The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire is a 2002 Sherlock Holmes film that is mediocre at best. Rodney Gibbons is the writer and director of this thing which originally aired on the Hallmark Channel of all places. Matt Frewer is cast as Sherlock Holmes alongside Kenneth Welsh as Dr. John Watson.’
Kathleen McAuliffe, Michel Perron, Joel Miller, Danny Blanco, and Norris Domingue are included in the cast.
It has been two years since the infamous Jack the Ripper terrorized Whitechapel district, and another round of strange murders have occurred in that same area. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are called in by an order of monks who believe that a vampire is stalking the streets. Holmes is adamant that there is nothing supernatural behind the killings in spite of appearances. Holmes is once again challenged to provide a rational explanation for something that seems to bizarre and otherworldly. He also has his agnosticism challenged as Watson begins to consider that a vampire is actually the culprit. Even if the vampire is real, he may still find Sherlock Holmes to be a very formidable foe.
There are some intriguing elements in this story. It has some potential, but it just seems a little trite and overdone. Some of these pastiche writers really focus a lot on Holmes facing something potentially supernatural when Arthur Conan Doyle just did not have that many stories like that.
Matt Frewer was a reasonable casting choice for the lead role, but he could have employed a little more subtlety in his performance. I did rather like Kenneth Welsh’s portrayal of Dr. Watson.
Not everything in this film was a failure. I just didn’t find Frewer’s portrayal of Holmes all that interesting. It just felt like it was by the numbers. Frewer physically looks quite a bit like how Doyle described Holmes in the original canon, so that did help.
There was also once again, as I have mentioned before in some of my previous critiques of Holmes pastiche stories, an element of the Scooby-Doo reveal toward the end.
I figure the reason that I had not seen this one before is because it was on the Hallmark Channel, which isn’t known for hard-hitting originality in their films.
It was not a terrible viewing experience, but it sure was not anything one should go out of their way for.
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