Review of Jekyll + Hyde (2006) by Kori M — 31 Oct 2007

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote this book a long time ago, about a man who developed a drug to suppress his introverted self, and free his inner extroverted self. That animal was released and did terrible things.

Fast forward over 100 years, and this story has been made and remade into films, and film motifs every couple of years. The story is now quite cliched, but an oldie is a goodie as they say.

So this latest incarnation was made by Lionsgate, and Maple films. My two favourite film companies, for putting horror back on the map. Sometimes hit and sometimes miss, but always coming out with new and interesting things.

Which brings us to J&H 2005.

Henry Jekyll is a medical student at an unamed university. He wants to do a project on the effects of a drug he is developing (that uses exstacy) to help people with multiple personality and schizophrenia. He believes that the positive effects of X plus his other additions, can help to supress the negative, and accentuate the positive, and really help people. The school denies funding, and he is left on his own.

So Henry decides to do his own research. He has one of his friends steal drugs for him, plus he acquires X himself, and using an abandoned hospital lab, develops his own drug. But he needs to test it on himself.

At first, his shy ackward exterior is replaced by an outgoing, confident alpha male. Which he enjoys. So he keeps taking the drugs. Then he starts to feel more aggressive, sometimes violent. His sexual urges are becoming out of control.

People begin to die. All off camera, but their losses are felt through the reactions of the characters. Friends go, strangers go...one woman is brutally beaten and raped. Another is strangled in the bathtub, then doused in acid and gradually 'melted' into the drain. Others are shot in Russian Roullette type games.

All the police know is that a man called Mr Hyde is doing it. It isn't hard to work out who Mr Hyde is. His costume is about as clever as Superman putting on glasses...Jekyll takes off his glasses and weasr nice clothes.

Aside from that, this movie really isn't a horror visually..more of an emotional horror. The things people will do to become someone that they are not. A great character study. Plus seeing a friend kill all of his other friends out of fear and hatred (imagined or otherwise) is very powerful, especially seeing the reactions from the characters as they experience the events.

One small letdown (spoiler alert) is the ending itself. Hyde knew he was cornered and couldn't escape. So instead of letthing himself 'die' and have Jekyll get help. He decides to kill both himself and Jekyll by gunshot wound to the head. A kind of a coput in one fashion because the characters never get a proper resolution...the bad guy killed himself, thus he never pays for his crimes.

On the other hand...maybe he does. Hyde is the crime....Jekyll is the victim. Hyde commits the crime, and eventually kills Jekyll...this Jekyll pays for the crimes of creating Hyde to start with. He pays the ultimate price for his sin of wantign to be someone else, and pays for committing all of the crimes. While Hyde was the evil, and Hyde never truly paid the price for his crimes, Jekyll did in creating that crime in the first place. Also Jekyll was killed by the very evil he created, as most villains are. They create an evil and soon loose control over that evil...and the evil consumes them.

Anyway, one could sit here and speculate all day. All I have to say is that this movie is worth the rental. Very well acted, and it brings up some interesting moral questions. ALthough the story is as old as dirt, this 'redoing' was brilliantly handled, and quite enjoyable.