It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Edge of Sanity (1989) ** 1/2 (out of 4) As a young child, Henry Jekyll was severely beaten by his father after getting caught watching him with a prostitute. Flash forward several decades and Jekyll (Anthony Perkins) is a highly respected doctor who accidentally takes a potion that turns him into a mass murderer.EDGE OF SANTIY is a very flawed movie but at the same time there are a lot of interesting things in it. Director Gerard Kikoine made some adult movies early in his career and he certainly doesn't shy away from the sexuality because that is on 100% blast and especially when you compare it to other horror movies from this era. Obviously you want to watch the unrated version, which clocks in at 90-minutes, a full five-minutes longer than the R-rated version that was shown in American theaters.The film benefits from really taking a perverted spin on the classic Jekyll and Hyde story. Sexuality was always a part of the novel and it came into play for a few of the screen adaptations but never quite like this. There's a lot of kinky sex on display as well as plenty of nudity. You've also got some very graphic murders, which were obviously a nod to the Jack the Ripper killings. Many of the prostitutes here are slashed up very brutally so this movie certainly scores in regards to its adult nature.Of course, the greatest thing going for the movie is the performance of Perkins. As Norman Bates proved, the actor could play various ranges and I thought he was perfect here. He's certainly believable as the kind doctor but he also brings a certain coldness to the role of the killer. The supporting cast are good as well. As I said, there are some flaws including the pacing of the picture and the fact that there's really no story at all. Everything is just set up to get to the next nude woman and next killing.EDGE OF SANITY might not be a complete success but it's European feel and its willingness to show skin and violence makes it worth watching.

Anthony Perkins plays Dr. Jekyll who after a lab incident caused by his guinea monkey turns him into the sinister Mr. Hyde. Soon the bodies start popping up all over London.The story is well known, but we get a little twist here. The twist being that Mr. Hyde is actually Jack the Ripper. I really liked the fusing of these two stories. It gave the film another dimension to it. Edge of Sanity is a surprisingly sleazy film too, thank goodness. One J.P. Félix is one of the two writers credited with the screenplay. This Félix is apparently actually one of smut peddler Jess Franco's many pseudonyms. It's hardly surprising then that we get regular doses of nudity and some not overly gratuitous violence. We even get the odd humor on occasion. Just watch as the rabid Mr. Hyde has bent a prostitute over the table inspecting her butt and we see her bored face. He's just another weird customer with a fetish. The script is pretty good, but without knowing exactly what, I still felt that a certain something to put it over the top was missing.Anthony Perkins shines as the star of the show. He balances nicely between the two personalities. Perkins has a very charming side, as we've seen in Psycho, which can change in an second. In this film his psychotic features are enhanced with make-up, giving him more of a wax figure look. It looks supremely creepy. In several instances he reminded me of the zombified Stephen from Dawn of the Dead (1978). The story is really a sad one. Dr. Jekyll is only a man traumatized during childhood years and his decent into madness starts off as an unfortunate accident. Jekyll is more a victim of circumstance than anything. He accidentally inhales the smoke from the broken glasses unaware of what the mix will do to him. Unfortunately for the good doctor the effects have fatal consequences. Jekyll's smoking device looks like a crack pipe. This film came in 1989, which was at a time when crack was at its height in the US. Edge of Sanity appears to be a cautionary tale covered in layers of filth. We see Perkins trying to resist it, but his demons get the better of him. His spiral downwards is very well depicted. We see the raving madman and a cold and calculating monster that is Mr. Hyde gradually taking over Jekyll. This is perfectly realized in a party scene, where the topic of freedom is brought up. Jekyll wonders what anyone really knows about freedom. "I thought I was free?" retorts one of the posh ladies. The doctor starts talking about freedom to do whatever we feel like. You see something you like and you take it. The other guests are a tad upset by this, but Jekyll rages calmly on. "You all act as if our manners, our morality, were handed to us by God." With skeptical eyes she replies: "But they are." Perkins continues: "No madam, they're not. We made them up by mutual agreement. But what if I don't agree?" He goes from the dinner table leaving the others in shock. There is a distinct flavor of Nietzsche's philosophy here, which is the rejection of morality as an absolute truth. I doubt Nietzsche would have approved Mr. Hyde's thoughts of doing whatever one feels like, but accepting that life is essentially meaningless is key. The other dinner guests' refusal to accept this makes them passive nihilists. The active nihilist on the other hand sees opportunity to build something instead of hiding in fear behind religion. Jekyll/Hyde is somewhere in between. He rejects God and morality, but instead of building he tears the world apart. And, fortunately for him, in a society as judgmental as this, who would expect that any well educated person could possibly be behind such atrocious crimes? The technical aspects of Edge of Sanity are simply outstanding! The camera-work is impeccable with lots of crooked angels, intruding close-ups of Mr. Hyde and smooth dolly shots. The lighting and use of colors are strong and vivid adding additional delirium. There are gorgeous set-pieces to feast our eyes on. You really couldn't ask for more. In a lot of ways this has an adult Tim Burton feel to it.Edge of Sanity is a nice and creepy horror film. For some reason, despite all its accomplishments I still felt slightly detached to it all. That however, shouldn't deter anyone looking for a sleazy horror with originality, a menacing Perkins and production values far beyond your normal fright flick.

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...