Trailer—Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype

it's obviously not supposed to be "great" movie, but for the hilarious horror/comedy it is, one would take this as it is. a breath of fresh air for the over bloated 70s/80s horror movie market. it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it shouldn't have to. viewing this ridiculous movie for what it is, it is a beautiful depiction of a shitty movie made enjoyable through writing and acting. oliver reed does a magnificent job playing both lead roles, even while switching between the two. looking for a well written movie with unexpected plot twists, it is obviously not going to rate very well. it was 1980, why would you make a super deep movie with every opportunity for criticism? while writing this i would obviously assume it's not to be under the scrutiny of every movie buff this side of the Mississippi. take it for what it is, a ridiculous horror movie with a brand new twist on the old, often retold, story of the doctor that creates more than what he meant to create. great for what it is, and hardly a moment wasted. 8 thumbs up.

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.

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.

Oliver Reed plays an ugly (almost monster like) foot doctor who turns into a handsome from a formula created by a fellow scientist (mel welles), but with violent reaction. Lots of funny moments and well-written film that should've been a cult classic. Lots of great supporting stars (which features most of the cast from Griffith's UP FROM THE DEPTH and LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS), but character actor Dick Miller steals the scenes as a garbage man who talks to himself (Miller told me Jonathan Haze was supposed to be the other garbage man, but couldn't do it, so Dick had to play other roles like a schizo!). I was surprised Reed did this film at the time, and he did a performance that most people would've never thought he could do. Maybe if this film was released bigger, more people would've saw Reed can do comedy. Recommended.

Looking like something that the bat threw up, veteran character Oliver Reed guess one of the worst and unfunniest performance of the 1980's. In fact, had it not been for the 1982 bomb horror comedy "Jekyll and Hyde Together Again", read might have actually been at the top of the worst. This has one Saving Grace over that one. This one directly to cable TV rather than getting a theatrical release, while the other one was fully released where it was born and promptly croaked. I guess Cannon films in one of their earliest efforts realized they couldn't get away with something this bad, and why start your run out of "Hollywood's Gate" with something this hideous. While Reed is a good dramatic actor, when he's doing drama, when he has been in the occasional comedy, t's worked because he wasn't trying to be funny, and here he tries too hard, bombing faster than the conclusion of "Dr. Strangelove". A physically deformed physician at a rather wacky medical facility, Reed a patient's who aren't actually looking at him when they go into the office and scream in horror when they finally look up and see him. The other doctor in the facility treats heavyset women with a procedure that makes them lose weight immediately, but they walk out of the office with lemon puckered lips. Reed is experimenting with drugs to change his appearance, and when he succeeds, he turns into a handsome but murderous buffoon who accidentally kills the women he's trying to lose his virginity with. That results a bunch of unfunny slapstick scenes where all the women die in cartoonish ways. His efforts to pick them up make him look even more like a lunatic than before. This is a type of film where the audience asks, "Is this for real?" I sat there like the audience in "The Producers" with my mouth agape, stunned that anybody who had seen any of the Mel Brooks parodies could even think this was remotely funny. The ensemble is collectively wretched, and the script is up there with "Slapstick of Another Kind" as one of the worst of the 80's. Good comedy certainly isn't hard because a lot of it is rotten. The only hype I can recommend about this is that audiences who dare to even make an effort to watch this will be running out of there faster than the guy whose feet Dr. Hype wants to cut off.

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.

I've loved the many versions of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde made over the years, but this one is not one of them. Oliver Reed must have ran out of money to pay either his bar bill or alimony, to have done this piece of garbage. Everything is bad in this waste...the acting, the makeup and....well I don't even think you can call the script, writing. Yes, it is supposed to be a spoof, but it lacks any attempt at being clever or funny. Don't waste your time. I turned if off after the first 35 min and only lasted that long to see if it might turn around.

I'm amazed that this movie was ever made and NOT surprised that it wasn't made my any of the big studios -- they're simply too stupid to understand or appreciate it. Everything about this film defies convention, in a smart, funny and effective way. The people who disapprove of this movie are likely the very people whom it is satirizing. The editing, directing, acting and sound editing are marvelous and refreshing. The dialogue is wonderfully acerbic and sarcastic. I only wish I could find in on DVD. As is, the only copy I have is a VHS taped from commercial TV. If you get the chance to to see it, by all means do. It's a rare pleasure. UPDATE: Thanks to modern technology, I have now burned my VHS copy to DVD for preservation. As of February, 2006, the film is STILL NOT AVAILABLE anywhere. The viewer who wrote that he saw it on late night TV with Elvira is correct -- that's the copy of the screening I have, complete with her interspersed comments (and cleavage).