Leofwine_draca Here's a sleazy take on the old Jekyll and Hyde story - with all the gratuitous sex and violence you would expect from infamous exploitation producer Harry Alan Towers, and then some! EDGE OF SANITY is an utterly bizarre film; the majority of it takes place in standard period setting, with atmospheric camera-work on the cobbled alleyways at night and authentic buildings. Then it suddenly jumps to the interior of a brothel where we are introduced to characters wearing openly '80s leather fashions and hairstyles and the whole period realism thing comes crashing down.Plot coherence is the least of this film's qualities. Headling the lead role of the disturbed killer is none other than that old PSYCHO himself, Anthony Perkins, whose maniacal performance is something of an art form in itself. Perkins is bloody convincing as Hyde, achieving his transformation through red-rimmed eyes and white makeup alone, and he's also very scary indeed. It's a tribute to the actor how he could create two so opposing sides of the same character in the same movie, and he throws aside any subtlety from previous performers like Fredric March in favour of in-your-face deformity and madness. Basically, he's riveting, and it's a good thing too when the rest of the film is almost worthless.There isn't much plot, so to speak of, and the police investigation seems tacked on and pointless. Every supporting actor and actress is wasted in their roles, either becoming stock story figures or, in the case of the women, pure sexuality. The only other actress to have any impact is Glynis Barber as Jekyll's wife, as she manages to give her long-suffering partner a sympathetic angle which makes her likable. But the only person to be really characterised is Perkins.The murder scenes are quite disturbing to watch, seeing as that they are all very explicit and sexually-driven (not surprisingly, it appears the film was heavily cut here in the UK). There's a lot of fumbling and groping amid the bloody throat-slashings and it's incredible some of the stuff that Perkins does in the film - does this man have no morals? The film is far too arty in places, with lots of closeups of distorted faces along with odd lighting and camera angles which look good but signify nothing, yet Perkins' tour-de-force performance is worth watching alone, and very unsettling with it. Without him EDGE OF SANITY would be worthless, but with him it becomes an interesting - and bizarre - character study of madness and duel personality.

Scarecrow-88 Perverse, ugly, extremely dark variation on Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde and Jack the Ripper with Anthony Perkins once again summoning the dark side of his character to bring to life an evil psychopath deriving from a form of anesthesia, accidentally unleashed on Dr. Henry Jekyll while in his laboratory by a monkey test subject who spilled a bottle of solution into the powdery substance the scientist used to create his breakthrough in resolving pain during surgery. Smoked through an opium pipe, Jekyll loses his personality and morality as his dark half, Mr. Jack Hyde, surfaces to prowl White Chapel's lurid streets for prostitutes to slice up. "Edge of Sanity" is practically wholly an unpleasant excursion into depravity and sadism as the movie stays mostly in the seedy underbelly of the dark section of London, rarely ever do we spend time with the "better" (although I felt even Jekyll, presented here, wasn't exactly free from the darkness that plagued his soul, as we see nightmares of a lustful hooker taking the rod from a local farmer who, after the doctor, as a child voyeur looking from the loft, slips, hooking himself upside down in the barn, takes a whipping on the tush from said farmer) half of the scientist. Since the Ripper was never caught, this film has perhaps the obvious outcome, but a certain incident which closes the film, involving Jekyll's morally upright wife (Glynis Barber), helping a church outreaching to prostitutes and the downtrodden, is rather unsettling. This film spends a lot of time, unlike many other versions of the Jekyll/Hyde story, with Hyde instead of Jekyll, but we see, through Perkins, that battle within as the evil side of man's soul begins to control the personality, leaving a decent man adrift as darkness reigns. I guess the filmmakers decided that since Perkins is recognized as the kind of actor known for primarily showing the darker side of man's character, we should spend a great length with a really disturbing individual largely guided by a carnal incident from his childhood. The horror on Jekyll's face as that childhood memory emerges and Hyde is seeping into life, Perkins shows us a man run amok by dark forces he cannot control. To be honest, I can't imagine that many people finding this an experience worth taking, but I did think Perkins does an incredible job conveying pure evil, a true madman in search of a fresh victim worthy of destruction. The evocation of Period London (both the Victorian and especially the red light district of White Chapel where Madam Flora(Jill Melford) has a colorful house of ill repute) is affectively brought to life and director Gérard Kikoïne incorporates a visual style that allows madness to hit us right in the chops. Is this movie fun? Umm, not really. Is it good at what it does? If you mean, bringing to us a maniac on the loose in London slashing the throats of prostitutes after a few minutes of warped carnal activity (like Hyde masturbating a slut, on the roof top of a boardinghouse, with his cane as an apartment dweller looks on from his room, or slapping the ass of a tramp, putting her up against a wall on his knees, his face pressed up to his crotch, praying to God), then, yea, I think that is done with skill and ability. Included as a primary plot device is a prostitute in Madam Flora's den of hedonism, named Suzanna (Sarah Mahr Thorp), who looks exactly like the barn whore that haunts his nightmares, laughing and teasing. There's lots of that sort of thing: mocking and laughing, a tormented Jekyll unable to be separate from the woman that has continued to torture him, often in the guise of other women, remaining ever-present in the good doctor's fractured psyche.

preppy-3 In Victorian London Anthony Perkins plays shy but brilliant Dr. Henry Jekyll. He has a loving wife (Glynis Barber), a beautiful home and is a respected man. One night he accidentally ingests some vapors from alcohol mixed with cocaine and becomes evil, vicious, sex-obsessed Mr. Hyde. Also around this time Jack the Ripper is killing prostitutes. Is it Perkins...or someone else?This came and went VERY quickly in 1988. It was cut to ribbons by the MPAA and the critics called it a sick, unpleasant piece of trash with Perkins at his worst. While I agree it's no classic it's not the disaster I heard it was.It's a very sleazy movie and makes no apologies for it (which is sort of refreshing). It's full of female nudity and even full frontal male (which was cut out of the R rated version). It is unpleasant with graphic stabbings but it's shot on elaborate, beautiful, expressionistic (check out Perkins' lab) sets. It's obvious a lot of money went into this. The script is also quite interesting getting into Jekyll's mind about what's going on.Good acting all around helps. Ben Cole (looking like he came from "A Clockwork Orange") plays a male prostitute and is good. Barber is excellent as Jekyll's wife. All the ladies playing prostitutes are actually pretty good actresses--they're beautiful and have no trouble taking off their clothes. However Perkins holds this movie together. He does overact as Hyde but in a good way. When he's on screen you can't take your eyes off him.The MGM DVD released a few years ago is the unrated version, not the R one as is advertised---not that I'm complaining. So it is graphic and unpleasant but also very interesting and well-made. Worth seeing if you're not easily offended. A 7.

KGB-Greece-Patras To be honest, I have never seen or read the original story. Maybe this is a good thing, I don't know. As far as I can understand it gets the basic idea and only harshly does it re-make previous versions. Performances and film pace is overall OK. No stupid subplots and all, even some smiles raise from time to time. Due to some erotic scenes involving prostitutes, it can easily be characterized sexploitation, and as far as erotic stimulation is concerned, it scores quite high. Moreover having Anthony Perkins starring in it, it could easily be loved by horror completists or cultists. All in all, I had a nice time.