The Limehouse Golem (2016)

Directed by: Juan Carlos Medina | 109 minutes | thriller, horror | Actors: Douglas Booth, Olivia Cooke, Sam Reid, María Valverde, Daniel Mays, Bill Nighy, Peter Sullivan, Michael Jenn, Daniel Cerqueira, Patrick Durham, Louisa-May Paerker, Adam Brown, Nicholas Woodeson, Paul Ritter, Mark Tandy, David bamber

London, 1880. The city is under the spell of a serial killer called ‘The Limehouse Golem’. Scotland Yard’s debut Homicide Inspector John Kildare (Bill Nighy in the role originally assigned to Alan Rickman…), the thankless task of exonerating both variety artist Elizabeth Cree (Olivia Cooke) of the (poison) murder of her man John as well as the serial-killing golem by the scruff of his neck.

In his quest for the golem, Kildare gets help from police officer George Flood (Daniel Mays from ‘The Line of Duty’). The one-twos between them are reminiscent of the amusing two-game we know from Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Watson. Kildare comes across a diary that is found in the reading room of the London library. The plot revolves around four suspects. All four visited the reading room on the day of the last murder: John Cree (Sam Reid), Dan Leno (Douglas Booth from ‘The Riot Club’), Karl Marx (Henry Goodman) and George Gissing (Morgan Watkins).

So it is ‘just’ a matter of ticking off the handwriting of the suspects. Easy enough, you would think. Fortunately, director Juan Carlos Medina regularly manages to mislead us. We see a variety of colorful supporting roles, partly due to the environment in which this horror drama takes place, Victorian London with its theatres, brothels and dark crawl-by-sneak-through streets.

‘The Limehouse Golem’ evokes the same atmosphere as the films portraying that other famous serial killer, Jack the Ripper. The bloody murders, some from bad to worse, are shown undisguised. The sultry atmosphere and the good acting performances increase the viewing pleasure. Bill Nighy takes revenge for his flat performance in ‘Their Finest’ and Cooke, Booth and Mays also know how to handle the script rules assigned to them.

A thorough ‘ten little negro story’ with a dark, mysterious decor and a light undertone. An excellent exam piece from Medina. A new Guillermo del Toro in the making? Perhaps, ‘The Limehouse Golem’ is in any case a very enjoyable film.