The Limehouse Golem (Juan Carlos Medina, 2016)

Peter Ackroyd's source novel, Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem, was as rich in historical flavour and detail as any of his other works, and there is an attempt to transfer some of this through to the long-awaited film adaptation, even if that means an overly familiar Victorian London of perpetual night and fog, populated by leering grotesques. The hunt for a psychopath in the Jack the Ripper mould by Bill Nighy's harangued police inspector cannot help but remind you, to somewhat unhelpful effect, of Johnny Depp tasked with the same job in From Hell, since the director has rather lazily fallen back on souping up the graphic details of each killing, and the saving, differentiating graces are limited to the knowing music hall numbers that punctuate the plot and the inevitable but nevertheless nifty twist ending. It suffers in comparison with other recent productions with a similar backdrop but more complexity, such as the BBC series Taboo, maybe just because we've reached breaking point with the scenario by now.

5/10