I finished Alan Moore’s From Hell, a grim and sprawling tale set in the fog-choked streets of Whitechapel. A graphic novel but something more, it lays bare the sinews of the Victorian age, peeling back its skin to speculate on the identity and motives of Jack the Ripper. Afterward, I re-watched the Hughes Brothers’ film, the one with Johnny Depp. I’d seen it once, years ago, when the century was still young. It left little behind but the faint impression of Depp as some kind of junkie psychic. I lasted fifteen minutes. Turned it off.

It’s not a bad film, not exactly. But it’s a shadow of something greater. Watching it now, I remembered why it slipped so easily from my mind. The late, great Ian Holm was there, and Heather Graham, whose presence in pop culture has largely evaporated—failed to anchor it in recollection.

Do yourself a kindness. Pick up Moore’s work instead. From Hell in its truest form is not a thing you forget. It stays with you. The film? It tries, but it pails in comparison.

From Hell