Jill Rips

Jill Rips (also known as Jill the Ripper and Tied Up) is a 2000 American film directed by Anthony Hickox starring Dolph Lundgren, based on a 1987 novel by Scottish writer Frederic Lindsay.

Plot

In 1977 Boston, Matt Sorenson, a former police officer who moved across country, returns for the funeral of his high-powered younger brother, Michael. His body is found washed ashore, tied up in a manner suggesting bondage play, with a brutal series of cuts and stabs, some made after death. Intent on finding his brother’s killer, Sorenson initially believes a major construction magnate, ‘Big Jim’ Conway, whom Michael opposed on a subway project, is responsible. He also finds himself drawn to Michael’s widow, Irene, who was married to him for six months. After other men are found murdered in a similar fashion, and that they had been photographed with a masked sex worker, the investigation focuses on her, the media branding her “Jill the Ripper.” Matt reluctantly immerses himself in the underground bondage and discipline scene, and discovers what has linked his brother’s murder, Conway, and Irene together.

Cast

Release

Home media

After a TV premiere on HBO under the alternate title Tied Up in January 2000, the movie was released on DVD on July 4, 2000 by Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment as Jill the Ripper (while keeping its original title Jill Rips in other countries). In February 2024, Scream Factory released it as a limited run BluRay under its original Jill Rips title, as a website exclusive.

Reception

Novel reviews

The novel had been described by the Today programme as ‘harrowing, but [its] grim, poetic vision makes it the best novel of its kind for years’.

The Sunday Times said that ‘violent and vicious and brutal, Lindsay’s unsparing tale beds down with the imagination like a succubus’.

Daily Express called it ‘tautly and skillfully written-a genuine, can’t-put-it-down, turn-off-the-telly-read’.

References

External links

Jill Rips at IMDb

Jill Rips at Rotten Tomatoes