The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne is a 1981 French and West German film with Udo Kier. It's was called Docteur Jekyll et les femmes by the producers and Blood Of Dr Jekyll in it's US release. Walerian Borowczyk is the writer and director of this odd little adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I didn't know anything about Borowczyk but a film critic called him a "genius who also happened to be a pornographer" and Terry Gilliam said his short animation Jeux des anges 1964 was one of the ten best animated films of all time. I saw that short and there's no way I would put it in any ten best films list.
Guests arrive at the engagement party for Dr Jekyll and his lovely fiancé Miss Fanny Osbourne.
"Fanny Osbourne" was the name of Robert Louis Stevenson's real life fiancée , who was so shocked by his original draft of The Strange Case of Doctor Jeckyl and Mr Hyde that Stevenson threw the manuscript into the fire and wrote a completely different story. - Wikipedia.
After the party had been going along one of the guests, a young woman is raped and murdered. More deaths follow as the Doc keeps unleashing Edward Hyde. He uses a special powder in a bath to transform. He needs a second powder to drink to reverse the transformation. Hyde kills pretty much everyone at the party and then transforms back with the special powder. His fiancé takes the powder even though there's not an antidote. Jekyll joins her in monster town and they run off, humping happily, in a hansom cab.
It's an odd little film with a cruel vicious Hyde who has a giant plastic penis he keeps using to rape people to death with, gender is no issue, he rapes men, women and children with glee. Not a film that I would need to see again but it was interesting enough to sit through once. It's unpleasant but not Salo: 20 Days of Sodom unpleasant. Reminds me there are other better films to watch. Joe said he would be sure to like our second feature more than the first.
I know I liked Nightbreed The Director's Cut better than our first feature. It was recently restored for a Scream Factory release last fall. The original movie is from 1990 but I didn't see it until the following year. The movie is based on the short story by Clive Barker who's the writer and director. The original release didn't sit well with the producers and they had it changed, Barker has always wanted his first cut to be seen but the studio didn't want to spend any money on it. Here's some back story on the changes from the Wikipedia.
The Cabal Cut
In 2009, Mark Miller, co-head of Barker's production company, Seraphim Films, helped track down the missing footage that was cut out of the director's cut of Nightbreed.Miller discovered, after talking to a production executive at the studio, that the footage was never actually lost but readily accessible. When asked, a studio executive said that there was not a big enough audience to warrant the studio spending money on a new, extended cut of the film. A VHS copy of Barker's 145-minute version of the film's mid-1989 workprint was discovered. It did not feature any of the re-shoots of Decker's murders. An extended 159-minute cut version, from another VHS found in July 2009, was premiered on March 27, 2010 as part of the HorrorHound Weekend in Indianapolis. This new version adds almost a whole hour that was cut from the theatrical release, including a musical score and more animation. In an interview, Barker said that he hopes to bring back Danny Elfman "and give us just a little bit of extra music for it."
In early 2012, Russell Cherrington, a senior lecturer in film and video production at the University of Derby, created a composite cut of the film using the footage found on both VHS tapes as well as a DVD then recently released by Warner Archive Collection, Warner's made-to-order DVD service. This version is the most complete version of Barker's film available and has been dubbed The Cabal Cut. The cut runs 155 minutes long and was shown at that year's "Mad Monster Party" in North Carolina with actors Craig Sheffer and Anne Bobby attending.
The "Mad Monster Party" projection of the Cabal Cut led to a renewal of interest among fans, especially on the Internet. A new petition was created and social networks were used to raise awareness for the extended cut and to encourage producers to release it. This would be colloquially known as "Occupy Midian", a term coined by actress Anne Bobby.
Shout! Factory restoration
On July 19, 2013, Barker announced via his official Facebook account that The Cabal Cut would be released on DVD by Shout! Factory through its horror dedicated label Scream Factory. This was confirmed during a Scream Factory panel at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con, a deal finalized by President David Robinson at Morgan Creek and Executive Producer Michael Plumides, just minutes before the announcement. It was later confirmed to be a brand new director's cut that uses the footage and not the full Cabal Cut.
Shout! Factory announced The Director's Cut Blu-ray in July 2014, with details following in September, with a release date for October 28, 2014. This version, overseen by Clive Barker, will run twenty minutes longer than the theatrical version and contain forty minutes of new and altered footage. Shout, with Warner Home Video, were able to locate the original film elements in the Warner archives to newly restore the sequences. Barker stated, "when Scream Factory told me that they found the Nightbreed film footage, I was gob-smacked! This is the ultimate validation of choices made by myself and Mark Miller all the way back in 2008." Shout announced a Special Edition Blu-ray / DVD combo pack and a 3-disc Limited Edition Blu-ray, containing a booklet and the theatrical cut. The Limited Edition almost quickly sold out of its initial 5,000 units when pre-orders began for it, Shout ordered another 5,000 units for popular demand. This director's cut is available on Netflix Instant Streaming.
I hadn't seen the original for a while, I did buy the DVD when it got cheap, that was a few years ago. I liked the old version well enough and thought the new version was a step up in story telling. There's more to the story and it makes a bit more sense, there's more David Cronenberg as the evil psychotherapist, there's a music number that might have been better cut and there's a couple of short animated bits that were interesting.
The story is about a guy, Craig Sheffer, who has some bad dreams of a place called Midian which is the home of monsters. He's been seeing that evil psychotherapist who's played by David Cronenberg. Craig's dating a gal named Lori, played by Anne Bobby, who sings in a bar. The Doctor tells Craig he's killed people but Craig can't remember any of it. The Doc is really the one who's done all the killing. He wears a mask while he does his dirty business. Craig gets tossed in jail where he meets a man who mentions Midian. They escape and head to the town. Midian turns out to be a cemetery in the middle of nowhere. They meet some of the monsters and Craig gets bit by one. The Doc is following with the police and he tricks them into thinking Craig's got a gun. The police act like they do and Craig gets tossed into the morgue. He revives and returns to Midian. We learn more and he's inducted into the group. The Doc follows with a gang of thugs and cops. There's a bit of a battle, lots die, and things get sorted out somewhat. It looks like there could be a sequel but it's unlikely that there will be one at this late date. I enjoyed the movie and the 120 minute running time didn't seem overly long. I'll probably want to see this again.
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