Jack's Back

In Los Angeles, a young doctor named John Wesford becomes a suspect when a series of Jack the Ripper copycat killings is committed. John and another young doctor, Jack Pendler, are at the scene of the latest crime in the series; they know each other because they both work for the same medical unit, reporting to the abusive Dr. Sidney Tannerson. Pendler seems to realize that John's testimony will likely lead to his being arrested as the killer and murders him, staging the scene to resemble a suicide. The police quickly name John as the copycat killer and hypothesize that he killed himself out of guilt.

To the surprise of everybody involved, John's identical twin brother, Rick, appears and claims to know John did not kill himself because he has seen visions of the true killer and Pendler killing John. The police humor Rick, but only because his existence calls into question the eyewitness testimony that had put the identical looking John at the scene of the crime, and Rick's suspicious knowledge of the crime scene makes him an attractive suspect himself. Under scrutiny by the police, Rick allies himself with another of John's colleagues, Dr. Chris Moscari, and carries out his own investigation. He successfully identifies, tracks down and confronts Pendler, who attacks him and is arrested. Pendler is in some regards an excellent suspect — physical evidence puts him at the scene of the final murder. But in other regards he is a terrible one, not matching known characteristics or habits of the killer.

Rick continues to dream about John's murder and asks police psychologist Dr. Carlos Battera to hypnotize him to clarify these visions. In the refined vision, he again sees Pendler attack John, but also notices that Pendler's shoes do not match those worn by the copycat killer and that Tannerson had been at the scene. He intuits that Tannerson will next attack Chris and speeds to her house, attracting a string of police cars with his reckless driving. Chris survives and Rick avenges John's death by killing Tannerson, who seemingly had manipulated Pendler into killing John.

Originally, director Rowdy Herrington wanted to call the film Red Rain and have the song of the same name by Peter Gabriel playing as the opening credits theme. However the budget didn't allow for licensing the song, so instead Paul Saax was brought on board to co-write a new theme, "Red Harvest". The film's title was changed to Jack's Back as a result.^[2]

Jack's Back premiered in New York City on May 6, 1988, and was released in Los Angeles and other Southern California locations on May 13, 1988. The film opened in Chicago on June 3, 1988.^[1]

UK-based distributor Slam Dunk Media released the film on DVD in May 2007 in a 1.33:1 full frame format. It is the only DVD release to date in that area. It was available on Netflix video streaming service in SD widescreen format.^[3] Scream Factory released the film in fall 2015 for the first time on Blu-ray in the US, and also included a DVD in the package, knowing that the film had never made it to the format in North America.^[4]