"Time After Time"(1979)d/Nicholas Meyer

Tonight's feature answers the second most nagging question on the collective 1979 conscience, "What if H.G. Wells unwittingly provided Jack the Ripper with an escape route throughout time via the time-travelling machine he'd only just constructed in his basement, forcing him to follow the murderer through the years, like some sort of impromptu time detective?".Number one, being: "You mind if I bang this hulking line of  fishscale Peruvian off of your ass quick?I hear "Night Fever" coming on out there, and I love that song.".These words I speak are true.Seriously, look it up.Malcolm McDowell had just premiered his controversial turn in Tinto Brass' Caligola(1979) seventeen days before tonight's release, a sharply dilineated departure from the nudity, urination and slo-mo vomiting he'd shared for Brass' lens in bringing the disturbed young Caesar to the big screen.Opposite McDowell here is genre vet David Warner as the infamous sex-selling slut-slicing surgeon he's in pursuit of, and he's sinister, as always, if not a bit underappreciated here.Mary Steenburgen plays Wells' modern love interest, Amy, and you can even spot former Andy Warhol discovery-turned-supporting-actress, Patti D'Arbanville, in here as one of Saucy Jack's vic's, and a young Corey Feldman as a boy at the museum.Revisiting it for probably the first time since the cable box days(or network telly, methinks), I found it to be an enjoyably fluffy romp, despite the lengthy running time(nearly two hours), and the film's general aversion to worthwhile action occurring within it's frames.It must be some sort of childhood nostalgia going down in me gulliver again.Forwards!

"Oi, that weren't me cunny, guv'nor...."
John Leslie Stevenson(David Warner) arrives late for his mate, H.G. Wells'(Malcolm McDowell) unveiling of his latest invention, a working time machine, due to an as-yet-undiscovered propensity to leave Whitechapel whores slumped dead in back alleys with their innards whistling in the wind.By the time Scotland Yard has policed the blood trail to Wells' flat, Saucy Jack has already deftly skirted past the commotion to the basement, somehow managing to transport himself forward through time into 1979.Wells, realizing his contraption has sprung Jack the Ripper on an unsuspecting future socialist Utopian society(Ha!), packs up the available folding money and shiny trinkets to trade with the natives(!) on a journey through the tapestry of time to catch a cold-blooded killer.Once in 1979, Wells finds himself hopelessly out of place, even in ordering fast food, while Stevenson has adapted to the future quite seamlessly, trading his antiquated garb for groovy denim action vests and polyester disco boogie suits.Wells traces the Ripper to his hotel room by monitoring his guinea exchange at a local  bank, where the surgeon/slasher illustrates the current society's violent-prone mindset with a television remote, leading to a mostly unthrilling chase on foot through the crowded streets of San Francisco.Losing his target, who's wrongly believed to be killed in a traffic accident, Wells is forced to retreat to the friendly face of a teller named Amy(Mary Steenburgen) who removes the sting of his wounds by showing him around the city and giving up the first date mogambo while she's at it.

"I don't see the promotional 'Caligula' soft drink glasses display anywhere, and I should very much like a word with your superior, young lady."
A newspaper headline declaring the discovery of another Ripper victim abruptly snaps Herbert from his recent liason, and forces him to reveal the whole unbelievably mad truth to her when offering tips to the police under the alias of 'Sherlock Holmes' proves rather fruitless, indeed.Wells sneaks Amy into his time machine, taking her forward a couple of days to prove his story, only to have her discover via future headline that she is to die at the hands of the ripper herself.The duo plot Stevenson's next moves using the future newspaper, but Herbert gets himself locked up hours beforehand, only to be released when the authorities mistake the mutilated body of Carol, one of Amy's friends for her, just in time to find Saucy Jack making off with his girl in tow, at knifepoint.Herbert tearfully pleads with Stevenson at the museum for Amy to be delivered over unharmed, but Stevenson is not satisfied by merely proving Wells wrong about man's instincts, and plans to take Amy with him in Wells' machine.In the melee, she manages to escape his clutches before Herbert can remove the 'vaporizing equalizer' from the side of the time craft, effectively sending Jack the Ripper screaming through the ages without the machine.Amy's emotional pleas influence Wells to take her with him back to his own age, vowing to change her name to Susan B. Anthony as part of the bargain.The credits that follow tell us the couple later married.

Jack the Ripper(David Warner) would rather spill your entrails on the concrete than shake his groove thang.
The real Amy Robbins was one of Wells' young real-life students that he fell in love with while already married to his own cousin,and married a year later in 1895.Free love, indeed, Herbert, free love, indeed.Steenburgen and McDowell tied the knot themselves the following year, and divorced in 1990.He's one of my favorite actors of all-time, whereas she's mostly appeared in the kind of movies I'd never watch unless there be pussy to be gained afterwards, and even then, prolly not, folks.Meyer, who also helmed the cult classic, Invasion of the Bee Girls(1975), is probably best known today for directing several of the Star Trek films, most notably 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.Insert your best over-dramatic William Shatner scream here.Warner, another long-time favorite of mine, can be seen in such diverse fare as 1970's Straw Dogs, From Beyond the Grave(1974), The Omen(1976), The Island(1980), The Man With Two Brains(1982), and even Titanic(1997).On the scale, Time stands the test of time for the most part, earning a respectable two Big ones.Worth a look...

Whore-ripping, time-space continuum-spitting, tron-gasm finales: One.

"The Ripper"(1985)d/Christopher Lewis

Ah, 1985, I remember you well, with your Wayfarers, moussed-up mullets, Docksiders, and your fucking parachute pants.I was a junior in high school, trying to fly under the radar on the "pay-me-no-mind-unless-you're-a-Madonna-wannabe-who-fancies-getting-turned-out-in-the-back-of-my-'70-Cougar-XR7-outside-the-cemetery-where-Mary-Jo-Kopetchne-is-buried" list, with my preppie side-comb and ethno-fragstache, looking like the missing member of Laibach-meets-'Saved by the Bell' hallway extra.Horror movies remained a staple on my diet, as always, and by then, I was fueling my growing habit at the drive-in, through mail-order companies like Video Mania, who offered cheap pre-recorded factory originals of cult classics and rare Euro-sleaze, and at every video store within driving distance, one of which being where I first encountered tonight's entry, the second of three SOV slashers helmed by Christopher Lewis.I was instantly drawn in by the giant clamshell case with yellow-eyed Savini depicted on the cover, my wallet three clams lighter for the rental fee, having used my silver tongue to avoid having to pay the fifty-plus in late charges on my account in the process.If the clerk had decided to hold me accountable for my laziness, I'd have ducked out the door and found a copy in one of the six or seven other stores in the area, returning a week later to rent again when someone who didn't recognize me was working the register.Hahaha, Nuuuuuge.Of course, the excitement only lasted as long as it took to slip the video cassette in back at home, because it was obvious from the first tracking fine tune that I had another fucking mutt on my hands.

"You sure you didn't pry this thing off of one of Liberace's fingers?"
After a hearty flashback hooker hack'd from Saucy Jack, we enter the college classroom of Prof. Harwell(Tom Schreier), a poor man's Tom Jones slinging lessons on, skip the drum roll, Jack the Ripper.We learn that Harwell is romantically linked to the aerobics instructor, Carol(Mona Van Pernis, who's an R away from having a great joke name, isn't she?), and after a nausea-inducing dated aerobics workout/dance sequence, the pair visit the local antique shop, where Richard spots a huge gaudy ruby ring that he struggles to put down without some effort.Through more classroom claptrap, we're introduced to Steve(Wade Tower), one of Richard's students that shares a love for horror movies with his instructor, who dozes off while screening a slasher, and dreams of icing his old lady, ripper-like.Harwell sees the same ring he'd looked over at the curio shoppe in the pages of a book about the Whitechapel murderer himself, and it isn't long before he's back at the dealer's place, begging to buy the ring.Once he's gotten his digit through the ugly thing, he suddenly becomes left-handed and his violent dreams of ripping young girls start to translate into lifeless bits o' crumpet littering the campus around him.When Steve's date ends up ripped in the bushes right under his nose, he sees a man in a small town theatrical Jack the Ripper costume fleeing the scene, somehow losing two pursuant police cruisers while on foot.Must be the cape...

I think he may have killed her...
Soon Steve suspects the worst: Harwell has gone and gotten himself possessed by the immortal spirit of Jack the Ripper by wearing his ring, and after dropping in on the suspect results in a struggle over a gun, etc. etc., with Richard escaping to liason with Carol on an atmospheric, romantic date in a dark, musky warehouse.Inside, the professor physically transforms into Saucy Jack(Tom Savini), who turns out to not be a member of the British aristocracy or deranged surgeon, but an Italian combat photographer from Pittsburgh, afterall who can't be harmed by bullets while delivering a dramatic monologue(but shooting his ring finger, among others, off works like a charm).The fuzz busts in and pumps the prof fulla skeet, and he transforms back into the mild-mannered educator of youth as he lies dying on the bloody concrete.Later, a scruffy band of young scalawags discovers the ring as they're bounding along by a set of railroad tracks, and take it home to show the folks, threatening us with a possible sequel, if we weren't careful.Thankfully, the threat was an entirely empty one...

Excuse me, ma'am, I just thought you should know that your windpipe is showing.
Lewis also directed Revenge(1986), and Blood Cult(1985), which we'll be looking at in the coming days here at the Wop.Savini has been busy lately, turning up on an episode of Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1(Aqua Teen Hunger Force, for any non-animaniacs in the audience), Machete(2010), Horrorween(2011)(!), and several productions in the works, including a role as SS-Standartenführer Dirlewanger, rockin' for the golden race in an upcoming nazi movie alongside cult indie director Andreas Schnaas and Sean "Dog Soldiers" Pertwee, though I doubt Rebelles Européens will be handling the soundtrack release.Congrats, regardless, on your continued good fortune in the industry, paisano, you deserve it.Apart from some ultra realistic misogynistic gore, horrifically amplified by the clarity of the video format, and Savini's ten minutes at the end, there aren't many goings-on to get excited about in this one.Still, it's worth a Wednesday night look if you've put the barflys and cheap lager pints aside for the evening.On the scale:

"Arrrgggh! I fap with this hand! You foolish mortals will pay for your insolence!!!"

Hands of the Ripper(1971)d/Peter Sadsy

Involuntarily skipping out on the St. Valentine's weekend festivities,save for third wheeling it at the local Johnny Rocket's grease pit with my roommate and his girlfriend(You wanna know who pumped a pocketful of nickels into the jukebox and tortured the entire establishment with "Chantilly Lace" by the Big Bopper on an endless loop?Look no further,bastards.),I found myself reflecting upon which macabre movie morsels I was going to serve up to my virtual valentines here in the emperor's kingdom,and though I was unsure at first,I knew there oughta be a good deal o' red.
Not my favorite Hammer film of all time,though one would think it's possessing of enough classic elements to merit that much-coveted top spot;excellent setting in jolly old Victorian E',more red stuff than I ever remember seeing on the screen in any other Hammer movie off the top of my head(and they always upped the ante in the blood sweepstakes in those days to begin with),lippy east end whores in a cage(I live for such smashing visuals!)sterling performances by the late Shakespearian actor Eric Porter and the lovely Angharad Rees adding to the sombre tone of the film,but in the end,the whole family values of Saucy Jack the Ripper angle left me more than a little drained,no pun intended.

Constable Crepewool,about to spring his adamantium claws into action.
The Whitechapel Ripper is a multitasker at heart,we find out,early on.When he's not out ripping whores,he's a family man,tending to his wife and young daughter,Anna.By tending to,I mean shanking his soulmate in the labonza and psychologically twisting his little girl's subconscious into mental taffy.More than a decade later,we find his daughter living with a phony medium-cum-madam,and when she's not faking voices from the ethereal afterlife,she's entertaining slimy cocksmiths like mr. Dysart(Derek Godfrey),who flashes gaudy baubles at the teenager so that she might allow him to get his bloody end away already.When Dr. Pritchard(Eric Porter)bursts in to investigate screams of terror from the medium's humble abode,he finds the psychic impaled on the bedroom door,and Anna staring off blankly as Dysart hastily exits stage left.The doctor,a self-proclaimed student of Freud,does not implicate the flesh hound during questioning by the old bill,deciding to take in the ubiquitously unhinged urchin to his own home,for something frightfully new to Victorian England, called psychoanalysis.He then blackmails Dysart to use his influence to discover anything he can about Anna's shadowy past,and rescues the girl from a jailcell full of unclean,mouthy slappers,planning to break the news to his son and his blind fiancee when they arrive from the train station.

After being ripped,Dolly(Marjie Lawrence) makes folly of being able to swally,by golly.
Anna repays the good doctor's kindness by smashing a hand mirror and planting it in the neck of the physician's maid.It seems that the combination of reflective light and a kiss,whether amorous or platonic,sends Saucy Jack's daughter off in her famous father's footsteps,evacuating the life out of whoever's foolish enough to be that close in the first place,dammit.She then wanders out in her subconscious trance to the red light district,where the cliched "hooker with a heart of gold" takes her in,only to wind up dead on the cobblestone with multiple hatpins through her hand and into her neck and eye.Rather than turning the young murderess in to the authorities,Pritchard,still of the opinion that he can cure the girl's madness, takes her instead to Madame Bullard,another psychic,at the request of Dysart.The woman identifies the troubled young thing as the ripper's daughter,but when she kisses the girl,she ends up stabbed dead.Pritchard himself finds himself on the wrong end of a sword to the kidneys,but innovatively uses a door handle to un-skewer himself so that he can rush to stop Anna before she does any harm to his son's love interest at the whispering gallery inside St.Paul's Cathedral.Does the bleeding Brit save the day?Or is the blind belle to be brutally butchered by Pritchard's obtuse-of-mind-but-not-of-blade obsession?Get your hands on this ripper to find out.

Prostitute Long Liz threads the eye of the needle on her night off.
The Hungarian-born director Sadsy was responsible for a myriad of Hammer-based horrors,such as Taste the Blood of Dracula(1970),Countess Dracula(1971),the rarely-seen Nothing But the Night(1973),as well as several episodes of Hammer House of Horror in 1980,any or all of which I enjoyed a great deal more than this entry,despite being anxious to see it as far back as I can remember after seeing the British marquee poster above in a hardcover tome on horror films as a child.Eh,whattayagonndo.The character of the pincushioned prostitute,Long Liz,was actually named after one of Jack the Ripper's real life victims.There's enough here to keep the average Hammer-head glued to the screen for just under an hour and a half,but of all the classic genre fare the studio churned out in the seventies,this one just seems to fade into obscurity in comparison.Definitely worth a look,despite my personal beefs.On the scale,I'll have to rate this ripper:

Anna(Angherad Rees) doles out my kinda valentines,that's for sure.