Jekyll + Hyde

Meek medical student Henry 'J' Jekyll (Bryan Fisher) is fed up with coming 'second place in life' and so develops a drug that increases his confidence and sexual attraction but which also unleashes uncontrollable violent tendencies.

I'm in two minds about this modern spin on the classic Robert Louis Stevenson tale: on one hand, it's a competently written, highly polished effort that features solid performances and succeeds in being suitably disturbing at times; on the other, it lacks genuine soul, director Nick Stillwell trying so hard to impress with his technical prowess that he has forgotten that sometimes less is more, and that one true innovation is worth a hundred tried and tested film-making techniques.

It's also good to remember that a couple of likable characters can go a long way (it's hard to empathise with any of this film's shallow, over-privileged, drug-taking douche-bags), and that an overuse of emotional pop songs on the soundtrack makes potentially powerful scenes seem like something out of Dawson's Creek.

Outside of Cindy (Robyn Palmer) riding hard on an autopsy table, there just wasn't much of interest in this film.

It would fit in nicely with Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign.

It was all about J (Bryan Fisher) using drugs to create a new personality. Well, you know what kind of personality he would get, don't you? He turns into Hyde. Surprise, surprise.

He then goes about raping and murdering. No, you don't get to see any of the raping action, just the murdering. His girlfriend (Bree Turner) is clueless as to what is going on and just jumps into the sack with him instead of trying to find out.

This had the potential to be a great horror film; instead it was something you might see in Sunday School class.

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.

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.

Jekyll is alive and well and is studying medicine in the States. He is a nerdy character who experiments in illegal substances that might enhance his self esteem and, mayhap, "improve mankind". But before this lame nonsense is explained to us, we are at least treated to a prologue with some sense of dread and mystery. Then it all goes downhill.

This lumbering adaptation of Stevenson's classic tale of human duality lacks everything that might make it worth any viewer's while, I'm sorry to report. Insofar it's been "modernized", it has been so in such a simplistic manner that the original seems more ... modern, if you will. The elements of horror have all the stupidity of a Friday 13 movie, but virtually none of the shlocky effects that might entertain some (even me, on some days). This movie offers nothing new and the old stuff is presented in a weak and confused manner.

My guess is that somewhere along the line all those involved must have realized that their movie is a dead end, but somehow managed to shoot enough footage to reach its humble length, thus being able to say "we've made a feature film" and then hope that no one actually sees it.