who used to live in the apartment directly above them. The Ring 2 has the incredibly hot Naomi Watts and that girl from the well, only now she doesn't need you to watch the video to come after you. Oh, and it has, and a little boy.

It's hard to make a scary movie. I mean, seriously hard. It takes originality across the board, and a back story that you can only hint at. It takes a ghost that is badder than anything you can show with an R rating. You need (still-living) human characters that you know, even if you don't care about them. It needs a new gimmick, wet girls with their back to you is old.


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