Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death

Trailer—Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death

source: Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death

Judging from the other reviews, mine is the first for the new Bluray restoration. And what a restoration it is.. the film looks absolutely stunning in its sinister, dimly lit glory. The cinematographer wisely chose to film with a dark lighting, which makes the image appear as a moving Baroque painting, the primary color being blood red, which looks stunning against the blackness. I'm sure that a movie like this must have looked awful on VHS and unrestored DVD versions. Fans of the cult TV horror/soap opera "Dark Shadows" might be the correct audience for " Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon" , as this is unapologetically Gothic and overwrought drama. The idea of combining the then-popular martial arts genre with a Gothic period horror film has never been done before, and the result is truly bizarre. The kidnapped victims that are injected with the rage inducing serum, are forced to fight to the death in a bleak, nightmarish looking dungeon that resembles the torture room in David Cronenberg's "Videodrome, " and these scenes provide the grim action and violence of this sadistic tale of tortured madness and family dysfunction. Filming the entire production inside the huge mansion doesn't hurt the film, as the house is beautiful and poetically spooky. Themes of incest and the pain of unrequited love are examined in ferocious detail, and the highly stylized overly dramatic acting brings to mind the 1930s horror classics. The low rating of this unknown gem is wildly inaccurate and I can only assume it's largely due to the poor quality of earlier video transfers. There is a very specific audience for this bizarre film and it looks like that audience has yet to discover it. If nothing else, see this on Bluray for the aesthetic beauty alone, which is a quality that can't be denied. I absolutely loved this movie. Also recommended is the 70s film "Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne" with Udo Kier, and directed by Poland's premier Surrealist Walarian Boroswyck. That film is very similar in style to this one and most likely was an inspiration for this unique horror film, even borrowing music cues from that European version. In fact I'm guessing fans of Euro cinema might particularly appreciate this one of a kind film..

Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death is a very creepy, even deranged low-budget horror, filmed on minimal, blacked-out sets, and often looks like a stage reproduction of Pat Boyette's remarkable Dungeons of Harrow. The lurid screenplay also shares that film's love for florid dialogue and stiff, ham-style acting. Although the setting is ostensibly modern, the production has an avowedly anachronistic feel to it, as if it is taking place in some sort of cinematic purgatory for lost souls. All of the performers look like refugees from either kung fu or porno films. There are some violent and almost sensual battles between the doctors unlucky test cases. James Mathers is great as the ham-salad Demento Doctor, a bona fide weirdo; his nefarious experiments illuminate the motivations of rage, pitting one desperado against another, unto death. A very dark and primitive treatise on madness, with an odd, sensual choreography of souls, each dancing to another's will. A meandering, consciously redundant editorial structure reflects this dead space as a morbid, claustrophobic prison for both character and audience alike, in essence a stark depiction of existential alienation. Most interesting.

The famous mad doctor's nth-great-grandson carries on the family tradition by developing a serum which transforms those under it's influence into unstoppable karate-chopping killing machines. By and by, the doctor is visited by an old colleague who is unaware that his own daughter is being subdued in a room just arm's length away, kept as a sedated slave for the Doctor's cruel desires(he also frequently tortures his half-wit assistant and tragic lobotomized sister). This mercilessly unprofessional travesty seems to be filmed around footage of some sort of martial arts competition, and the dire results are mind-bending. Surely one of the worst horror films of the 70s...if you have cultivated a taste for uniquely terrible cinema, then you might find this an especially scrumptious morsel. 3/10

It be easier to save the U.S repo market than it would this dear reader's time by classifying what is truly the unclassifiable. Yep, i'm gonna have to chalk this one up to being an experience, one that will shock and stupefy even the most jaded of us. This slice of Californian carnage was shot by three time only po-no director James Wood (this being his only non X rated credit) and written by, as well as starring (most likely directed by as well) San Francisco playwright/TV actor James Mathers. However, it should be noted that Wood also is down as producer, cinematographer and editor, so it wasn't a complete vanity project on Mathers' part. Doesn't cancel the fact that much like Andy Milligan did with The Man With Two Heads, Mathers exorcises some real broken brain s**t through the framework of the Louis Stevenson novel by constructing a near formless, brooding screenplay that plays out like a 1930's Todd Slaughter melodrama scribed by a meth addict. Camp and malice collide in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable in a way i'd never thought i'd enjoy. I find myself complaining so much about films not landing their tone right or, in more lazier examples, applying several, in the vein hope of steam cleaning critical thought off of an audience's brain. Yet, Dungeon of Death marries a jelly/peanut butter pairing that will repulse some, and entrance others. It's an oppressive atmosphere that rivals the most intense offerings from the decade and is emblematic of the hysterical cruelty and cynical angst only found partnered in the late 70's/early 80's period of exploitation cinema, the most gonzo period, as well as being my favourite. I found the re-working of the novel to be strange, as well as strangely elaborate. This Jekyll's backstory is gone into great detail and it's riveting pulp, regardless of it's economic value. Mathers obviously put effort into this, and the trademarks of a playwright are peppered throughout the film. List? How about extensive dialogue concerning off-screen action, a bit of the old improv from time to time, playing it all the way up to the cheap seats?! All of that wonderful theatrical nonsense. You get it here. There is no nudity at all in this, despite a hell of a lot of sexual threat. The gore is minimal, with the violence mostly taking the form of Jekyll abusing his disabled entourage, presented with disturbing intensity. It feels like a rip off. You expect something more wet from a title like this film possesses. However, still a horror film. Still very horrific in feeling. I can't overstate how constantly oppressive the atmosphere is at times, like some inverted home invasion thriller. God, it's so weird. Not many films are like this, with it's eclectic score, overacting and strange lighting choices. I haven't even got to the kung fu yet, but i'll leave that for you to find out. I'll conclude by saying that Dungeon of Death has no right to be the powerful horror film experience that it is. But it is. It's commitment to cruelty and amateur theatre, as well as having one of the greatest one sheets for an exploitation film i have ever seen, make it a hidden horror gem that is near indescribable. Which is indeed a beauty all to itself.

My review was written in February 1982 after a Times Square screening: Filmed in 1978, "Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death is a very strange takeoff on the Robert Louis Stevenson story, combining martial arts action with mad scientist and bondage motifs. Commercial prospects seem limited for this odd cheapie. Set in San Francisco (no exteriors are used, however) arbitrarily in 1959, pic limns the demented behavior of the original Dr. Jekyll's grandson, portrayed by screenwriter James Mathers, with much eyebrow raising and eye-popping. He's experimenting with a serum for mind-control, worked on by his ancestor and later by Nazi scientists. Oddity is film has no Mr. Hyde character and hence no transformations from Jekyll to Hyde, probably a first among the dozens of screen versions of the tale. Instead, Jekyll injects criminals (of both sexes and various races) with the serum, staging lengthy one on one kung fu fights in his basement between the "maddened" patients. Helmer James Wood displays an unhealthy preoccupation with on-camera injections and stages the kung fu material listlessly with cheap direct-sound recording coming off more realistically in place of the usual dubbed, noisy sound effects. Despite a blonde in bondage for him to play with, film has no nudity to titillate the fans. Whole cast of corny horror stereotypes self-destructs in a silly, basement killing spree climax. Wood handles most of the pic's tech credits himself, and his lighting is so bad that when the thesps miss their marks they are swallowed up in total darkness.

"Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death" tells the story of the great grandson of Dr Jekyll,who is conducting experiments in his sleazy and grimy dungeon lab.Once these victims are injected with a serum Jekyll has concocted they commence to violent kung-fu fighting and rage of the berserker.Surprisingly nasty and ugly exploitation flick that mixes martial arts cinema with Gothic horror.It's a weird and off-beat combination for sure.There is incest,sadism and rape for any exploitation fans.The film is poorly shot,some scenes are too dark and there is some blatant overacting,but the performances are decent and fights scenes are quite savage and unsettling without being gratuitously gory.6 kung-fu fighters out of 10.

A new category of 'bad'- a movie I could only watch in twenty-minute doses, but had to finish just to see where they ended up with the alleged plot, like watching a bus with no brakes, packed full of orphans, careen down a mountain road to certain doom. As thoroughly wack as a Frederick Hobbs movie, where things happen for no apparent reason and with great intensity, but without Hobbs' technical skill. My GHOD is this thing wrong, on more levels than you've had hot dinners. Oh, sure, there's a plot, some crapola about Dr. Jekyll's grandson inventing a serum that releases people's aggression, but what you see on the screen is an endless parade of dramatically-lit kung-fu matches, community-college-level overacting to no discernible purpose, and the most frightening eye-rolling by a female character outside of Creedence the Druid in Troll 2. What makes less sense than the plot is that somebody wrote large checks to both make this movie and then to obtain the rights to distribute it. What makes even less sense is that it was NOT a career-ender for all involved. The worst offender, James Wood, who wrote/ directed/ produced/ drove the honey wagon, did disappear from the exciting world of cinema entirely, showing that there is perhaps a loving God in heaven. The only cast member with a shred of acting ability, Dawn Carver Kelly (Julia), also took this as her cue to get completely the hell out of the biz. But everyone else went on to other projects; James Mathers, the unwatchably out-of-control Dr. Jekyll, continues to work into the present. Euuuuwwwww. If you believe in the primacy of Art, the perfectability of Man, and the essential order of the Universe, avoid this blazing paper bag of dog dookie as you would a panhandler with a wet, hacking cough.

Never mind calling it a WEIRD film! It's a classic horror tale on drugs! This is certainly the finest example of no-budget filmmaking I've witnessed , as plenty of useless, senseless, but violent kung-fu fighting makes for a real good time! That's most of the fun I had watching this, a movie that knows no bounds when it comes to weirdness: awful acting, bad scripting, and virtually no plot and storyline. It's actually pretty good, that is if you've grown a full appetite of lost and forgotten bad films that millions are missing today.