Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death

Looking as though it was lit entirely by a single spotlight, and boasting some truly terrible acting and direction, The Dungeon (AKA Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death) is an unbelievably bad horror movie that manages to throw in some very poor martial arts for good measure.

The great grandson of the original Dr. Jeckyll (a very hammy James Mathers) is experimenting on kidnap victims in an attempt to perfect the aggression serum first created by his famous ancestor. Jeckyll injects his prisoners with his serum and films their fights to the death; he is aided in his task by a black hunchback-style assistant named Boris and his lobotomised sister Hilda.

The mad scientist spends the rest of his spare time trying to seduce Julia, the object of his desires (well, most of them, since he also has a thing for his sister!). Julia is somehow resisting his charms, so Jeckyll wisely keeps her tied up and drugged in his house.

When the father of Julia pays a visit (believing his daughter to have died in a riding accident), the mad scientist tries to enlist his help. Naturally, he isn't too keen on the idea and tries to put a stop to the madness.

Although this premise actually sounds fairly entertaining, let me assure you that not one facet of this awful production is worthy of praise: the whole film is extremely dark (ie., too shadowy); the script is terrible; the acting is amateurish in the extreme; and the endless fight scenes are interminably boring.

If I hadn't bought this in a charity shop, I'd be demanding my money back!!

Could you believe it? I accidentally picked this movie up in Music Zone instead of another Vipco Horror "Classic". Initially I found the film to be, like another reviewer here said "impossibly bad". Forty minutes into the film I actually had hopes for this poor monstrosity. It is incredibly grim and tacky, and the kung-fu scenes are cringe-inducing. For example, after the evil doctor injects victims with serum in his dungeon, they wake up and suddenly transform into black-belters and beat the crap out of each other. There was an uneasy atmosphere throughout the 90 minutes and there isn't one scene not shot in darkness. The sado-masochism, violence against women, sexual content and disturbing S&M undertone easily earn this a place in the Vipco library. As a movie itself it really stinks!

2/5

Dr Jekyll's grandson is alive, mad and conducting inhuman experiments in San Francisco, aided by his black hunchbacked assistant called Boris. The Dungeon is not, disappointingly, a place of torture but where Jekyll's human guinea pigs, once injected with serum, fight to the death using martial arts. This movie is certainly a curiosity. These fights scenes, which are fairy long, are probably the best thing about this dreadful movie. And that's not saying much! The plot and script are as awful as the acting. Pretty much the whole film takes place in Jekyll's poorly lit mansion, near darkness at times. The film is incredibly cheesy, dreadfully bad but also slightly entertaining for those reasons. Released in the UK as The Dungeon.

"Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death" tells the story of the great grandson of Dr Jekyll,who is conducting experiments in his sleazy and grimy dungeon lab.Once these victims are injected with a serum Jekyll has concocted they commence to violent kung-fu fighting and rage of the berserker.Surprisingly nasty and ugly exploitation flick that mixes martial arts cinema with Gothic horror.It's a weird and off-beat combination for sure.There is incest,sadism and rape for any exploitation fans.The film is poorly shot,some scenes are too dark and there is some blatant overacting,but the performances are decent and fights scenes are quite savage and unsettling without being gratuitously gory.6 kung-fu fighters out of 10.

The famous mad doctor's nth-great-grandson carries on the family tradition by developing a serum which transforms those under it's influence into unstoppable karate-chopping killing machines. By and by, the doctor is visited by an old colleague who is unaware that his own daughter is being subdued in a room just arm's length away, kept as a sedated slave for the Doctor's cruel desires(he also frequently tortures his half-wit assistant and tragic lobotomized sister).

This mercilessly unprofessional travesty seems to be filmed around footage of some sort of martial arts competition, and the dire results are mind-bending. Surely one of the worst horror films of the 70s...if you have cultivated a taste for uniquely terrible cinema, then you might find this an especially scrumptious morsel.

3/10