Edge Of Sanity
Of all the so called “classic” movie monsters from The Golden Age Of Cinema (most of whom have had quality updated versions made during the current modern age), the one who seems to have been forgotten for Hollywood doing a ripe update was Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, the classic creation of author Robert Louis Stevenson who had three classic oldschool movies made starring John Barrymore (1920), Frederic March (1932, winning the Best Actor Oscar in the process) and Spencer Tracy (1941), with both Barrymore and March being considered pretty definitive for their time (Barrymore actually played the role on stage and acted out the “transformation” in front of the audience using nothing more but pure acting and no makeup). Modern versions have been pretty scattershot to say the least, including the goofily comedic Jekyll And Hyde…Together Again (which ended with a shot of Stevenson himself rolling over in his grave) and the big budget studio attempt in 1996 called Mary Reilly which starred John Malkovich as Jekyll / Hyde but which saw the story focus on his titular housekeeper as played by Julia Roberts and it goes without saying that very few people actually bothered to even see it with her face being on all the posters. But the one dark horse exception is perhaps this 1989 release that surprisingly remains little known to this day except to the most ardent horror buffs. It was certainly a lavish production with ornate costumes and sets (and plenty of gore FX), taking place in London but directed by a French porno director named Gerald Kikoine and filmed on location in Budapest, Hungary. The porno connection is the key ingredient here as people need to realize that Stevenson (believed to be high on cocaine when actually writing the novel in the 1880s) fully intended the Hyde character’s perspective to be that of a deranged sex maniac and murderer who saw almost nothing wrong with stalking, raping and brutally murdering any woman who saw fit to engage his primal lusts even when just walking by, a highly disturbing quality that obviously had to be tempered down greatly for the classic films of the 20s, 30s, and 40s, but here could be exploited to the highest degree with excessive levels of nudity, perversity, and sexual kink. But the real masterstroke of the screenplay was in taking Hyde’s hatred of women along with the brutal way that he killed them and connecting that to the REAL LIFE perverse sex killer that stalked the streets of London in the 1880s, none other than Jack The Ripper himself, a masterful, ballsy move that instantly made the movie stand out in many ways to this very day by making Hyde and the real life Ripper one and the same. Finally, the filmmakers succeeded in casting a genuine Horror Movie Legend in the dual role of Jekyll and Hyde: Psycho’s Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins, reportedly paid a salary of $666,000 and someone who also brought his own plethora of personal demons to the table, including a lifelong history of mental health issues stemmed by his domineering mother (which no doubt had contributed greatly to his performances as Bates), a reported battle with repressed homosexuality which he had waged for decades on end even going so far as to wind up getting married and having kids, and finally there was Perkins coming onto the set while suffering through the final stages of HIV / AIDS which he had contracted because of his little “addiction”, something that he had full knowledge of (although no one else at the time did) and seeming to use that fact as a reason to go all out in a completely depraved, over the top performance that shocked even many who had been fans of his awkward, tortured Bates. Perkins’ Jekyll is obviously a respected, upscale figure in Victorian society (including having a possible trophy wife who spends her time doing charity work for the church helping poor, underpriviledged women) but he really harbors a deep, seething hatred particularly against openly sexual women whom he somehow sees as being “out to get him” as shown in an opening traumatic childhood flashback where he as a boy watches a woman getting screwed before an accident permanently damages his knee (resulting in him walking with a cane) and she just winds up laughing her head off at his misfortune. As an adult, Jekyll almost automatically becomes cautious when beautiful, down and out girls flirt with him after seeing him wearing expensive clothing and ask him if he has a nice house. Jekyll’s scientific work when not working at the hospital is in creating a new anesthetic for surgeries, namely that being cocaine when one day an accident causes him to inhale a freebase (crack?) and his appearance changes drastically for the worst as he becomes Mr. Jack Hyde, sending him off wandering the streets of London (without his cane) feeling “liberated” as even his ghoulish visage doesn’t seem to deter any prostitute he encounters from feeling free to proposition him. And it is here that the film explores themes of drug addiction (Hyde brings his crackpipe with him everywhere he goes), mental deterioration to the point of negatively affecting his “normal” personality, and completely unbridled, unshackled sexual lust and depravity, with Hyde fulfilling his alter ego’s every sick fantasy, brutally murdering hookers after always subjecting them to some kind of twisted roleplaying and eventually becoming singularly obsessed with one gorgeous one in particular (Sarah Maur Thorp) who interestingly seems to have her own traumatic past and even indulges with him in smoking from his glass pipe in order to form some sort of an unholy bond with the maniac. Eventually Hyde’s preferences evolve to the point where he prefers to have a male “surrogate” engage in the actual sexual activity with his potential victims while he watches and / or spurs them on (possibly because of the fact that he’s impotent) most notably involving the effeminate pretty boy pimp of his chosen favorite. The fact that these three seem to form a bizarre relationship together where they all smoke the same “magic powder” that had created Hyde himself before having all kinds of twisted, kinky sex is sadly the most underdeveloped aspect of the film, that being one which implies that besides preying on the underclass, Hyde also possesses the ability to CORRUPT them as well as even though it’s never quite made clear whether the pretty boy pimp or the hooker are aware of his other murders, the fact that he’s getting them hooked on this lethal new substance which he himself created (and could have possibly recruited them to be accomplices in more murders) just raises his level of evil to all new levels, but sadly the film’s second half focuses more on the police’s search for Jack The Ripper (Hyde) while Jekyll’s nocturnal habits start to raise both the suspicions and concerns of his own wife. The ultimate disturbing truth that comes out though is as Jekyll’s mind pieces together exactly what he’s been doing as Hyde, his reaction is one of an acute lack of remorse for his alter ego’s actions and an appreciation for his newfound freedom and ability to go out into the night and take what he feels is rightfully his, a rich man with a glowing sense of entitlement that the poor and destitute of this world are merely cattle that he may butcher any way he pleases for his own sick personal pleasure. And Perkins matches this mentality every step of the way with his wildly perverse acting, getting several closeups where he can sometimes deliver just one line in a macabre, drawn out way. And so Jekyll And Hyde gets the modern era movie which they deserve, albeit one which seems to have been buried a bit or at least heavily criticized for director Kikoine’s occasional tendencies to resort to psychedelic imagery in order to portray portions of the main character’s fractured mindset, someone who in civilized, conventional terms would be in need of help and rehabilitation but who obviously rejects all of that because he’s just having so much fun slaughtering lambs and living out all of his most fevered sexual fantasies in such ways that he never imagined in a story that really questions whether or not we ourselves have that same sort of beast living within us all…
8/10