Starring: Anthony Perkins, Glynis Barber, Sarah Maur-Thorp
Directed by Gérard Kikoïne
Format: DVD
Tagline: “Double The Terror. Double The Fun.”
“Anthony Perkins, famous for his compelling performances in Psycho and Crimes Of Passion, creates a new face for the tormented Henry Jekyll, the respected physician whose dangerous experiments with cocaine unleash his alter ego, the uncontrollable Jack Hyde.
Under the drug’s powerful influence, Hyde has perverted nightmares of sex and violence that consume his soul. Drawn to London’s prostitute district, Hyde’s rage explodes in a killing spree. Could the Real Jack the Ripper have been someone like fictional Mr. Hyde? Explore the terrifying possibilities that lie on the EDGE OF SANITY.“
Somehow I owned two copies of this movie at once. One copy on VHS (which ultimately has better cover art that Scream Factory used for their release), and one copy on DVD that was part of a four-movie pack I bought specifically for 1946’s The Spiral Staircase. I ditched the VHS and kept the DVD. The Jekyll/Hyde story has never been of much interest to me, except for when I heard that David Hasselhoff was in a musical theater version. But even that was just a flash of excitement. I do love me some Anthony Perkins, though, so let’s fire it up.
Thoughts:
- Sex in a barn at the turn of the century must have been as popular as sex in a car is now. Like, popular enough but not the ideal place, right?
- Whoa, crazy little dream sequence kicking things off.
- Oh I definitely thought this was going to be a modern retelling of the story. Damn.
- OKAY BUT THEY’RE STILL GONNA BE GRAPHIC ABOUT SOME SHIT.
- Cue Buckcherry’s “Lit Up” through the whole rest of this movie.
- “Darling come and see this [I’m feeding cocaine to the monkey we have in the house]!”
- Cocaine Monkey is my band name.
- Uh oh, monkey spilled some sort of chemical on the cocaine and I think he’s now basically making crack? Is this all a reflection of the crack epidemic in the United States?
- Crazy how monkey-produced crack will make you look like you’ve already been on a week-long bender.
- Johnny is supposed to bring in customers for Flora’s brothel and he chooses meth face Mr. Hyde? Not the clientele you want if you were to judge a book by its cover.
- Also, straight-up, not even 20 minutes in and we are just FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS.
- Visually, this feels very Western European. Ken Russell and Peter Greenaway combined.
- Anthony Perkins massaging a woman’s butt and exclaiming “look at that!” is freakin’ bizarre.
- I love how, even on crack, Jekyll/Hyde can cleanly slice a woman up.
- Ah, looks like Kikoïne was quite the porn director at one point. No wonder this feels so free and unreserved.
- And this was his second to last film, and it looks like he straight up fell off the face of the Earth except for some festival appearances and a book last year. I’m so intrigued by what this director is all about.
- Perkins is so underrated.
- Homegirl, he paid in advance, just get outta there! Don’t go chasing crackheads.
- Okay, I’m uncomfortable.
- Okay, I’m uncomfortable.
- Okayyyyy, I’m uncomfortableeeeeee.
- Hyde looking for love in all the wrong places.
- Crack is whack.
- How come no one at Madam Flora’s is skeptical of Hyde? Oh, because brothels are terrible places and their clientele are often terrible people.
- WHOA allusion to daddy issues. Allusion? Nah, more like weirdly blatant disclosure.
- Anthony Perkins facilitating this rapey, crack-fueled threesome in a brothel is insane.
- Jekyll, now you’re letting the drugs affect your work and your marriage. Someone needs a sponsor.
- Nothing I hate more than constant lightning. Storms don’t work like that.
- WOW, this climactic descent into total madness is beautiful and bizarre.
- Now we know what repressed sexual shame, trauma and drug abuse can do to a person.
- Poor Mrs. Jekyll, though. Drug and sex addicted multiple personality husband.
- I really thought Cocaine Monkey was gonna save the day.
The Verdict:
What an unpleasant and unrelenting film. A retelling of Jekyll/Hyde and accounts of Jack the Ripper have room to be expound upon and told in a brutal fashion. But this was just bizarre. The performances were fantastic; Anthony Perkins is probably at his creepiest and Sarah Maur-Thorp was brilliant. It was visually very interesting and even beautiful at points, but the tone of the thing was just icky, honestly. It will forever in my collection, though, because the flipside of the DVD I own is The Spiral Staircase.
The Leftovers 