This uneven but entertaining Hammer horror comes out just in time for Halloween. A new version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 Gothic novella. The strange case of the doctor. Jekyll and Mr Hydestarring Eddie Izzard as the eponymous doctor. Here she is Nina Jekyll, the isolated and weak CEO of a large pharmaceutical company who invites recently released ex-con Rob (full name: Robert Stevenson, haha) to babysit her at her large estate.
Izzard is magnetic, first as the suave, elegant doctor with a secret agenda, and then as her grandiose, whiskey-loving, evil alter ego, Hyde. She owns every painted, high-ceilinged room she’s in, lights up cigarettes like they’re going out of fashion, and sometimes her stumble with a gilded cane seems graceful and menacing.
But the film is really driven by Scott Chambers as the confused Rob. His face at any given moment is a jumble of emotions: tired, impatient, friendly, desperate. Rob has a young daughter in hospital with leukemia and social services won’t allow him to see her unless he can keep his job. The film takes a while to tell us what Rob did to land him in prison, but when it does, the plot of whether he can resist his dark impulses is all the better because Chambers provides the framework for building this character. so serious and personable.
He’s the perfect foil to Izzard: calm where she’s bright, stable where she’s unpredictable. There’s also a great performance from Lindsay Duncan as the stern Mrs. Danvers-esque estate manager whose longevity is immediately called into question.
This is the first new offering from legendary gothic production house Hammer Films since its takeover by British theater mogul John Gore earlier this year. This is the company that defined the horror genre with classics like Christopher Lee’s film. Dracula (1958), and this film, directed by Joe Stevenson, perfectly follows the old tradition of B-movies in which low-budget set pieces leave room for loud scares and sky-high scores.
Things start to veer a little off track in the final third, trying to tie up loose ends a bit and introducing a bit of unnecessary possession horror into the equation. But overall it’s a lot of fun, delicately balancing loud and quiet, modest and reserved, and breathing some fresh air into Stevenson’s original question of how far apart good and evil can be.
Source: I News
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