This is where Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her daughter Sarah (Kirsten Stewart) find themselves for most of the film. Actually the newly divorced Meg and her daughter have just bought this new house and the film covers the first night they spend in it. Bunpham (Forest Whitaker), Raoul (Dwight Yokam) and Junior (Jared Leto) are the intruders who break into the house. Robbery is their motive, so what ensues is a cat-and-mouse game rife with strange happenings and oozing suspense.

To begin with, Meg and Sarah do not have an easy relationship. Sarah is a precocious teenager and Meg has yet to get over her recent divorce. But they have to stick it out through circumstance. To make matters worse Sarah has a peculiar illness. So it is a story of two women versus three men.

David Koep’s screenplay is imaginative enough but at times predictable and director David Fincher, who was brilliant in Fight Club and Seven, has enough scope to display his yen for suspense. Except that the situation is somewhat contrived. But the action is more physical, not cerebral as in, say, Psycho. The story delves into the personalities of the intruders.

Like killers in the Wild West will the fall out? Will there be a change of heart? Are they as tough as they profess to be? And what about the estranged father/husband? Will he eventually turn up? It is a film rife with possibilities and he works on it step by step. It’s like peeling an onion, layer by layer. With Jodie Foster in the lead role it is not surprising that she is able to hold the film together and she is ably supported by the promising Kirsten Stewart. Forest Whitaker turns in a credible performance as one of the intruders, but Dwight Yoakam and Jared Leto are essentially academic.

Set in New York, the action has greater relevance in the light of September 11. It may not be a horror classic like Silence of the Lambs, but it surely is worth watching.

From Hell is yet another story about Jack the Ripper, but the Hughes Brothers, Allen and Albert, have given it a new twist. For one thing, they’ve tried to humanise the prostitutes. Then they project the Ripper as a clever person, maybe even a doctor. And of course there is the Freemason angle. So it is almost a new setting for Jack the Ripper.

But, the 19th century is graphically recreated with its narrow cobblestone alleys and murky atmosphere. The sets are excellent. Enter Inspector Fred Abberline (Johnny Depp), himself a psychic case, tormented by the death of his wife and child and one who relies on self-medication (which includes consuming opium) to get him through the day.

Abberline is aided in his troubled investigation by an imposing Sergeant Goodley (Robbie Coltrane) who relies on Abberline’s visions and intuitions even if they are suspect. So it is anything but smooth sailing as they encounter problems at every turn. Then the screenplay by Terry Hayes and Rafael Yglesias is too ambitious as it involves the royalty and a sinister plot. But it is Mary Kelly (Heather Graham), one of the prostitutes who plays an important role in solving the mystery. She tries to hold the film together. Sir William Gull (Ian Holm), physician to the royal family, also has a key part to play.

But From Hell meanders along for almost 130 minutes so that the initial thrust is diluted much before the halfway mark. After that the film limps along. The ending is unusual and a plus point, but it is scarcely able to salvage the film despite Johnny Depp’s compelling performance. Give it a miss.