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Illustration : Martin Buchan |
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DVD Availability
: Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk |
The Blood of Dr. Jekyll |
Walerian Borowcyzk | France | 1981 |
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This typically unconventional slice of
Euro-horror from
Polish born filmmaker, the late Walerian Borowczyk (infamous director of La Bête) is one of the director’s more
difficult films to see
in its complete, unexpurgated form. Borowczyk’s take on the Robert Louis Stevenson story, translated and infused with the
director’s
unique brand of visually perverse surrealism, unwinds with the
dual-sided Dr. Jekyll and infamous alter-ego bringing misogyny, sex,
murder and an over-sized ostensibly fake penis into sweaty focus! The Blood of Dr. Jekyll represents a milestone in sleazy filmmaking
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showcasing the extreme nihilism of Stevenson’s infamous character, featuring genre actor
Udo Kier (Mark of the Devil) as Dr. Henry Jekyll. Borowczyk’s take on the misanthropic Edward Hyde is
one of extreme
depravity, perhaps moving closer to Stevenson’s original allegorical notes
— which the author
allegedly destroyed — than his actual published work. Borowczyk, himself a fairly symbolic and allegorical
filmmaker,
offers a particularly sinister Mr. Hyde, easily the most provocative
representation of the character ever committed to celluloid, which film
critic Kim Newman described as "dark, misanthropic and
interestingly
offensive". Borowczyk’s transient 19th Century shows
Jekyll, transforming
by bathing — perhaps washing away his repressed former self
— into the dark and sinister Mr. Hyde. The
monster,
played by Gérard Zalcberg in his first screen role, stalks and
sadistically murders
his way through a cast of oppressed Victorian
‘slaves’, in
an atmosphere enhanced by the use of diffuse lighting.
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Hyde is eventually joined by Fanny Osborne (Marin Pierro, seen later in Jean Rollin’s La morte vivante) who, learning his transformational
secret, and in spite of
his sadistic prowess, chooses to join him by bathing herself in much
the same way… Originally unveiled by New Realm Entertainments, the film
was shorn of almost
two minutes before receiving a very limited cinema run. It was this
same watered-down version that appeared on tape by Charles Apeira’s VTC [Video Tape Centre] as The Bloodbath of Dr. Jekyll. Borowczyk’s picture, literally bathing in
the grime of its own
proceedings, would next appear on tape by Screen In Doors [SID], where it was issued under the
company’s offshoot Quick Video label. Here, the BBFC struck again, this
time, requiring
additional cuts of 44s, compounding the losses to some 2m 35s. The
eye-catching sleeve was designed by science fiction book cover
illustrator Martin Buchan. Two alternative releases can be found here and here. aka : The Bloodbath of Dr. Jekyll; The
Experiment; Docteur
Jekyll et les Femmes; Dr. Jekyll and His Women
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