FROM HELL

There are more than sixty speaking parts in FROM HELL, and several scenes required some two hundred and fifty extras dressed in period Victorian England costumes or disheveled street rags. Costume designer Kym Barrett ("The Matrix," "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet") and her staff created more than four hundred outfits for the film.
Filmmakers include director of photography Peter Deming, ASC ("Scream 2," "Scream 3," "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery") , who caught the Hughes brothers' attention with his moody photography on "Lost Highway," and special make-up effects house Millennium Effects, whose credits include "Saving Private Ryan" and "Gladiator." Acclaimed industry veteran George Gibbs ("Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade") is special effects supervisor. The editors are Dan Lebental ("Dead Presidents") and George Bowers, A.C.E. ("How Stella Got Her Groove Back") and the composer is Trevor Jones ("Notting Hill").
While FROM HELL may appear to be a departure for the Hughes brothers, known for contemporary inner-city dramas, their affinity for the Ripper story stems from the climate of 1888 London. The city's vast disparity of wealth produced masses of poor and indigent, many of whom congregated in an area known as Whitechapel. The dirty, seamy slum was a haven for drug use, prostitution, alcoholism and random street crime.
Says Albert Hughes, "This is a ghetto story. It concerns poverty, violence and corruption, which are themes we deal with in our movies because they fascinate us. These particular characters happen to be white, but all poor people have the same problems.
"What also intrigued us was the psychology of Jack the Ripper - his behavior and the hysteria he incited."
Allen Hughes states, "Previous accounts of this story have been antiseptic, told from the eyes of the prim upper class. We're revealing it from the perspective of the people who lived in squalor, in the neighborhood where this terror was inflicted." more film >>>

FROM HELL