EDGE OF SANITY

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde meets Jack the Ripper with Anthony Perkins

In London, 1888, Dr. Jekyll accidently discovers a form of smoking crack in the Victorian Era and thus his bestial alter ego, Mr. Hyde, goes on murderous excursions in the dead of night with oversexed prostitutes being his preferred prey. Glynis Barber is on hand as his beautiful, trusting wife, Elisabeth.

"Edge of Sanity” (1989) is like a Hammer horror flick updated to the late 80s, mixing "The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll" (1960), “Demons of the Mind” (1972) and “The Creeping Flesh” (1973) with “Psycho III” (1986). While it’s superior to “Demons of the Mind,” it’s not quite as good as the other three. You can tell it’s low-budget, but makes up for it with Perkins’ knockout performance and creative artistry in cinematography, lighting, positioning and sets.

Like “The Creeping Flesh” and “Taste the Blood of Dracula” (1970) the movie interestingly explores the contrast of legalism with its counterpart libertinism. Society and religion enact laws that restrain the beast within, which makes everything good on the surface but, underneath, there’s a licentious monster wanting to get out.

The production doesn’t hold back with its depictions of the sadistic and debauched. As such, there’s an excess of sordidness and quite a bit of gore, which is apropos for Mr. Hyde and Jack the Ripper. So this is a very hard R-rated production. If you’re in the mood for a Victorian milieu, black coats, cobblestone streets, alluring women, a ghastly killer and lush colors, “Edge of Sanity” should fill the bill. It’s the precursor to “From Hell” (2001) a dozen years prior, just on a lower budget.

The film runs 1 hour, 30 minutes, and was shot in Budapest, Hungary, with 2nd unit work done in London.

GRADE: B-

"Edge of Sanity" often features scenes of sordid debauchery - Jekyll's amoral sexual attitudes stem from his childhood experiences, according to this film - which frequently run the risk of going too far in a film that quite frankly uses the extraordinarily imaginative and highly influencial central idea from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel as nothing more than a loosely presented excuse for all the sexual shenanigans that are going on. The results are of extremely limited consequence and it is obvious the film makers didn't really have much money to work with because Jekyll simply resembles Iggy Pop on this occasion instead of transforming into an entirely different person. The unfortunate reality is that this film unquestionably had the potential of being so much more than it actually is.