If Jack’s Back were a cocktail, it would be one part murder mystery, one part psychological thriller, and one part soap opera stirred gently with a VHS tape. Released in 1988 and directed by Rowdy Herrington (yes, the guy who would soon gift the world Road House), this Ripper-inspired flick is equal parts intriguing and idiotic—a film that flirts with greatness before tripping over its own red herring.
It’s not good. It’s not bad. It just… exists. Like a cryptic dream you half-remember and can’t tell if it scared you or just gave you gas.
The Premise: Jack the Ripper Gets a Sequel—In L.A., In 1988
Los Angeles. A hundred years after the last canonical Jack the Ripper killing, someone’s decided to throw an anniversary party—with corpses. Women are being murdered in brutal, eerily similar fashion. Enter James Spader, doing double duty as identical twins (because sure, why not?). One is a well-meaning, clean-cut medical intern. The other? A hotheaded loner with a chip on his shoulder and the kind of hair that only existed in ’80s thrillers and Bon Jovi videos.
The clean-cut one dies. The edgy one investigates. You get the drift. Or maybe you don’t, because this movie absolutely loves to muddle the plot with hypnosis, nightmares, psychic connections, and just enough pseudo-Freudian nonsense to make you nostalgic for your Intro to Psych professor.
James Spader x2: One Mustache, Two Emotions
This is early Spader, back when he still played humans and not lizard-like billionaires in tailored suits. He’s trying here, which is more than I can say for half the supporting cast. Playing twins is always tricky, but Spader pulls it off with enough moodiness and smoldering stares to keep things watchable. One of them wears a mustache, the other doesn’t—classic visual shorthand that screams, “Don’t worry, we think the audience is dumb too.”
He’s not bad, just shackled to a script that was probably written during a two-day NyQuil bender.
Cynthia Gibb: Brightest Light in a Dim Tunnel
Let’s talk about Cynthia Gibb, the real MVP of this mess. She plays a co-worker/love interest/inevitable damsel and walks the tightrope of believability like a pro. She’s got that girl-next-door look that somehow survived the ozone-choking hairspray and garish makeup of the era. She’s pretty damn cute here—grounding, likable, and not entirely wasted despite the film’s best efforts to sideline her into supporting-female-in-distress land.
You watch her and think, You deserve a better movie, Cynthia. Or at least one where no one gets hypnotized by a wall mirror.
The Mystery: Scooby-Doo in a Morgue
The film sets itself up as a dark and brooding whodunnit. The problem? You’ll figure out who “dunnit” before the second act finishes eating its TV dinner. The suspense is less Hitchcock and more Hardy Boys Go to a Morgue. There’s even a few “is it real or is it a dream?” moments that feel like someone spliced in a Lifetime movie after dropping acid.
By the time the twist lands, it’s less “oh wow!” and more “oh… that guy? Okay.”
Direction & Tone: A Case of Cinematic Identity Disorder
Jack’s Back doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. Is it a thriller? A supernatural noir? A horror flick with social commentary? It flirts with a dozen themes and tones but commits to none. One moment you’re knee-deep in post-slasher atmospherics, the next you’re watching a daytime soap with knife wounds. The lighting screams “moody noir,” but the music score sounds like it was borrowed from a high school production of Miami Vice: The Musical.
There are flashes of competence—creepy hospital corridors, off-kilter dream sequences, a car chase that doesn’t completely suck—but they’re buried under a ton of cinematic shrugging.
The Violence: Ripper Lite
Given the source inspiration (Jack the Ripper), you’d expect a gore-fest. Instead, what you get is murder off-screen, or hinted at with flashes of blood and overly enthusiastic synth cues. The violence feels more sanitized than you’d expect from a film trying to channel Victorian-era butchery. Either they ran out of budget, nerve, or fake blood packets.
It’s almost quaint, really. Like watching Unsolved Mysteries reenactments—if Robert Stack also played twins.
The Verdict: Not Bloody Awful, Just Mildly Anemic
Jack’s Back is what happens when you take a cool concept—Jack the Ripper copycat in L.A.—and forget to fully commit to any one direction. It’s not scary enough to be horror, not twisty enough to be a mystery, and not stylish enough to be noir. It’s cinematic beige.
But it is oddly watchable. Mostly because of Spader’s weird magnetism and Cynthia Gibb doing her best to make sense of the madness around her. It’s the kind of movie you’d leave on while folding laundry, pausing occasionally to say, “Wait, what just happened?” before shrugging and going back to your socks.
Final Score: 2.5 Psychic Visions Out of 5 Hypnotized Plot Holes
Watch it if you’re a fan of 1980s VHS mysteries, James Spader’s evolution, or want to spend 97 minutes wondering why this movie isn’t better than it is.
