Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype

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.

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.

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.

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.

Reading the reviews and seeing how the film has the critics pretty divided, I decided to add my five cents and break a lance for "Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype".

The film is a rather bizarre affair, perhaps best compared to the slapstick-version "Jeckyll and Hyde … Together Again" (another underrated, pretty obscure spoof of Robert Louis Stevensons theme), although it's not quiet as slapstick-fueled and at the same time more anarchistic. If "Jeckyll and Hyde … Together Again" is a variation of "Naked Gun" or "Airplane", "Heckyl and Hype" seems to have climbed straight out of a "Mad"-magazine.

Oliver Reed obviously wasn't a born comedian but he has a rather dry, straight-faced humour that comes natural (which Reed has proved before in his portrayal of Tommy's father in Ken Russell's movie). This makes it much more comfortable than the forced slapstick of many actors who fancy themselves comedians. And of course (in his incantation of Mr. Hype), he isn't the Adonis that the movie makes him out to be; again, it's not the looks but his charm and there is no denying that "Sir Ollie" was a lady's man in his times. In his role as the ill-fated Dr. Heckyl Reed plays it lovable, evoking both sympathy and pity. Even if this type of humour doesn't tickle your funny bone, it remains an obscurity for being one of Reeds few comedic efforts.

Other than that, the movie is filled with weird & whacko characters played by Virgil Frye, Kedrick Wolf or Mel Welles. And, not to forget, the sadly departed Sunny Johnson as Dr. Heckyls love interest is cute like a button. And watch out for Dick Miller, playing a schizophrenic garbage-collector with multiple personalities, stealing all the scenes he's in.

As said: it's not for everybody. The fans of more intellectual comedies and followers of Woody Allen won't get too much out of it and, to mention that too, it's not altogether "politically-correct" – regarding obese women, colored midgets and paediatricians faces like a rubber Halloween-mask – but if you have a connection to that inner-child and a love for the trash-cinema of the 1970's and 80's, you might well give it a try and be pleasantly surprised.

Or maybe not – I still give it 7/10 points and that's based on personal preferences and as a dedicated Oliver Reed fan.