Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

First, let me just say I love this novella. I am a huge fan of movies and literature. In fact, I am a teacher and I have always been disappointed that I didn't have a watchable version of this movie that followed the story. They always make it into a monster movie or horror story and it's not either of those.

Without giving anything away, the entire book is basically in this movie. There are some extras but they make sense. There is nothing gratuitous in this movie that doesn't fit in context with the story.

Guillermo Del Toro may get around to adapting the musical but that isn't the story Stevenson wrote at all - this is. I bought the teacher's edition of this on Blu-Ray which had a study guide and screenplay with it.

I have shown this to my middle school students and they really enjoyed it after reading the novella.

Sure the movie is a little low-budget but it's ten times better than any of the educational movies I watched as a kid.

This is one of the scariest movies ever made. It will scary you out of your mind. It is a very scary movie. It has great acting. It also has a great story line. It will scary you.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2017)

*** (out of 4)

Low-budget but effective adaptation of the classic novel as Shaun Paul Piccinino playing Dr. Henry Jekyll, a great doctor who decides to try and experiment with what causes men to go mad. Before long he is transformed in Mr. Hyde (Gianni Capaldi).

This film has earned all sorts of great acclaim and I went into it with rather high expectations. I'm the type of fan that must see every new version of this story and it really doesn't matter how many of them I watch. I just find the story to be such a fascinating one that it works well watching various interpretations of it.

I'm certainly not going to call this one a masterpiece like some have but I will say that this was a rather impressive version, although I had one major issue with the film. The biggest problem for me was the fact that there were certain scenes that were shot so dark that you could hardly see what was going on. I understand trying to add atmosphere to a film but when it's this dark it was kind of pointless.

With that said, i did enjoy the performances and especially Piccinino as Jekyll. He was extremely good in the role and I thought he really brought it to life. Having another actor play Hyde was interesting but Capaldi was good as well. What makes this special is the fact that it turned out to be Mickey Rooney's final performance as he has a very brief role as a witness. Margaret O'Brien also appears in a quick scene. Getting to see these two legends was a major plus.

Okay, first off, if I'm comparing this to a movie I'd see in theater's that cost 100 million dollars, then it's a 5 or 6, but I get that this is a low budget adaptation. I love the book and I like checking out movies with the Jekyll and Hyde influence. One of my favorite's is FIGHT CLUB. Is this FIGHT CLUB, no, of course not. But one of the things I like best about that movie is that they use two different actors to represent the split personality.

If you've ever actually read the the book Jekyll and Hyde, then you would understand that there is an actual physical transformation and Stevenson treats Jekyll and Hyde as two different characters. I like that this version took a chance and did something out of the norm and used two different actors.

It moves pretty slow, but the pacing is comfortable and compares to the book. It's a great adaptation, and a pretty good low budget movie.

I get the reviews that knock thsi for being too low budget and I get the reviews that praise it for being a good adaptation. It's probably somehwere in between. I liked it.