Wednesday, January 23, 2019

THE ADULT VERSION OF JEKYLL AND HIDE (1972) ** ½


Dr. Leeder (Jack Buddliner) finds Dr. Jekyll’s original manuscript in an antique shop and becomes obsessed with it.  He comes to the store in the middle of the night offering to buy it, and when the shopkeeper refuses to part ways with it, Leeder kills him.  While reading the book, he envisions he’s Dr. Jekyll, transforming into Mr. Hyde and killing prostitutes.  Eventually, he recreates Dr. Jekyll’s formula and tests it out on himself.

As with Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, our hero turns into a sexy woman (Jane Tsentas) when he drinks the potion.  The transformation scene is great too as he opens his shirt to find brand-new boobs.  Naturally, this leads to a long scene where he/she looks in the mirror and plays with him/herself.  This happens every time he switches bodies, which helps pad out the running time.

It shouldn’t come as much of a shock to you that there’s more of a concentration on the “Adult Version” portion of the story than on the “Jekyll and Hyde” bits.  It’s amusing for the most part, although it never quite gels.  The stuff that looks like it came out of your basic ‘70s skin flick works better than the Dr. Jekyll daydream scenes.  The modern-day Jekyll stuff is pretty good though, especially when Tsentas attacks Rene Bond.

Fans of Bond will enjoy The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hide.  It’s a good vehicle for her talents as she has many sex, nude, and shower scenes.  There’s also a smattering of S & M in here as there are scenes where Hyde whips a prostitute with a strap before tying her up and having his way with her.  This is the most horror-centric scene in the movie and only helps to illustrate the film’s overall tonal problems.  

There are some fun moments here, but ultimately, it goes on a bit too long for its own good.  The sluggish pacing makes the ninety-minute running time feels a lot longer.  If the plot had been streamlined a bit and they had found a better way to incorporate the fantasy sequences, The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hide could’ve been a minor classic.  As it stands, it’s an interesting, if intermittently amusing curio.

AKA:  The Adventures of Dr. Jekyll.  AKA:  The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hyde.

No comments:

Post a Comment