Jack the Ripper, an unidentified serial killer active in and aroundWhitechapel in 1888, has been featured in works offiction ranging fromgothic novels published at the time of the murders to modern motion pictures, televised dramas and video games.
Important influences on the depiction of the Ripper includeMarie Belloc Lowndes' 1913 novelThe Lodger, which has been adapted for the stage and film, andStephen Knight's 1976 workJack the Ripper: The Final Solution, which expanded on a conspiracy theory involving freemasons and royalty. The literature of the lateVictorian era, includingArthur Conan Doyle's firstSherlock Holmes stories andRobert Louis Stevenson'sStrange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, has provided inspiration for story-makers who have fused these fictional worlds with the Ripper.
The Ripper makes appearances throughout thescience fiction andhorror genres and is internationally recognised as an evil character. The association of the Ripper with death and sex is particularly appealing toheavy metal androck musicians, who have incorporated the Ripper murders into their work.
Works of fiction inspired by theWhitechapel murders arose immediately after the atrocities were committed. The shortGothic novelThe Curse Upon Mitre Square byJohn Francis Brewer, which features the murder ofCatherine Eddowes inMitre Square as a key plot element, was published in October 1888.[1][2] Among works by other authors,In Darkest London byMargaret Harkness, who used the pseudonym John Law, was published in 1889. Harkness depicts the Ripper as a non-Jewish slaughterman who hides among the Jews in theEast End of London.[3]
Ripper stories appealed to an international audience.[4] A "reputedly unsavoury" anthology ofshort stories in Swedish,Uppskäraren ("The Ripper") byAdolf Paul, was published in 1892, but it was suppressed by Russian authorities.[5]
The character ofSherlock Holmes has been used often in Jack the Ripper fiction. In 1907,Aus den Geheimakten des Welt-Detektivs No. 18 from German publisher Verlagshaus für Volksliteratur und Kunst featured "Wie Jack, der Aufschlitzer, gefasst wurde" (How Jack the Ripper Was Taken), in which Holmes captures the Ripper.[6] In the 1930s the story was translated into Spanish in forSherlock Holmes Memorias intimas del rey de los detectives No. 3, "El Destripador" (The Ripper), recently reprinted in a new book and translated into English for the first time.[7] Cullen called the story "amusing Sherlock Holmes pastiche".[4] Holmes was also used later inMichael Dibdin'sThe Last Sherlock Holmes Story (1978),Ellery Queen'sA Study in Terror (1966),John Sladek'sBlack Aura (1974), andBarrie Roberts'Sherlock Holmes and the Royal Flush (1998) amongst others.[8]
The first influential short story, "The Lodger" byMarie Belloc Lowndes, was published inMcClure's Magazine in 1911 and novelised in 1913.[5] It features a London couple, Mr and Mrs Bunting, who suspect that their lodger, Mr Sleuth, is a mysterious killer known as "The Avenger", clearly based on the Ripper.[9] Whether Sleuth really is "The Avenger" is left open: the focus of the story is on the Buntings' psychological terror, which may be entirely unfounded, rather than the actions of "The Avenger".[9] In 1927, "The Lodger" was the subject of anAlfred Hitchcock-directed film:The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, and four other adaptations were filmed in later years.
In 1926,Leonard Matters proposed in a magazine article that the Ripper was an eminent doctor, whose son had died fromsyphilis caught from a prostitute. According to Matters, the doctor, given the pseudonym "Dr Stanley", committed the murders in revenge and then fled to Argentina. He expanded his ideas into a book,The Mystery of Jack the Ripper, in 1929. The book was marketed as a serious study, but it contains obvious factual errors and the documents it supposedly uses as references have never been found.[10] It inspired other works such as the theatre playMurder Most Foul and the filmJack the Ripper.[11] Jonathan Goodman's 1984 bookWho He? is also written as if it is a factual study, but the suspect described, "Peter J Harpick", is an invention whose name is an anagram of Jack the Ripper.[12]
Robert Bloch's short story "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" (published inWeird Tales in 1943[5]) cast the Ripper as an eternal who must makehuman sacrifices to extend hisimmortality.[13] It was adapted for both radio (inStay Tuned for Terror) and television (as an episode ofThriller in 1961 written byBarré Lyndon).[14] The science-fiction anthologyDangerous Visions (1967) featured an unrelated Ripper story by Bloch, "A Toy for Juliette", and a sequel byHarlan Ellison, "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World", written with Bloch's permission. Bloch's work also includesThe Will to Kill (1954) andNight of the Ripper (1984).[15]
The many novels influenced by the Ripper include:[16]
The Ripper features at the end ofFrank Wedekind'smorality playDie Büchse der Pandora (1904), in which the Ripper murders Lulu, the central character. Lulu is the personification of sinfulLust who meets her comeuppance when she unwittingly flirts with the Ripper.[18] In the original stage production, Wedekind played the part of the Ripper.[4] The play was later adapted into the filmPandora's Box (1928, directed byGeorg Wilhelm Pabst), and the operaLulu (byAlban Berg), both of which also end with the murder of Lulu by the Ripper.[19] It was also made into three films in 1923, 1962 and 1980 respectively,[20] and a playLulu by Peter Barnes premièred in 1970.[21]
André de Lorde'sJack l'Eventreur was part of theGrand Guignol's output in Paris.[22] Marie Belloc Lowndes' novel and short storyThe Lodger was adapted for the stage asThe Lodger: Who Is He? byHorace Annesley Vachell. In 1917,Lionel Atwill's first role inBroadway theatre was as the title character.[23]Phyllis Tate also based her operaThe Lodger, first performed in 1960, on Lowndes' story.[24]
Murder Most Foul by Claude Pirkis was first performed in 1948. The character of the murderer, Dr. Stanley, was taken fromThe Mystery of Jack the Ripper by Leonard Matters, first published in 1929.[25] Doug Lucie'sForce and Hypocrisy is based on the royal conspiracy theory of Stephen Knight.[26]
Two British musicals,Ripper by Terence Greer andThe Jack the Ripper Show and How They Wrote It by Frank Hatherley, were staged in 1973.[27]Jack the Ripper: The Musical (1974), with lyrics and music byRon Pember, who co-authored the book with Dennis de Marne,[28] influencedStephen Sondheim'sSweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.[29] In 1996, a rock opera entitledYours Truly: Jack the Ripper with lyrics by Frogg Moody and Dave Taylor was performed and, in a break from recent practice, portrayed the Ripper as an ordinary everyday man.[30]
Marie Belloc Lowndes' bookThe Lodger has been made into five films:Alfred Hitchcock'sThe Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927),The Lodger (1932),The Lodger (1944),Man in the Attic (1953) andThe Lodger (2009). Hitchcock decided to cast romantic leadIvor Novello as the title character in his version ofThe Lodger, with the consequence that the film company,Gainsborough Pictures, insisted on a re-write to make Novello's character more sympathetic.[31] In a change from the original story, whether the lodger is the killer is no longer left ambivalent at the end. Instead, the lodger's strange behaviour arises because he is a vigilante, trying to catch the real killer.[32] Novello remade the film in 1932 with a more dramatic ending, in which he throttles the killer, who is his demented brother, the "Bosnian Murderer".[33] Novello played both roles, andMaurice Elvey directed. It was released in an abridged version asThe Phantom Fiend in 1935.[34] The 1944 version dispensed with the ambivalence of the novel and instead casts the lodger, "Slade" played byLaird Cregar, as the villain "Jack the Ripper".[34] Unlike the earlier versions, the film is set in 1888, rather than in the year of the film's making.[35] The 1953 version,Man in the Attic withJack Palance as "Slade", covers much the same ground.[36] The 2009 film castsSimon Baker as "Malcolm Slaight".
_dans_La_fille_de_Jack_l%2527%25C3%25A9ventreur_-1971.jpg)
Room to Let (1950) is similar toThe Lodger story but was based on a 1948 radio play byMargery Allingham. It was one of the first horror pictures made byHammer Film Productions.[38]Valentine Dyall plays the lodger, "Dr. Fell", who has escaped from a lunatic asylum where he has been incarcerated for 16 years since committing theWhitechapel murders.[39] Hammer released two Ripper-inspired films in 1971. InHands of the Ripper, the Ripper's daughter (played byAngharad Rees) grows up to become a murderess after she sees her father kill her mother.[40] InDr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Dr. Henry Jekyll transforms into the evil predatory woman Sister Hyde and is also responsible for the Ripper murders.[41] InTerror in the Wax Museum (1973), a murderer disguises himself as a waxwork of the Ripper.[42]
The Veil episode "Jack the Ripper" (1958) is a made-for-television film introduced byBoris Karloff, in which a clairvoyant identifies the Ripper as a respectable surgeon whose death has been faked to cover his incarceration in a lunatic asylum.[43] The story's basis was an 1895 newspaper report thatRobert James Lees had used psychic powers to track the Ripper to the home of a London physician.[44]
Jack the Ripper (1959), produced byMonty Berman andRobert S. Baker and written byJimmy Sangster, is loosely based onLeonard Matters' theory that the Ripper was an avenging doctor.[45] It borrowed icons from previously successful horror films, such asDracula (1958) andThe Curse of Frankenstein (1957), by giving the Ripper a costume of a top hat and cape.[46] The plot is a standard "whodunit" with the usual false leads and a denouement in which the least likely character, in this case "Sir David Rogers" played byEwen Solon, is revealed as the culprit.[47] As in Matters' book,The Mystery of Jack the Ripper, Solon's character murders prostitutes to avenge the death of his son. However, Matters used the ploy of the son dying from venereal disease, while the film has him committing suicide on learning his lover is a prostitute.[48] In a reversal of this formula, the German filmDas Ungeheuer von London City (1964), released asThe Monster of London City in 1967, casts the son as the villain with the father as the victim of syphilis.[49]
Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora) is a 1929 German silent film directed byGeorg Wilhelm Pabst based onFrank Wedekind's play about a woman, Lulu, played byLouise Brooks. Her uninhibited lifestyle leads her to walk the streets of London until she meets her end in an encounter with Jack the Ripper, played byGustav Diessl.[50] An earlier German film,Paul Leni'sWaxworks (Das Wachsfigurenkabinett) from 1924, used a Ripper-style event in one of three dreamed vignettes.[51] The "Jack" character was played byWerner Krauss, who had achieved enormous success with his portrayal of the evil title character in the influential early horror filmThe Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.[52]
A Study in Terror (1965) andMurder by Decree (1979) both pitSherlock Holmes against the Ripper.A Study in Terror, and its companion novel written byEllery Queen,[53] feature the often insane family of the Duke of Shires, with a motive provided by one of his son's becoming enamoured of a prostitute.[54]Murder by Decree, starringChristopher Plummer as Sherlock Holmes andJames Mason as Watson, follows themasonic/royal conspiracy plotline popularised byStephen Knight, in which a royal physician is the murderer. Coincidentally, in both movies, character actorFrank Finlay playsInspector Lestrade.[55] In the 1997 filmThe Ripper,Samuel West starred asPrince Eddy, who was revealed as the Ripper, and the 1999 filmLove Lies Bleeding featuredPaul Rhys,Emily Raymond andFaye Dunaway. In 2001, theHughes Brothers made the comic bookFrom Hell into afilm of the same name starringJohnny Depp as Abberline. The film again sticks to the Knight storyline, though Depp's character exhibits aspects of both Sherlock Holmes (deductive powers, drug addiction) andRobert Lees (psychic ability, foresight).
Peter Barnes' stage playThe Ruling Class (1968) andits film adaptation (1972) are satires on the British aristocracy that link the Ripper to the British upper class.[56] Jack Gurney, the mentally ill 14th Earl of Gurney (played in the film version byPeter O'Toole), spends part of the plot believing himself to be Jack the Ripper, and performs a pair of Ripper murders.[56] The black comedyDeadly Advice (1994) featuresJane Horrocks as a serial killer who imagines that she is given advice by the incarnations of famous murderers.John Mills plays Jack the Ripper as an outwardly mild-mannered hairdresser. "Just be the sort of person nobody suspects," he tells her.[57] In an earlier black comedy,Dr. Strangelove, the antagonist is named General Jack D. Ripper, but the comparison goes no deeper.[58]Amazon Women on the Moon is a 1987 comedy film that parodies theories of the Ripper's identity by speculating that Jack the Ripper was theLoch Ness Monster in disguise.[59]Marcel Carné'sDrôle de Drame (1937) is another parody of the Ripper, featuringJean-Louis Barrault as anEast End vegetarian who slaughters butchers in revenge for their slaughter of animals.[22] InShanghai Knights (2003), Jack the Ripper attempts to murder the sister ofJackie Chan's character, only to fall over the bridge as he misses his swing.
Night After Night After Night (1969) was a low-budget production that cast a high court judge (played byJack May) as a dementedcopycat Ripper who attacks prostitutes in London'sSoho.[60] Throughout the 1970s and 1980s tenuous links with the Ripper case were introduced into films for commercial reasons; sexploitation horror moviesBlade of the Ripper (1970),The Ripper of Notre Dame (1981) andThe New York Ripper (1982) have little relation to the Ripper beyond the title.[61]The Ripper of Notre Dame was directed and co-written byJesús Franco, whoseJack the Ripper (1976) starsKlaus Kinski as a murderous doctor whose mother was a prostitute.[62]What the Swedish Butler Saw (1975), in which Jack the Ripper hides in a photographic studio, is little more than softcore pornography.[63] ThrillersJack the Mangler of London (1973),Fear City (1984),Night Ripper (1986) andJack's Back (1988) received poor reviews,[64] as did the Japanesepink filmAssault! Jack the Ripper.[65]Edge of Sanity (1989) is lent "post-Psycho gravitas" by the casting ofAnthony Perkins as "Dr Jekyll" and his alter-ego "Jack Hyde", but was still condemned by critics "as a tasteless exercise".[66] TheDolph LundgrenvehicleJill the Ripper (2000) reverses the traditional genders of victims and villains, with a female Ripper and male victims.[67]
InTime After Time (1979), based onthe novel of the same title, Jack escapes in atime machine to modern-day San Francisco and is pursued byH. G. Wells. The pursuer was originally slated to beRobert Louis Stevenson in a link to the author ofStrange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but he was written out in favour of Wells.[68] InBridge Across Time (1985), starringDavid Hasselhoff, Jack's spirit is transported to Arizona in a cursed stone fromLondon Bridge.[69] InThe Ripper (1985), his spirit is instead concealed in a cursed ring.[69]Ripper Man (1994) depicts a killer who believes himself to be the reincarnation ofGeorge Chapman, who was suspected of being Jack the Ripper after his arrest and execution for murder in 1903.[70]
The 2002 anime filmDetective Conan: The Phantom of Baker Street has a premise set around a virtual reality video game with life or death stakes where the identity of Jack the Ripper must be uncovered in order to beat the stage of the game. It's revealed that a wealthy tech developer who was involved with the game is actually a direct descendant of Jack the Ripper and committed a murder to cover up the truth about his bloodline, though ultimately he is caught and arrested and Conan and another boy beat Jack the Ripper and survive a train crash in the setting of Charing Cross Station.
Released in the same year asFrom Hell, and consequently overshadowed by it,[71] wereRipper andBad Karma (re-titled asHell's Gate).Ripper centres on psychology student Molly Keller (played byA. J. Cook) who studies serial killers. Her classmates start dying at the hands of a Jack the Ripper copycat, who targets victims with the same initials as the originals.[72]Bad Karma is another play on the reincarnation theme with the addition ofPatsy Kensit as the Ripper's female accomplice.[73]
By the 1960s, the Ripper was established in American television as a "universal force of evil", who could be adapted to suit any villainous niche.[56] In an episode ofThe Twilight Zone from 1963 entitled "The New Exhibit",Martin Balsam plays the curator of a wax museum who becomes so obsessed by five wax figures of murderers, including Jack the Ripper, that he commits murder to protect them.[74] In theStar Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold" (1967), writerRobert Bloch reused parts of his short-story "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper", which had already appeared as a 1961 television episode ofThriller.[14][56] In the episode, the Ripper turned out to be a long-lived non-corporeal being that had committed mass murders on many worlds over centuries to generate fear, the emotion on which it fed. The entity is beamed out into space in a wide dispersal pattern, effectively disintegrating it. In theCimarron Strip episode "Knife in the Wilderness" (1968), written byHarlan Ellison,[14] Jack continues his work across America ending in Cimarron City where he meets his end at the hands of Indians.[75] In theGet Smart episode "House of Max" (1970), Jack the Ripper is an animated wax dummy.[76]
InThe Sixth Sense episode "With Affection, Jack the Ripper" (1972) a man is driven mad during aparanormal experiment when he inhabits the body of Jack the Ripper.[77] AFantasy Island episode, also titled "With Affection, Jack the Ripper" (1980), was written by the same writer as the episode ofThe Sixth Sense, Don Ingalls.Lynda Day George plays criminologist Lorraine Peters who uses a time portal to confirm her suspicion that Jack the Ripper was a doctor, Albert Fell, played byVictor Buono. Fell follows her back through the portal, grabs Peters and takes her back to 1888, where the enigmatic Mr. Roarke intervenes fortuitously, and Fell dies moments later while fleeing.[78] The name Fell is clearly lifted from Margery Allingham's 1948 radio playRoom to Let.[78] The television miniseriesJack the Ripper (1988) starredMichael Caine as InspectorFrederick Abberline.Ripper Street is a 2012 British television dramatic series set just subsequent to the murders, with the first episode seeing series protagonistEdmund Reid resolving to move on from obsession over the victims after a new case; at the end of the first season, protagonist Homer Jackson is temporarily framed as the Ripper, but is able to clear his name.
A time portal is used in "A Rip in Time" (1997), the first episode of the short-lived television seriesTimecop, in which a time travelling cop travels back to 1888 to catch a criminal who has killed, and displaced, Jack the Ripper.[79] An episode ofGoodnight Sweetheart also relies on a time portal to meet Jack the Ripper. In the episode "The 'Ouses in Between", Gary Sparrow gets lost in the fog in 1945 and travels down Ducketts Passage the wrong way and ends up in 1888, where he meets a performer who looks like his partner Yvonne and witnesses the aftermath of a Whitechapel murder shortly afterwards. Gary later discovers that Jack the Ripper has been using the time portal to hideout at the back of his shop, and after threatening Gary and proclaiming to make a new start in 1999, the Ripper escapes out of the front door and into the street, only to be immediately hit and killed by a bus. This leaves Gary to surmise that that was why the murders stopped so suddenly.[80][81][82]
TheBabylon 5 episode "Comes the Inquisitor" (1995) features a character named Sebastian who reveals himself at the end of the episode to be Jack the Ripper. He was abducted by the alien race known as theVorlons in the year 1888 and made into their inquisitor so that he can test (through torture) beings who are called to lead an important cause.[83] In the TV seriesGrimm, the final three episodes of thefourth season reveal that Jack the Ripper was a spirit that initially manifested over a century before the Whitechapel murders; the Jack spirit possesses series protagonist Sean Renard after a near-death experience, but the others are able to 'exorcise' Jack by shooting Renard with rubber bullets to trick Jack into thinking that Renard was being murdered. The idea of the Ripper as a supernatural entity is used again in thethird season of the television seriesSleepy Hollow, with the 'killer' in this case being a knife that drives its wielder to act on their darker impulses as it absorbs the blood of its victims; it is defeated when it is tricked into stabbing someone withmalaria, the infection tainting the blood and thus weakening the blade.
Jack the Ripper (1973) byElwyn Jones andJohn Lloyd linked with the police dramaZ-Cars. The program featuredZ Cars detectives Barlow and Watt, played byStratford Johns andFrank Windsor respectively, investigating the murders from an historical perspective.[84] In the first episode ofKolchak: The Night Stalker (1974), titled "The Ripper", reporter Carl Kolchak pursues a supernatural killer whose victims match the patterns of the original Ripper murders. The killer has superhuman strength and is invulnerable to weapons, but Kolchak dematerialises the apparently immortal being by electrocuting him.[85] An episode ofThe Outer Limits titled "Ripper" (1997) was set in 1888 and starredCary Elwes as Dr. Jack York, who kills women whom he believes are possessed by an alien entity.[86] In an episode ofSir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, "The Knife" (2001), the explorers meet the two men blamed for the murders in Stephen Knight's royal conspiracy theory:Sir William Gull andRobert Anderson.[87]Spike Milligan parodied the Ripper-genre in the "sublimely daft"The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town.[88] In an episode ofFriday the 13th: the Series entitled "Dr. Jack" Mickey, Ryan and Jack retrieve an antique surgeon's knife that was reputedly used by Jack the Ripper.
TheDC's Legends of Tomorrow episode titled "The Great British Fake Off" Jack the Ripper was seemingly brought back to life alongside fellow criminalsBonnie and Clyde.
InForever the episode titled "The Frustrating Thing About Psychopaths" Henry an immortal Doctor is involved with the investigation of the original Jack the Ripper case.
Jack the Ripper is referenced in theHazbin Hotel episode "Storyteller", where he appears in Sir Pentious's backstory as a client of Pentious in his human life. One night, Pentious caught Jack murdering a woman from his window but couldn't bring himself to report Jack to the authorities, and he carried that guilt with him for the rest of his life.
Walter Sickert was an English artist inspired by the seediness of theEast End of London. His works include "Jack the Ripper's Bedroom".[89]
From Hell is agraphic novel about the Ripper case byAlan Moore andEddie Campbell, which took its name from the"From Hell" letter supposedly written by the Ripper. It is based onStephen Knight's conspiracy theory, which accused royalty and freemasons of complicity in the crimes and was popularised by his bookJack the Ripper: The Final Solution.[90] In the Appendix to the graphic novel, Moore clearly states that he lends no credibility to the Knight theory and only used it for dramatic purposes. Royalty and the Ripper also featured inBlood of the Innocent by Rickey Shanklin,Marc Hempel andMark Wheatley in 1986, and a story ("Royal Blood") inDC Comics'Hellblazer series in 1992.[91]
Issue #100 of Marvel ComicsMaster of Kung Fu (1981) featured a story titled "Red of Fang and Claw, All Love Lost". In it, the Ripper was an experiment ofFu Manchu's, who escaped and hid in London. The hero fought him at the end of the story. DC Comics'Gotham by Gaslight (1989), features aVictorian era version of thesuperheroBatman hunting the Ripper. The two fictional worlds, both dark and gothic, complement one another and sit easily together.[92] Jack the Ripper featured inGrant Morrison'sDoom Patrol in 1989,Wonder Woman: Amazonia andPredator: Nemesis in 1997, and in aJudge Dredd story: "Night of the Ripper!".[91] A story in theJustice League of America series fused withH. G. Wells'The Island of Dr. Moreau and features Jack the Ripper as anorangutan,[91] while the immortal super-villainVandal Savage has claimed to be responsible for the Ripper murders. The comicWhitechapel Freak (2001) byDavid Hitchcock uses Jack the Ripper as an underlying background figure in a story that focuses on a travelling freak show. The Ripper is a legless man "strapped onto the shoulders of a midget".[93]Rick Geary's Jack the Ripper story in a 1995 volume of hisA Treasury of Victorian Murder is a straighter retelling.[91]
In theItalian comic bookMartin Mystère, avampireRichard Van Helsing discovers that the Ripper is an ancient mythical force, divided into several knives, which force their holders to kill. Van Helsing searches for and destroys the knives, including one which is destroyed bySherlock Holmes.[94]
In the 2006 mangaBlack Butler by the Japanesemanga artistYana Toboso, Jack the Ripper is portrayed as a mysterious person who had been responsible for the multiple yet common deaths of prostitutes in Victorian London. A few chapters later, it is revealed that Jack the Ripper is actually two people working together: a masqueradingshinigami and a doctor of noble lineage.[95]InPhantom Blood, the first part of the 1987mangaJoJo's Bizarre Adventure byHirohiko Araki, the Ripper appears briefly as a minor villain after main antagonistDio Brando turns him into a zombie and orders him to attack the protagonist.[96] In the graphic novel ofFate/Apocrypha by Yūichirō Higashide, Jack the Ripper is summoned as an Assassin class Servant of the Black Faction.He also is portrayed inRecord of Ragnarok by Shinya Umemura and Takumi Fukui, where he is chosen as a fighter in the Ragnarok Tournament, where he represents humanity and fights againstHeracles.InBlack Clover, Jack the Ripper is portrayed as a minor protagonist and the captain of the Magic Knight Squad known as the Green Praying Mantises. He uses a form of magic known as Severing Magic in combat, with blades protruding from his arms. He tends to argue with rival Magic Knight CaptainYami Sukehiro.
Link Wray's 1959 instrumental "Jack the Ripper" begins with an evil laugh and a woman's scream. These devices were also used in "Jack the Ripper" (1963), originally recorded byScreaming Lord Sutch and covered byThe White Stripes,The Horrors,Black Lips,The Sharks andJack & The Rippers.[97] The mockumentaryThis Is Spinal Tap (1984) features a vignette in which the band discusses the possibility of composing a rock opera about Jack the Ripper's life, calledSaucy Jack in reference to theSaucy Jacky postcard supposedly sent by the Ripper.[30]
Metal bands are particularly keen to associate themselves with the "bloodshed and sleaze" image of the Ripper.[98] Songs entitled "The Ripper" were recorded byJudas Priest in 1976, andPraying Mantis in 1979.[98] Americandeathcore bandWhitechapel derived its name from the inner-city districtWhitechapel in London, the location of the Jack the Ripper murders. Accordingly, the band's debut albumThe Somatic Defilement is afirst-person narrativeconcept album based on Jack the Ripper. The Texan metal group Ripper went for a more direct choice of name, and vocalists with the groups Meridian and Sodomizer adopted the names Jack D. Ripper and Ripper, respectively.[98] Gothic metalcore sextetMotionless in White released a song entitled "London in Terror" as a single from their debut albumCreatures.[99] Extreme metal bandMacabre's albumMurder Metal features a track called "Jack the Ripper"; the lyrics are simply the contents of theDear Boss letter.[100]
Songs inspired by the Ripper were recorded by artists as varied asMorrissey,Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds,The Legendary Pink Dots,Thee Headcoats,The Buff Medways andBob Dylan.[29]Radio Werewolf's albumThe Fiery Summons features "From Hell" which uses words fromthe letters attributed to the Ripper.[101]
Thepower metal bandFalconer wrote a song entitled "Jack the Knife" for their albumGrime vs. Grandeur. This song is heavily inspired by the story of Jack the Ripper and makes many references to the mythical traits associated with him.[102] TheBrazilian thrash metal bandTorture Squad also recorded a song based on Jack the Ripper's legend. The song is titled "Leather Apron" and was included on the band's 2003 albumPandemonium. The song "Blood Red Sandman" Finish metal bandLordi's second albumThe Monsterican Dream is inspired by the story of Jack the Ripper and opens with the lyrics "They called me the Leather Apron/ They called me Smiling Jack."
In 2014, the online musical seriesEpic Rap Battles of History produced a video where Jack the Ripper raps againstHannibal Lecter.
"Respite on the Spitalfields," the closing track from Swedish metal bandGhost's 2022 albumImpera, is about Jack the Ripper.[103][104]
In 2011 anindependent minor league baseball team inLondon, Ontario announced that it would be known as theLondon Rippers, with a logo featuring "Jack Diamond", their mascot, wearing a top hat and black cape reminiscent of the appearance of Jack the Ripper in the popular imagination. The choice drew criticism from the mayor and a local women's shelter.[110][111]
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