6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Dr. Henry Jekyll is a bookish scientist who spends more time with his lab animals testing theories of alternate personalities than with his beautiful wife. Kitty Jekyll has given up trying to find any passion in her distant husband and is involved in an affair with one of Jekyll's old 'friends', Paul Allen, a weak slacker and wastrel who relies on Jekyll to pay his numerous gambling debts. After experimenting on himself, Jekyll transforms himself into the young, dynamic and self-confidant Edward Hyde. In his new character he befriends Allen, who has no idea of that this clean-cut, handsome playboy prone to outbursts of violence is really Jekyll. As Hyde, he encourages Allen to introduce him to the dark underbelly of London's night life. When he tries to seduce Allen's mistress, in reality his own wife, he is frustrated to find she prefers her decadent lover to him...
Starring: Paul Massie, Dawn Addams, Christopher Lee, David Kossoff, Norma MarlaHorror | 100% |
Drama | 3% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Romance | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 2.5 | |
Audio | 2.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Note: Mill Creek has released 'The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll' as part of a twenty film Hammer Horror collection and shares a disc with These are the Damned. The film was previously released in a two pack. This version features slightly different video
and
a new lossless soundtrack.
The place: London. The year: 1874. Dr. Henry Jekyll (Paul Massie) is a scientist obsessed with understanding man's inherent duality. He believes
that in every human "two forces struggle for supremacy." He's so engrossed in his work that he's come to distance himself from his wife Kitty
(Dawn
Addams) who has taken to having an affair with her husband's friend Paul (Christopher Lee). Jekyll cannot concern himself with such things. He's
close to a breakthrough, and against the better advice of his colleague Ernst Littauer (David Kossoff), he injects himself with a compound of his own
making that transformers him into "Mr. Hyde" (also played by Paul Massie) who meddles in Jekyll's affairs.
There appears to be little change between this version and that which Mill Creek put to market in 2016. Direct comparisons reveal a slightly altered color temperature on this new release, looking like tones are slightly deeper and contrast adjust upward ever so slightly. The master appears to be same; the picture retains the same source elements. Please click here for a full review, but do keep in mind the slightly different color timing.
For its inclusion in the Hammer Ultimate Collection, Mill Creek has tuned the soundtrack to the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 encode, upgrading from the previous release's Dolby Digital 2.0 lossy presentation. As with the other films in this set which have been similarly upgraded, there's not a monumental sense of improvement but rather a series of subtle fine tuning that probably only the most ardent audiophile is even going to notice. Music is slightly fuller and the larger sound design a hint more inviting and detailed. The tracks share the same channel configuration and the same spatial limitations but seem to make slightly better use of the fronts, offering a decently expansive musical landscape and, while score certainly never reaches the peak of fidelity perfection, offers a solid foundational detail within the mildly scratchy elements. A slight hiss remains under much of the content as well. Dialogue doesn't image perfectly to the center but doesn't drift too far away, either. Even as it's been upgraded to lossless, the original elements continue to struggle to offer the richness and lifelike clarity superior tracks enjoy.
As with the previous Mill Creek release, this version of The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll contains no supplemental content.
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll is a bizarre adaptation of the classic story. It's decent, if only because it's different, entertainment. It captures the core essence of the original tale well enough but is otherwise a fairly disparate entity and a disposable film. Mill Creek's featureless Blu-ray boasts decent 1080p video and, for this release, boosts audio to a lossless two-channel configuration. Rent it.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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