Thriller Research- Ideas

My group have been researching the thriller genre. I have become very intrigued in to the idea of basing the two minute film around a real experience.
There are many interesting stories that we could research more in to. However, many will be too hard to do, as we may not have sufficient resources and it will hard to try and get other people to act in the film as they may not be reliable or they may not be able to film.
I personally thought Jack the Ripper may be interesting as he is very historic and we could use or make interesting props, play on the idea of a villain and to keep him mysterious throughout the film and to create suspense and intense moments and we could also use Low Key lighting.
I really like using this idea but it seems more like a horror genre rather than a thriller.
I am going to research more real life experiences to try and to see if it is possible to have a Thriller film based on a historic experience.