Jekyll + Hyde

This was a film that I really didn't know much about, but I did pick up a copy of it on DVD a few years ago. That would be probably right after college when I was seeking out all of the versions of this classic tale from Robert Louis Stevenson to see how they all differed. Other than that, I knew very little. The synopsis here is Henry Jekyll (Bryan Fisher) is a young science student who along with his friend Mary (Katrina Matthews), experiments with various drugs and compounds in order to create a personality-enhancing drug.

Now that synopsis pretty much gets recapped in some opening text before we get into the movie. Henry 'J' Jekyll wakes up in his place and goes into the bathroom. It is there that he discovers a girl in his bathtub. He's not sure how she got there, but there's blood all over. To make matters worse, a fellow student Martha Utterson (Bree Turner) shows up to his apartment. He hasn't been to class all week so she's bringing him notes. He tries to rush her off, but not before she notices the blood on his clothes. She didn't see him strangle the girl in his bathtub before exiting.

The movie then informs us that we're going to go 2 weeks into the past. J is much different and quite nerdy from the looks. His group of friends includes Martha, Lanyon (Jeff Roop), Dan (Zachery Bennett) and Mary. Lanyon is kind of a douche if I'm going to be honest. He along with Mary, are really into recreational drugs. During this scene we get an odd interaction between J, Jack (Landy Cannon) and Martha. J gets bullied by Jack. This plays into the experiment that he wants to conduct in order to earn a grant.

Things take a turn though when Mary dies of an overdose. J's professor, Jane Poole (Maria del Mar) tries to sway him away from what he wants to do to something that is legal and more safe. He refuses though. He also starts to test what he has created on himself.

Before Mary passed away, she had a note in her locker for Hyde and what looked like a phone number. This is the persona that J is taking on while he uses this new drug he created. He keeps upping and upping the dose, until he's not sure who he is anymore. He is plagued by nightmares that he's starting to think are memories of what his alter ego is doing. The problem is, he likes being Hyde too much to stop.

I'm going to try my hardest here to not compare this version to some of the other ones that I've been watching recently. To start off with the positives here, I do like that this is one is taking the idea from the original novel and forming into a cautionary tale of addiction. I also think this an interesting aspect that he's documenting his experiment by doing video blogs. It is an easy way to show/tell us the information while giving us some different images on the screen. Incorporating the idea of recreational drug use, especially with college students makes sense.

The problem though that I did have with this movie is that it is too slow. It runs just under 90 minutes, but it felt like it went on for 2 hours. Something I think is the problem there is that pretty much all of the deaths are done off-screen and I have no idea why that was the route they decided to take. It almost feels like the story they're trying to tell they thought was strong enough to carry it and I hate to say is really not the case. It also keeps going back to this door. We see there's something off about the hallway to it. It goes to this shot a few times, getting closer and closer. The problem though is that the reveal there didn't amount to much either.

What also couldn't carry this was the acting. Fisher's performance was J was weak to me. He lacks the emotion to pull off what he's trying to do, but I thought he made for a solid Hyde if I'm going to be honest. Turner is probably the most famous person here and I recognize her as a supporting actress in quite a few things. She was fine in this movie, but she didn't blow me away. The rest of the cast was all right, but no one really stood out and the performances were pretty mediocre to be honest.

That will take me over to the effects which to be honest, aren't that bad. The real problem is that they didn't do more with them. I was wondering if they didn't due to budget or not making them look real. The blood, wounds and gunshots that are used look pretty real as they were done practically. There wasn't much in the way of CGI aside from a few times we see J taking the drug and it is showing it go into his blood stream. That really wasn't that bad, but also not really needed. The cinematography was also fine in my opinion.

Now with that said, this one does do a bit different take on the classic tale, but the problem is that they really don't develop enough around it to really stand apart. I like changing the idea from a monster to someone who is addicted to a drug, as that is still a core idea of the novel in a sense. The movie though ultimately was boring. I didn't really care about any of the characters. The effects in the movie were really good, but we just don't get a lot of them and not seeing more of the attacks or the deaths really hurts the product overall. The soundtrack didn't really stand out to me, but it also wasn't anything that really hurt it either. I'd say that this is below average to me unfortunately and can't really recommend it. It's a shame that a few different changes could have brought this up quite a bit in my opinion.

4.5/10

I have not seen this movie yet, but i am dying to know, is it a musical? I found it on demand but it does not say if it is a musical or not. I do not want to see it unless it is the musical. Every Jekyll and Hyde movie that I have seen is not a musical, and in my opinion, sucks. I have been in love with the musical since I saw it five years ago. I went on the web site and it says they are making a movie but it does not say when. Any info please contact me. My address is above (Rachel.markunas@gmail.com). Please if anyone knows any information about this movie and whether it is a musical or not e-mail me Immediately!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, I bought this pack with three, or four horror films in it. This was one of them. (The Nun, another horrible movie was another)

So, this movie has an alright budget, not too bad acting, but it is just so boring. I mean, almost nothing horror related happens at all. Not that I can remember anyway. There are some kills or something, but it's just not entertaining.

I think it is an attempt at making more of a "serious" movie, not an entertaining one. It's just not good. It will bore you.

I write this review just to warn others. If you are after some entertaining horror, look elsewhere! If you are looking for some kind of bland, sci-fi- thriller-drama thing, give it a try.

This movie has great production values, good acting, a good idea behind the script, and competent crew, yet it fails at being in any way interesting or entertaining. The problem is how the story is told. Rather than go with a straightforward timeline, they mixed present and past and added a voice-over that provides some philosophical musings. The basic story is of course Jeckyl and Hyde: 2 personalities in one person, one good, one bad. The twist here is that the transformation is achieved here by a medical student looking for some breakthrough medication by experimenting with illicit drugs. The main character is established as a good guy only in a few scenes, most of the movie he spends as a bad guy, and he sure gets bad. Some of the scenes would be classified as "torture porn" by some, but in this case the victims are mostly males for some reason. Another sleazy character provides the drugs. Then there's the mandatory loving girl, who's interested in our JH for no reason and goes out of her way to care for him. Another friend gets to be the nice guy who gets bullied. There is not one character to care for. There's some gore and violence, a little bit of nudity of a corpse. Nothing that would make this movie worthwhile. Overall, for a horror movie this is rather tame and lame, slow-going and uninteresting.

Jekyll + Hyde is about a young college student that experiments with drugs and winds up creating a potion that allows him to change his personality and appearance. It also shortens his temper and prompts him to do bad things like kill and torture people. Jekyll isn't much better than Hyde in this remake. This is a pretty close take off on the original plot, but its not mediocre acting. It just didn't come across as a believable story. The plot was good and the dialog was passable, but the execution of the scenes came across as hollow and a little false. There were some entertaining parts and the cinematography was good.