EDGE
OF SANITY (1989)Director: Gerard Kikone
MGM Home Entertainment
EDGE
OF SANITY (1989)This unusual take on the Jekyll and Hyde mythos was shot in Hungary with a British cast and starred Anthony Perkins in one of his final roles (he even at times seems to exhibit the facial wasting so commonly associate
d with AIDS). Produced by the
legendary Harry Alan Towers, co-writer J.P. Felix is actually Jess Franco using
a pseudonym. 
The film commences with Dr. Jekyll as a young boy observing the sex act which traumatizes him and makes him impotent the rest of his life. As an adult he runs a clinic and dispenses cocaine to his patients and administers it to himself as well. A caged monkey in his laboratory gets mighty frisky on some terrific toot and goes totally apeshit, knocking over some clear chemical that mixes with a bowl filled with the Wonderful White that turns into massive vapors of the drug. The billows that permeate the lab are thoroughly inhaled by our good doctor who transforms, with a minimum of makeup, into a raving, raging madman. Unsettling in the extreme, Perkins visage is frightening as hell as he looks up from the vapors.
Jekyll
becomes Jack Hyde during this first transformation in which he attempts to go
on a sexfest through London's underground world of male and female prostitutes.
The memory of his childhood trauma continues to haunt him, giving him reason
to destroy the objects of his carnal desires.
The Jekyll/Hyde story has been
filmed so many times before that this fails to chart much new ground. The cinematography
by Tony Spratling is outstanding and the locales and art direction are quite
nice. The cast is uniformly good as one would expect from the Brits.
The outstanding feature in this
opus is the genuinely creepy performance given by Anthony Perkins. One can only
imagine the tremendous effort it must have been for him to appear in this as
the final stages of his disease were upon him. He was certainly one of the finest
American actors ever, not only for his bravura, unforgettable essay into madness
as Norman Bates. As the film progresses he becomes whiter in appearance and
more cadaverous with every scene. Some consider his performance campy and trashy
but this reviewer loves it and isn't afraid to say so. EDGE OF SANITY is a bit
of Ken Russell's CRIMES OF PASSION mixed in 
with
the Robert Louis Stevenson story.
This hybrid tale of Jekyll & Hyde meets Jack the Ripper is also available in two versions on the same disc. On one side we are treated to the uncut, 1.85:1 widescreen version of the film (enhanced 16x9) and clocks in at 91 minutes. The other side is standard format modified to fit all other TV screens. Included is the theatrical trailer. EDGE OF SANITY is also subtitled in French and Spanish. Forget the novella and temporarily suspend your belief to see Tony Perkins in rare form at the end of his life.
Once more, not a groundbreaker but definitely a guilty pleasure! (Christopher Dietrich)