The Limehouse Golem is based on the novel “Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem” by Peter Akroyd. The movie is directed by Juan Carlos Medina and scripted by Jane Goldman. Bill Nighy stars as inspector “John Kildare”, who is tasked with solving the case of the serial killer known as “The Limehouse Golem”. His investigation leads him to a handful of suspects, including Dan Leno, a famous music hall performer, and the recently deceased John Cree. His wife, Lizzie Kree (Olivia Cooke), a former performer, is on trial for his murder. As Kildare uncovers clues, he becomes increasingly obsessed with proving Lizzie’s innocence.
Period Drama
This plays out like a murder mystery and not a horror film. As such doesn’t really offer a sense of terror and foreboding. Most of the murders are re-imagined re-enactment’s of past killings with the various suspects filling in for the killer while a narrator (Usually the suspect) reads journal entries. The mystery itself is rather silly. Given most of the suspects are real life historical characters and this is a fictional murder there wasn’t really any possibility of those characters being the Golem. Clearly these people are only suspects so that they can be in the story. This is Especially true of Karl Marx, who is dismissed as a suspect so quickly his inclusion served no purpose except to excite Marxist viewers. The final swerve to a non-suspect is all too predictable. The whole investigation is dry and lacking in any real suspense.
This in theory could be countered by the character drama but the truth is very few of the characters are actually that interesting. Really just Dan Leno who is portrayed rather well by Douglas Booth. The rest of the cast though do little to raise their characters. Bill Nighy is a decent actor but he’s not the British top tier (Michael Caine/Anthony Hopkins level), he’s not an actor that can raise an average script to greatness. He does fine, but given this is basically a whodunnit, the lead detective needs to be more than just “Fine”. The other actors land around the average mark. All that leaves is the period drama aspect and in this regard it does pretty well, but I need a bit more than this to like a movie.
The Final Curtain
The whole experience feels somewhat shallow. Many decisions in the set up just get in the way of the telling of the story. The story utilizes famous historical characters to try and give the story more gravitas than the plot itself generates. Yet this decision makes the investigation largely pointless. Even the decision to make Kildare gay works against the movie. He spends most of the film desperately trying to protect and being manipulated by a woman. The relationship didn’t really need a sexual attraction. However it would have made a lot of sense and added to the characters journey. Instead his sexuality is thrown around in dialogue but ultimately impacts nothing. The final moments of the story where Kildare must decide Lizzie’s fate would have conveyed very different emotions with that simple change. Instead it is a moment of a man realising his own incompetence. But that’s okay, he gets a promotion anyway.
The icing on the cake is that we are told this is the big killer that came before Jack the Ripper and this too never factors into the story. That is nothing but a marketing line to convince the viewer the killer and by extension the movie is terrifying. It needs this trick because neither is actually true. But the actual result is that the story always falls into the shadow of the Ripper and is found wanting. This is a simple and predictable whodunnit masquerading as a horror story. It is more focused on its themes than characters or plot and is by and large a waste of time unless you are really into period dramas. For a better Victorian horror, dig up “From Hell” (2001) and watch that again instead. 4/10
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