"Hands of the Ripper" sets the bar for gruesome violence high during its main titles, where we witness Jack the Ripper murder his wife in front of his young daughter. It's a horrifying moment that certainly establishes the tone for the feature, suggesting that anything goes in this Hammer production. Fortunately, in terms of "should I be watching this?" ugliness, "Hands of the Ripper" doesn't match its vivid opener, though it tries with multiple gory moments intended to give increasingly demanding genre fans a jolt. What's actually here is a fascinating psychological chiller that's artfully made on a low budget, trusting the power of performance to carry a heavy workload of exposition and suspense as the famed horror factory endeavors to breathe new life into an oft-told tale of serial murder. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com