Release calendarTop 250 moviesMost popular moviesBrowse movies by genreTop box officeShowtimes & ticketsMovie newsIndia movie spotlight
    What's on TV & streamingTop 250 TV showsMost popular TV showsBrowse TV shows by genreTV news
    What to watchLatest trailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb SpotlightFamily entertainment guideIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsEmmysToronto Int'l Film FestivalHispanic Heritage MonthIMDb Stars to WatchSTARmeter AwardsAwards CentralFestival CentralAll events
    Born todayMost popular celebsCelebrity news
    Help centerContributor zonePolls
For industry professionals
  • Language
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
Watchlist
Sign in
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
Use app
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
  • FAQ
IMDbPro

Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype

  • 1980
  • R
  • 1h 39m
IMDb RATING
4.0/10
779
YOUR RATING
Oliver Reed in Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980)
SatireComedyDramaHorrorRomance

An ugly, misshapen podiatrist ingests a formula made by a colleague and turns into a handsome, devil-may-care (but violent) ladies' man.An ugly, misshapen podiatrist ingests a formula made by a colleague and turns into a handsome, devil-may-care (but violent) ladies' man.An ugly, misshapen podiatrist ingests a formula made by a colleague and turns into a handsome, devil-may-care (but violent) ladies' man.

  • Director
    • Charles B. Griffith
  • Writers
    • Charles B. Griffith
    • Roger Corman
  • Stars
    • Oliver Reed
    • Sunny Johnson
    • Maia Danziger
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    4.0/10
    779
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Charles B. Griffith
    • Writers
      • Charles B. Griffith
      • Roger Corman
    • Stars
      • Oliver Reed
      • Sunny Johnson
      • Maia Danziger
    • 18User reviews
    • 12Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win total

    Photos20

    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    + 17
    View Poster

    Top cast39

    Edit
    Oliver Reed
    Oliver Reed
    • Dr. Henry Heckyl…
    Sunny Johnson
    Sunny Johnson
    • Coral Careen
    Maia Danziger
    Maia Danziger
    • Miss Finebum
    Virgil Frye
    Virgil Frye
    • Lt. Mack Druck - 'Il Topo'
    Mel Welles
    Mel Welles
    • Dr. Vince Hinkle
    Kedrick Wolf
    • Dr. Lew Hoo
    • (as Kedric Wolfe)
    Jackie Coogan
    Jackie Coogan
    • Sgt. Fleacollar
    Corinne Calvet
    Corinne Calvet
    • Pizelle Puree
    Sharon Compton
    • Mrs. Quivel
    Denise Hayes
    • Liza Rowne
    Charles Howerton
    Charles Howerton
    • Clutch Cooger
    Dick Miller
    Dick Miller
    • Irsil…
    Jack Warford
    Jack Warford
    • Herringbone Flynn
    Lucretia Love
    Lucretia Love
    • Debra Kate
    Ben Frommer
    • Sgt. Gurnisht Hilfn
    Mickey Fox
    Mickey Fox
    • Mrs. Fritz L. Pitzle
    Catalaine Knell
    • Mrs. Fritz L. Pitzle
    Jacque Lynn Colton
    • Mrs. Fran van Crisco
    • Director
      • Charles B. Griffith
    • Writers
      • Charles B. Griffith
      • Roger Corman
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews18

    4.0779
    1
    2
    3
    4
    5
    6
    7
    8
    9
    10

    Featured reviews

    6TheFearmakers

    Sunny Johnson Sure Was Cute

    What's considered one of Cannon Pictures and Oliver Reed's worst movies has ironical casting since Reed, back in his Hammer beginnings, appeared as a pimp-bouncer in their own Dr. Jekyll adaptation...

    And in the satirical DR. HECKYL AND MR. HYPE, as a ghoulish-looking yet sweet-natured podiatrist, he alters into the dashing counterpart, an overweight Reed, not all that mainstream-handsome but fitfully formidable, as the best scenes are of the body count nature, killing loose women he dates yet still can't score with...

    All the while in love with the film's best attribute in future FLASHDANCE sidekick Sunny Johnson, who seems to like even the ugly side of the friendly doctor, and, had this role been expanded in-between what needed more random murders around her, HYPE could've harbored a neat barrage of deliberately campy, ultra-violent fun...

    Unfortunately too much time's spent on the scientific side of things with Reed's horrendously unfunny fellow doctors and a few trailing cops during hard-to-see 11th hour night-shots, punctuating the super low budget that actually looks pretty decent in the daylight, when Reed's double-performance is more visibly sympathetic and involving.
    5Mister-6

    Worth a "Heckyl", not much to "Hype"....

    Charles B. Griffith wrote the original "Little Shop of Horrors", and co-wrote and directed this little gem. Note that I say "gem" in the most facetious usage.

    "Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype" plays as a reverse "Jeckyll and Hyde" (DUH!) when ugly podiatrist Heckyl (Reed) discovers a potion that makes him handsome and, subsequently, desirable to women. But he cannot consummate any relationships since all the women he tries to connect with end up dead ("And I'm still a virgin!"). But there are police, garbage men and strange people emerging from the woodwork to make Heckyl's life even more disrupted.

    It's cute, but plays out too hectic to be considered even a good "cult" movie, as was obviously the intention here. The talent was there; Reed in a comedy? Who would have known? And Coogan and Miller's contributions add up. And it doesn't hurt to have beautiful women to look at (like the Brough sisters - ROWRRR!). But if there was a little more story to add to the proceedings, instead of dry laughs and off-kilter pacing, maybe we would have had something.

    In all, interesting but not even a pretender to the throne of "Horrors". A nice try, anyway.

    Four stars for the effort, plus one star extra for Reed. Good to see him play silly on purpose, for once.
    2FieCrier

    apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson, indeed!

    Pretty unappealing comedy/horror movie. More of a comedy, with horror elements that don't mix well. It has comedy sound effects, and sped-up footage and other pretty low comedy elements.

    Oliver Reed is horrible-looking podiatrist Dr. Heckyl, with whom we're evidently expected to sympathize. However, he's pretty unappealing, even appearance aside. He turns into Mr. Hype, supposedly a very handsome man, but without compassion. However, as Mr. Hype, he looks like...Oliver Reed - who's hardly good-looking by anyone's standards, but we're expected to believe he is. Women see something "tacky" in Mr. Hype's eyes, and he invariably kills them in ways that don't really work in such a silly comedy, they belong in a real horror movie (albeit a bad one).

    This title is out of print, and relatively hard to find. With any luck, it will stay that way.
    2funkyfry

    Weak comedy proves lightning can't strike twice

    Supposed spoof of Dr. Jeckyl/Mr. Hyde films turns out to be a lame attempt at a "modern" version. Perhaps the filmmakers (chief on the list of wrongdoers would be Griffith, who wrote great fly-by-night scripts for R. Corman) thought the reverse angle -- Heckyl is ugly but nice, and Hype "handsome" (we're talking about Oliver Reed here) but sadistic -- would sustain the film. It doesn't, and neither does Reed, up to his usual method-inspired hysterics here. When you see that this movie expects you to believe Reed is handsome with OR without makeup, you can realize how stupid it is. I mean, I like a comedy, but in order to be funny it has to hold up its straight aspects, for chrissakes.

    Some redemption is that Reed's Hype is so distasteful that you actually start to like him in the bad makeup! Welles is a fellow podiatrist, and Coogan a cop chasing the monster. The dialogue is stilted, and if there was a laugh to be culled out of it you wouldn't be able to pick it up on the soundtrack. Some jokes that might make adolescent boys laugh just from the sicko aspects (body part fetishes, etc.). Awful photography. Just not a good film. Don't see it, even if you're a fan of Griffith and Corman, unless you really want to be bored.
    Michael_Elliott

    Horrible Misfire

    Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980)

    * (out of 4)

    Rather horrendous horror-comedy-spoof has Oliver Reed playing an ugly and disfigured Dr. Henry Heckyl. Most of the time the nice Heckyl wishes he could be beautiful and he gets his shot when a co-worker comes up with a serum that does a wide range of things including making him handsome. The only problem is that he also turns into a jerk and a murderer. Director-writer Charles B. Pierce made some good movies in his time but I'm really not sure what he was trying to do with this thing because the "spoof" of Robert Louis Stevenson's story had already been done with THE NUTTY PROFESSOR. This film here is really a complete misfire and for the life of me I can't see how this thing could have gotten a greenlight and especially in 1980. You could possibly see this coming out in the early 70s to a drive-in crowd but I'm not sure it would have played any better then. The biggest problem is that the entire film is just so slow and boring that it's impossible to really care for anything going on. At 97-minutes this here is at least thirty-minutes too long and by the hour point you're already willing to give up on it. The movie has a weird sense of humor but this doesn't mean that it gets any laughs. Most of the humor is aimed at how ugly Reed's character is and there's also a running joke of a doctor creating a chemical that will allow obese people to become skinny in the matter of hours. The make-up on Reed looks decent but at the same time it's more weird than anything else. As for Reed, he turns in a decent performance as Heckyl but he's rather too bland and boring as Hype. Sunny Johnson clearly steals the film as a love interest and we also get supporting bits by the likes of Mel Welles, Dick Miller and Jackie Coogan.

    More like this

    I Saw What You Did
    6.2
    I Saw What You Did
    The Rule of Jenny Pen
    6.2
    The Rule of Jenny Pen
    Up from the Depths
    3.4
    Up from the Depths
    The Mad Trapper
    7.2
    The Mad Trapper
    A Touch of the Sun
    2.8
    A Touch of the Sun
    Tomorrow Never Comes
    5.0
    Tomorrow Never Comes
    I'll Never Forget What's'isname
    6.2
    I'll Never Forget What's'isname
    The Ransom
    5.1
    The Ransom
    The Sell-Out
    4.8
    The Sell-Out
    The Triple Echo
    6.4
    The Triple Echo
    The New Spartans
    7.7
    The New Spartans
    Night Creatures
    6.6
    Night Creatures

    Related interests

    Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
    Satire
    Will Ferrell in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
    Comedy
    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama
    Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby (1968)
    Horror
    Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (1942)
    Romance

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Oliver Reed (Dr. Heckyl / Mr. Hype) previously appeared in The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), another adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde".
    • Quotes

      Dr. Henry Heckyl: I'm afraid the transplant will have to wait until we can find a donor with two right feet.

    • Connections
      Follows Up from the Depths (1979)

    Top picks

    Sign in to rate and Watchlist for personalized recommendations
    Sign in

    FAQ17

    • How long is Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype?Powered by Alexa

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • October 1980 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Dr. Heckyl & Mr. Hype
    • Filming locations
      • Los Angeles, California, USA
    • Production companies
      • The Cannon Group
      • Golan-Globus Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 39m(99 min)
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page

    More to explore

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb App
    Sign in for more accessSign in for more access
    Follow IMDb on social
    Get the IMDb App
    For Android and iOS
    Get the IMDb App
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • License IMDb Data
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Your Ads Privacy Choices
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2025 by IMDb.com, Inc.