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.

One of the brightest directorial talents in French fornication films, Gérard Kikoïne all but disowned his "shameful" past – encompassing such genre classics as ENTRECHATTES, CHAUDES ADOLESCENTES and BOURGEOISE ET…PUTE! – when introduced to the comparative glamor of globe-trotting producer Harry Alan Towers whose dedication to the cinematic adaptation of erotic literature since the '60s (with particular attention paid to the writings of the Marquis De Sade, along with Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu and Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray, of which he commissioned several randy revisions) had him consort with trash flick royalty like Jess Franco, Massimo Dallamano and the late Joe D'Amato. Having had a taste of the life outside the ever restricting confines of carnal cinema when Towers funded his coy but cute LADY LIBERTINE, adapting anonymously penned erotic novella Frank and I, Kikoïne was to burn his bridges with the intimate industry soon after, perhaps not the wisest of choices from a quality point of view, his latter-day filmography including underwhelming straight to cable fare as the ludicrous bodice ripper MASTER OF DRAGONARD HILL and the phony Poe adaptation BURIED ALIVE, the latter somewhat ironically featuring American porno princess Ginger Lynn (Allen) in a similar attempt to "go straight".Arguably the best of a sorry lot, EDGE OF SANITY proves a confusing rendition – bearing the imprint of no less than three screenwriters, rarely a good sign – of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, offering up the dubious theory that the (fictitious) good doctor's dark side and the (historical, though shrouded in larger than life myth) figure of Jack the Ripper might be one and the same. Be that as it may, the good news is that Kikoïne plays fast 'n' loose with this unnecessarily muddled narrative, largely reducing it to the framework for a multitude of cinematic references and outrageously baroque erotic tableaux, occasionally elevating its undeniably kitsch components to sublime status through sheer force of will and characteristic daredevil effrontery. One wonders whether the late Anthony Perkins had an inkling what sheer lunacy he had signed himself up for, though his previous turn in Ken Russell's equally outlandish CRIMES OF PASSION should have prepared him for just about anything. Not that there's much competition, mind you, but his over the top thesping in the classic dual role provides the movie's acting highlight, at least in a car crash sort of way. Playing things relatively straight as the earnest medic, exploring the possibilities of cocaine as an anesthetic, he cuts loose spectacularly once said experiments go awry and his suppressed alter ego rises to the occasion, with make-up and lighting subtly recalling Conrad Veidt in Robert Wiene's CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. Unbeknownst to loving wife Elisabeth (Glynis Barber, who will be forever remembered as TV's Harriet Makepeace, doing what she can in a traditionally thankless role), Doc goes out and literally paints the town red with the blood of prostitutes, making himself known to them as "Jack Hyde" moments before slitting their throats. Lured to the plush brothel of Madam Flora (veteran actress Jill Melford from John Dexter's way ahead of its time sex change drama I WANT WHAT I WANT with Anne Heywood) by the sexually ambiguous Johnny (Ben Cole, also in HOWLING V : THE REBIRTH, one of the most useless sequels ever), Hyde falls hard for sultry strumpet Susannah (alluring Sarah Maur Thorp, who was in the Towers-funded Agatha Christie adaptation TEN LITTLE INDIANS by Alan Birkinshaw) who showed up battered 'n' bruised at the doctor's office earlier and unwittingly triggered a traumatic childhood memory, which the writers predictably enough attempt to pass off as motive.The film's overriding style is that of late '60s/early '70s Hammer, meaning lots of velvety scarlet set off by sparkling gold in the color scheme whenever the naughty stuff's about to start. DoP Tony Spratling – who shot Gerry O'Hara's surprisingly effective FANNY HILL as well as Basil Dearden's massively underrated MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF with a career performance by Roger Moore – has a field day in those eye-popping sequences, employing Kikoïne's trademark wide angle lenses to emphasize the distortion taking place within the doc's mind. Another Hammer trademark carried over, unfortunately, is the dreary dullness of its police procedures. A CARRY ON veteran, frequently cast as constable, late character actor David Lodge is stuck asking questions the audience has just seen the answer to as chief of police Underwood, given zero opportunity to shine next to Perkins' feverish scenery chewing. Thanks for the mammaries then ! Barber keeps 'em buttoned up, though she enthusiastically whipped them out in Michael Winner's priceless WICKED LADY. Still, lots of lesser lasses gamely bare all for their art. One indelible set piece has bleached blond Carolyn Cortez (who had a bit part in Alejandro Jodorowsky's characteristically mind-boggling RAINBOW THIEF) lured to a hotel roof where Hyde lewdly has her displaying her wares for a timid peeping tom's benefit. Look for Canadian cutie Claudia Udy (hey, it rhymes !), who was the star of Sergio Bergonzelli's exotic post card porn JOY half a decade prior, as one of the fallen women seeking sanctuary from the ripper's rampage at the local church. French composer Frédéric Talgorn, recently responsible for the sterling soundtrack to Jean-François Davy's return to respectability LES AIGUILLES ROUGES, crafted a score that's suitable opulent and ominous in keeping with the film's general mood of decadent dementia.

This is the nth variation on the Jekyll/Hyde perennial that I've watched – it's not among the better versions, but nor is it quite as bad as its maligned reputation would suggest! An unhinged Anthony Perkins (joining a distinguished roster of actors to tackle the dual role) is always worth watching: his disruption of a society dinner is quietly effective – as Dr. Jekyll expounds on his theory about the power inherent in a personality unbound by laws and traditions, and of its imminent emergence. The Hyde make-up does not extend to much other than making Perkins look somewhat younger, rather effeminate and vaguely sinister. The overall look of the film, retaining the period setting of Stevenson's original novel, is fairly pleasing – within the limitations of its budget and the exploitation angle it clearly aims for (what with the presence of blood and sleaze galore).Unsurprisingly, the narrative attaches a mother/whore complex to the main character – not to mention the fact that Perkins' Hyde adopts the characteristics one usually associates with Jack The Ripper (following in the footsteps of Hammer's DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE [1971])! By the way, the film was co-produced by Harry Alan Towers – with his wife/former starlet Maria Rohm credited as Associate Producer! I have still another version to check out – the recent 2002 production released on DVD (as a SE no less!) by Alpha, and may even get to MARY REILLY (1996) before the month is out...

We begin with Dr. Henry Jekyll (Anthony Perkins) waking up from a nightmare he has just had. In which as a young boy he witnesses a couple rolling around in a barn and having sex and when found the man pulling his trousers down and whipping his backside while the woman, now topless of course, just sits there and laughs, given this opening sequence I should have guessed I was in for a long 90 odd minutes. Jekyll works for the local hospital. While conducting experiments in his lab at his house a caged monkey knocks over some chemicals which mix together and create some fumes. Jekyll, while trying to clean the spill up, inhales the fumes. He instantly turns into Jack Hyde. He heads straight for the back streets of a Victorian Whitecapel in search of prostitutes. There he meets a man called Johnny (Ben Cole) who takes Hyde to a upper class brothel run by Madame Flora (Jill Melford). He becomes obsessed with a prostitute who works there named Susannah (Sarah Maur Thorpe) as she looks exactly like the woman from the opening scene. He also picks various prostitutes up from the backstreet's of London and murders them, he also constantly takes cocaine through a special pipe. When the police, Inspector Newcomen (Ray Jewers) find one of these pipes at a murder scene, and since the victim was killed with a scalpel and therefore probably by someone with a medical background it leads them to Jekyll. Jekyll's wife Elizabeth (Glynis Barber) also becomes suspicious of him as he stays out all night, when she confronts him he says he is working late at the hospital with a special patient called Mr Hyde, while at the hospital herself one night she asks to see Jekyll but is told that he doesn't work nights at all. Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde plunge even deeper into the seedy world of drugs and prostitution, but as the net begins to close on him he becomes more and more desperate to protect his identity, and carry on his reign of debauchery and murder.Directed by Gerard Kikoine this is an extremely bad film that tries to combine both Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with the real life case of Jack the Ripper, a notorious murderer of prostitutes in Victorian London. First the good points. Technically the film is fairly impressive, nice authentic looking Victorian locations, even thought he film was shot at least in part in Hungary. The sets, elaborate Victorian costumes and production design credited to Jean Charles Dedieu are also similarly impressive, Edge of Sanity is certainly a good looking film. The lighting and colour schemes look wonderful with lots of neon blues, reds, oranges to contrast against the dark browns and pitch blacks, the recently released DVD by MGM looks absolutely fantastic and the film looks sumptuous. Photography, editing and music are all very professional and give the film a very polished look about it. There is a lot of nudity, sex, perversion and some gore as well. Now for the bad points. The acting, and in particular by Perkins is laughably awful just check out his ridiculous looking make up and some of the bizarre faces he pulls, everyone is more or less just terrible. The plot, there isn't one really. Perkins turns into Hyde and goes around picking prostitutes up and end up killing them. The script by J.P. Felix, Ron Raley and Edward Simons badly under develops all of the characters, except Jekyll. The prostitutes are there merely to be used and abused, the police are there just to clean up after Jekyll and his wife is there for no good reason that I could think of. Why do these stupid prostitutes keep going off with the whacked out, doped up Jekyll on their own when it's been in all the papers that there's a maniac running around cutting up girls with a scalpel? And considering their lowly Victorian prostitutes they dress very well! There's plenty of sleaze in here as well like a scene where Jekyll commands a prostitute to masturbate his walking cane, drugged up orgies, rape, S&M, sex plus countless exposed breasts and naked flesh, including full frontal male and female nudity. After this film had finished I asked myself how could a film that looked so good, had so much sleaze, violence, sex and nudity turn out so bad? I decided that I didn't really know but I know some people who do, namely the talentless hacks who made this film. Definitely one to avoid.