I, Monster

I, MONSTER is Amicus Studios' version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde.

Dr. Marlowe (Christopher Lee) is working on a serum that will bring out the dark side of human nature. Using Freud as his guide, Marlowe uses his concoction on a female test subject, turning her from prim and proper to the exact opposite thereof. After another successful test on an ill-tempered man, Marlowe tries the serum out on himself.

Needless to say, the effects are dramatic, transforming the mild-mannered Marlowe into an id-driven maniac with only base desires on his mind. He heads for the seedier part of town where he can do as he pleases without regard or remorse.

As in the original tale, no good comes of this, as Marlowe slides ever deeper into the abyss. Not even children's lives are spared. A colleague (Peter Cushing) suspects Marlowe and sets out to stop him.

Lee and Cushing are always good together and this is no exception. This fairly faithful take on the source material highlights both men's strengths. Definitely one of Amicus' better movies...

In the Nineteenth Century, in London, the psychologist Charles Marlowe (Christopher Lee) researches a new drug capable to release inhibitions and uses his patients as guinea pigs. He discusses the principles of Freud with his friend Dr. Lanyon (Richard Hurndall) and decides to experiment his drug in himself. He becomes the ugly and evil Edward Blake and his friend and lawyer Frederik Utterson (Peter Cuhsing) believes Blake is another person that might be blackmailing Charles. Meanwhile Charles loses control of his transformation.

"I, Monster" is another version of the classic story of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. The art direction is very beautiful and the great attractions are certainly Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Soro Maldito" ("The Damned Serum")

Brilliant, clever, well-acted adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's great The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dramatized by Amicus producer Milton Subotsky, I, Monster follows the original tale about as closely as any other with some major deviations. The characters in this film are Dr. Marlowe and Mr. Blake(?). Maybe they wanted to separate themselves from the original source material as much as possible or perhaps had a Rights issue. At any rate, I, Monster is a movie that builds and builds as Dr. Marlowe(Christopher Lee) tinkers with this new serum he has created that eliminates one part of the three parts of the brain(according to Freud). The reaction for each individual is different. For Lee, it sheds his formal, authoritative persona of its superego which then allows him to act any way he wants without any moral, ethical, or logical constraints. Lee's transformation is simple, effective, and strong. He goes from the stiff upper lip to the wicked, lecherous, carefree smile of a man of no moral code whatsoever. His eyes dance from one thing to another as the strangely effective music of Carl Davis plays a tune of light madness. Lee gives a great performance in this one and makes the film work. Without his skills, I, Monster would have little else going for it. Yes, Peter Cushing is in it. He plays Marlowe's attorney and is as always very solid in his otherwise mundane role. The rest of the cast is really nothing to speak of either. I have always liked Amicus and most of their horror entries from the late 60's and the 70's. They have the Hammer look about them without Hammer production values: translated that means that they look like Hammer imitations. Nonetheless, they usually have good stories and frequently paired Cushing and Lee together or singly. Subotsky's screenplay is laced with several philosophical layers. Director Stephen Weeks does a solid job behind the camera. For my money, I, Monster is definitely one of the best screen adaptations of Stevenson's work.

This is an enjoyable as well as lurid chiller , including a fine portrayal of the notorious double-identity , very authentic-seeming Victorian settings , savoir faire performances and results to be a pretty nice rendition . Dr Marlowe (Christopher Lee who tackles a double role of the title character , and gives one of his best acting) is obsessed with Freudian theories , the nature of the id , the ego and the superego and whether they can be separated within an individual . Marlowe uses his experiments with intravenous drugs that are supposed to release inner inhibitions , causing Pulfrich effect , it leads to his metamorphosis development , some good and evil sides to his personality . He transforms into Mr. Blake (Christopher Lee) who prowls the seedy slums of Victorian London -Soho- to satisfy his dark instincts and nasty desires . Then his friend Frederick Utterson (Peter Cushing) suspects when take place grisly killings .

This is a largely faithful reworking of Robert Stevenson's classic story , tiring at times , though . The character names may have changed but this is still ¨Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde¨. Although given the source novel, it is unclear why the names of the central character have been changed . Very good acting by Christopher Lee as Dr Marlowe who injects himself with his secret formula and is transformed into Mr Blake . Lee gives one of the best interpretations that the cinema of horror has offered him in a 60-year career . Frequent co-protagonist Peter Cushing is top-notch as usual , playing as his colleague and friend . Adequate and atmospheric cinematography , filmed in Shepperton studios , originally in 3D , some clever camera work and choreography that keeps the foreground moving to the right and the background moving left makes this possible. Thrilling and atmospheric musical score by Carl Davis . The film was efficiently produced by Max J. Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky from Amicus factory , they were usual producers of terror genre .

The motion picture was well directed by Stephen Weeks , though Peter Duffell refused the offer to direct this project . Weeks was one of two young British directors to emerge in the terror field in the late sixties , the other , Michael Reeves died at 25 . He began his professional film career at age 17, directing a series of short films . He made his film cinema short film, 'Moods of a Victorian Church' (1967) at age 19, and his first cinema drama, a film set in the First World War in France '1917' . Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was Stephen's second picture at age of 22 and he realized other horror films such as ¨Madhouse mansion¨ or ¨Ghost story¨(1979) and adventure movie such as ¨Gawain and the Green Knight¨ (1973) and its remake ¨Sword of the valiant¨ (1983) also with Peter Cushing . Rating : 6,5/10 . Well worth watching for Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing fans .

Other pictures based or inspired on ¨Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde¨ novel are the followings : 1920 silent retelling and first American one by John Robertson with John Barrymore ; 1932 retelling by Robert Mamoulian with Frederic March , Miriam Hopkins ; 1941 version by Victor Fleming with Spencer Tracy , Ingrid Bergman , Lana Turner , Donald Crisp ; 1968 TV take on by Charles Jarrott with Jack Palance , Denholm Elliott , Oscar Homolka ; 1973 adaptation by David Winters with Kirk Douglas , Donald Pleasence , Michael Redgrave , Susan George ; 1971 ¨Dr Jekyll and sister Hyde¨ by Roy Ward Baker with Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick ; 1971 ¨Dr Jekyll and Wolfman¨ by Leon Klimovsky with Paul Naschy , Shirley Corrigan , Jack Taylor ¨Edge of sanity¨(1989) by Gérard Kikoïne with Anthony Perkins , Glynis Barber and most latter-day recounting as 1995 ¨Dr Jekyll and Miss Hyde¨ by David Price with Timothy Daly , Sean Young , Lysette Anthony and ¨Mary Reilly¨ (1996) by Stephen Frears with John Malkovich , Julia Roberts , Michael Gambon . Furthermore , comical films such as ¨The Nutty Professor¨(1963) with Jerry Lewis and Stella Stevens ; ¨The nutty professor¨ (1996) by Tom Shadyac with Eddie Murphy and Jada Pinkett Smith and ¨Nutty Professor II: The Klumps¨(2000) by Peter Segal with Eddie Murphy and Janet Jackson .

This is a version of 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', although the credits ('based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson'), the name changes (only Utterson and Hyde's first name survive) and the opening 20 minutes (Marlowe's scientific experiments could belong to any similar Hammer film) seem to want to conceal the fact (presumably to make the familiar story unfamiliar again).

Having said that, 'I, Monster' is the most faithful of all adaptations of Stevenson's great novella. There is a little chronological tinkering with narrative, and the setting is moved forward by two decades; but the plot and characters are largely Stevenson's. The error made by most versions of making Jekyll good and Hyde bad is avoided - Jekyll/Marlowe is from the start morose, anti-social, sadistic, voyeuristic and scientifically dubious. There is no Hollywood love-interest, pucelle/putain story to simplify Marlowe's dilemma, retaining the claustrophobic, homosocial world evoked by Stevenson.

Instead of the usual Victorian, cod-Gothic fug, the novella's dream-like modernity is stretched, with effective use made of silence and an unnaturally depopulated urban labyrinth. The transformation scenes, usually an excuse for distracting effects-extravaganza, are brilliantly subtle here, usually off-screen. The 'revelatory' scene (when Blake reveals himself to a friend) is done in silhouette, which is more evocative and thematically appropriate. Christopher Lee's patrician adventurousness is effectively contrasted with Peter Cushing's dogged dullness.

Of course, when I say 'I, Monster' is more faithful than most, it's still not very faithful at all. The duality in Stevenson, whereby Jekyll and Hyde being the same person is concealed till the end, is ignored here. More pertinently, setting the novel in 1906 makes the story seem perversely anachronistic, where Victorian ideas and motifs (sexual repression, duality, mad science etc.) seem out of place in Edwardian England. There is a reason for this - Marlowe is a devotee of Freud, and Jekyll's attempt to isolate, and hence exterminate, the essence of evil, is given a psychoanalytical spin, where the duality is not between respectability and desire, but the ego/super-ego and the Id.

This is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, Freud's ideas of the mind are transferred to the body, giving resonance to Marlowe's physical changes, the animal imagery throughout, and the violence he inflicts, as well as making more poignant the climactic 'melding', where Marlowe can no longer divorce his dark side at will. Secondly, Freud provides an explanatory framework for the story, most notably an Oedipal one. Blake runs riot with a cane that reminds Marlowe of the one his violent, 'respectable' father used; the absence of women in his social world, his horrifying violence to women, and some of the seemingly irrelevant asides (the photos that loom in his room like an invading army, etc.) all suggestively deepen our reaction to Marlowe's plight.

This Amicus production is reminiscent of the best Hammers - eg 'The Creeping Flesh' - where the emphasis is less on gore and sensation than suggestion, atmosphere, or slow menacing camerawork; a meaningful use of decor; dream-like sequences; elliptical editing; rich symbolism.

And as with those great Hammers, there are some searing set-pieces - the opening credits in Marlowe's laboratory, with its dead Siamese twin foetuses, its caged animals and images of fragmentary body parts; Marlowe's first injection and 'self-discovery' with the mirror (more Freud via Lacan) and 'new' point of view; the knife tussle at dawn in a narrow lane in a proletarian milieu; the voyeuristic scenes in his adopted hotel room, with its low-level, tilted camera; the social humiliation when he tries to pick up a prostitute, suggesting he hasn't quite overthrown the sensitive super-ego; the trampling of a young girl. Lee, usually so authoritarian and calm, gets a rare chance to be weak and is excellent; his hurt at having to kill his tabby is very moving. Also excellent is the score, ironic and commentating rather than underpinning or atmospheric; frequently comic, but never - ever - spoofy.