Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype

I'm amazed that this movie was ever made and NOT surprised that it wasn't made my any of the big studios -- they're simply too stupid to understand or appreciate it. Everything about this film defies convention, in a smart, funny and effective way. The people who disapprove of this movie are likely the very people whom it is satirizing. The editing, directing, acting and sound editing are marvelous and refreshing. The dialogue is wonderfully acerbic and sarcastic. I only wish I could find in on DVD. As is, the only copy I have is a VHS taped from commercial TV. If you get the chance to to see it, by all means do. It's a rare pleasure.

UPDATE: Thanks to modern technology, I have now burned my VHS copy to DVD for preservation. As of February, 2006, the film is STILL NOT AVAILABLE anywhere. The viewer who wrote that he saw it on late night TV with Elvira is correct -- that's the copy of the screening I have, complete with her interspersed comments (and cleavage).

What's considered one of Cannon Pictures and Oliver Reed's worst movies has ironical casting since Reed, back in his Hammer beginnings, appeared as a pimp-bouncer in their own Dr. Jekyll adaptation...

And in the satirical DR. HECKYL AND MR. HYPE, as a ghoulish-looking yet sweet-natured podiatrist, he alters into the dashing counterpart, an overweight Reed, not all that mainstream-handsome but fitfully formidable, as the best scenes are of the body count nature, killing loose women he dates yet still can't score with...

All the while in love with the film's best attribute in future FLASHDANCE sidekick Sunny Johnson, who seems to like even the ugly side of the friendly doctor, and, had this role been expanded in-between what needed more random murders around her, HYPE could've harbored a neat barrage of deliberately campy, ultra-violent fun...

Unfortunately too much time's spent on the scientific side of things with Reed's horrendously unfunny fellow doctors and a few trailing cops during hard-to-see 11th hour night-shots, punctuating the super low budget that actually looks pretty decent in the daylight, when Reed's double-performance is more visibly sympathetic and involving.

Charles B. Griffith wrote the original "Little Shop of Horrors", and co-wrote and directed this little gem. Note that I say "gem" in the most facetious usage.

"Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype" plays as a reverse "Jeckyll and Hyde" (DUH!) when ugly podiatrist Heckyl (Reed) discovers a potion that makes him handsome and, subsequently, desirable to women. But he cannot consummate any relationships since all the women he tries to connect with end up dead ("And I'm still a virgin!"). But there are police, garbage men and strange people emerging from the woodwork to make Heckyl's life even more disrupted.

It's cute, but plays out too hectic to be considered even a good "cult" movie, as was obviously the intention here. The talent was there; Reed in a comedy? Who would have known? And Coogan and Miller's contributions add up. And it doesn't hurt to have beautiful women to look at (like the Brough sisters - ROWRRR!). But if there was a little more story to add to the proceedings, instead of dry laughs and off-kilter pacing, maybe we would have had something.

In all, interesting but not even a pretender to the throne of "Horrors". A nice try, anyway.

Four stars for the effort, plus one star extra for Reed. Good to see him play silly on purpose, for once.

Pretty unappealing comedy/horror movie. More of a comedy, with horror elements that don't mix well. It has comedy sound effects, and sped-up footage and other pretty low comedy elements.

Oliver Reed is horrible-looking podiatrist Dr. Heckyl, with whom we're evidently expected to sympathize. However, he's pretty unappealing, even appearance aside. He turns into Mr. Hype, supposedly a very handsome man, but without compassion. However, as Mr. Hype, he looks like...Oliver Reed - who's hardly good-looking by anyone's standards, but we're expected to believe he is. Women see something "tacky" in Mr. Hype's eyes, and he invariably kills them in ways that don't really work in such a silly comedy, they belong in a real horror movie (albeit a bad one).

This title is out of print, and relatively hard to find. With any luck, it will stay that way.

Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980)

* (out of 4)

Rather horrendous horror-comedy-spoof has Oliver Reed playing an ugly and disfigured Dr. Henry Heckyl. Most of the time the nice Heckyl wishes he could be beautiful and he gets his shot when a co-worker comes up with a serum that does a wide range of things including making him handsome. The only problem is that he also turns into a jerk and a murderer. Director-writer Charles B. Pierce made some good movies in his time but I'm really not sure what he was trying to do with this thing because the "spoof" of Robert Louis Stevenson's story had already been done with THE NUTTY PROFESSOR. This film here is really a complete misfire and for the life of me I can't see how this thing could have gotten a greenlight and especially in 1980. You could possibly see this coming out in the early 70s to a drive-in crowd but I'm not sure it would have played any better then. The biggest problem is that the entire film is just so slow and boring that it's impossible to really care for anything going on. At 97-minutes this here is at least thirty-minutes too long and by the hour point you're already willing to give up on it. The movie has a weird sense of humor but this doesn't mean that it gets any laughs. Most of the humor is aimed at how ugly Reed's character is and there's also a running joke of a doctor creating a chemical that will allow obese people to become skinny in the matter of hours. The make-up on Reed looks decent but at the same time it's more weird than anything else. As for Reed, he turns in a decent performance as Heckyl but he's rather too bland and boring as Hype. Sunny Johnson clearly steals the film as a love interest and we also get supporting bits by the likes of Mel Welles, Dick Miller and Jackie Coogan.