Crew
Director/Screenplay – Steve Lawson, Based on the Novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson, Photography – Jon O’Neill, Mr Hyde Makeup – Lauren Webster. Production Company – Creativ Studios Ltd.
Cast
Tom Hendryk (Gabriel Utterson), Michael McKell (Dr Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde), Helen Crevel (Sarah Utterson), Mark Topping (Inspector Newcombe), Francesca Louisa White (Penny Keaton), Vicki Glover (Hattie), David Lenik (Richard Enfield), Robin Denys (Poole)
Plot
The lawyer Gabriel Utterson receives a visit from his good friend Dr Henry Jekyll. Jekyll insists on making out a will that leaves everything to an Edward Hyde. Utterson is then called to the Jekyll estate by police inspector Newcombe with news that Jekyll has gone crazy and barricaded himself in his laboratory with a gun. Before they can do anything, there is a shot and they enter to find that Jekyll has committed suicide. Utterson reads the suicide note left where Jekyll claims responsibility for five murders after taking a serum of his own devising that brought out a dark side of his nature. As Newcombe prepares to officially declare Jekyll’s death a suicide, Utterson insists that his friend is innocent and conducts his own investigation to find out the truth.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) is the most adapted horror story in the history of cinema. One counts over thirty adaptations of the story and that is not including the numerous sons and daughters of, modernisations, comedies/parodies, retellings from the point-of-view of his maid and crossovers with other famous Victorian-era monsters. (For a more detailed look at the various film interpretations see Jekyll and Hyde Films).
Steve Lawson is a British director who has gained a modest reputation as director of horror works on a low budget, often set in the Victorian period. Lawson made several action films beginning with Insiders (2002) and then moved to genre material with likes of The Silencer (2007), Nocturnal Activity (2014), KillerSaurus (2015), Survival Instinct (2016), Hellriser (2017), Aura (2018), Pentagram (2019), The Haunting of Alcatraz (2020), Bram Stoker’s Van Helsing (2021), Ripper Untold (2021), Saltwater: The Battle for Ramree Island (2021), The Highwayman (2022), The Mummy: Resurrection (2022), Ripper’s Revenge (2023), Wrath of Dracula (2023), Ship of the Damned (2024), St. Patrick’s Day Massacre (2025) and The Priest: Thanksgiving Day Massacre (2025), plus the documentaries UFO Conspiracies: The Hidden Truth (2020), Alien Conspiracies: The Hidden Truth (2023) and Executions: The Rise and Fall of Capital Punishment (2025).
I am only nibbling at the edges of Steve Lawson’s output at this point. What has intrigued me is that he has shown an interest in the horror classics. What is also evident once you start to look at the actual films themselves is that Lawson is trying to radically deconstruct the original stories that they are based on. Bram Stoker’s Van Helsing offered an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) minus any Dracula, for instance.
To its credit, this is one of the few adaptations of the Jekyll/Hyde story that retains the framework that Robert Louis Stevenson used – where the story is related from the viewpoint of Utterson. Thereafter though, Lawson entirely parts way with the original text. For one, the film starts with Dr Jekyll dead fairly soon in. I assumed that this would mean that the rest of the story would be a flashback via the diary readings as in the Stevenson story, but these only consist of a couple of scenes where Jekyll details taking the potions and turning into a killer. Moreover, Utterson immediately dismisses the standard story of the potion and emergence of Mr Hyde as a hoax and then sets out to find the truth for himself. You cannot help but think that an adaptation that doesn’t dwell on the transformation of Jekyll into Hyde and the attendant battle of good and evil personalities is one that is cutting out all the interesting parts, while a film that is merely about Utterson and his investigation to find the truth is the dullest possible telling of the Jekyll/Hyde story.
Certainly, Lawson’s films are Victorian Gaslight works that pay an attention to period detail and setting while operating on a low-budget. The downside of this is that the exteriors are limited – often the same shots of buildings are repeated here. As a result, much of the film consists of people sitting around in rooms talking to one another and there is not a lot of action. Many of these scenes are enlivened by Lawson regular Mark Topping giving a lively performance as a Scotland Yard inspector with chipper rural accent.
Things go completely WTF by about the point [PLOT SPOILERS] Lawson reveals that Mr Hyde is not an alter ago but in fact Jekyll’s twin brother. And that there is no serum and transformation formula, that the diary and confession of the murders was a fabrication by Hyde’s twin to cover up his existence and crimes. He has become deranged after being locked away for many years and became obsessed with dissolving animal and then human bodies in acid. The film climaxes with Hyde threatening to throw Utterson’s wife (Helen Crevel) into a pit of acid in the laboratory, before being knocked in and dissolved himself. There are also aspects to the story that defy believability – like someone being arrested after a girl – and a Victorian-era prostitute, moreover – has gone missing for less than twenty-four hours.
A full discussion of Jekyll and Hyde films is here under the Theme Essay Jekyll and Hyde Films. Other versions of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde include:– Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1908); Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1910) with Alvin Neuss; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1912) with James Cruze; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913) with King Baggott; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920) with John Barrymore; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1920) with Sheldon Lewis; Der Januskopf (1920), a lost German version with Conrad Veidt; the classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) with Fredric March; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941) with Spencer Tracy; Jean Renoir’s The Testament of Dr Cordelier (1959) with Jean-Louis Barrault; The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), the Hammer version with Christopher Lee; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (tv movie, 1968) with Jack Palance; I, Monster (1971) also with Christopher Lee; The Man with Two Heads (1972) with Denis DeMarne; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (tv movie, 1973), a musical version with Kirk Douglas; Walerian Borowczyk’s Dr Jekyll and His Women (1981) with Udo Kier; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (tv movie, 1981) with David Hemmings; a 1985 Russian adaptation starring Innokenti Smoktonovsky; Edge of Sanity (1989) with Anthony Perkins; The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde an episode of the tv series Nightmare Classics (1989) with Anthony Andrews; Jekyll and Hyde (tv movie, 1990) with Michael Caine; My Name is Shadow (1996), a Spanish version starring Eric Gendron; a bizarre tv pilot Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2000) (2000), set in Hong Kong that combines the story with martial arts and featured Adam Baldwin playing Jekyll as a superhero; Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical (2001) with David Hasselhoff; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2002) directed by and starring Mark Redfield; the excellent British tv reinterpretation Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (2002) with John Hannah; The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Rock’n’Roll Musical (2003) with Alan Bernhoft; the modernised Jekyll + Hyde (2006) with Bryan Fisher; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2006) with Tony Todd; the modernised BBC tv series Jekyll (2007) with James Nesbitt; Jekyll (2007) starring Matt Keeslar where Hyde becomes a virtual creation; the modernised Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (2008) starring Dougray Scott; and the modernised Doctor Jekyll (2023) where Jekyll (Eddie Izzard) is a trans woman.
Other variations include the would-be sequels Son of Dr Jekyll (1951), Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957) and Dr Jekyll and the Wolfman (1972); the comedy variations Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1953), The Ugly Duckling (1959), the Italian My Friend, Dr Jekyll (1960) and The Nutty Professor (1963) with Jerry Lewis and its remake The Nutty Professor (1996) with Eddie Murphy; versions where Dr Jekyll turns into a woman with Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), the Italian comedy Dr Jekyll and the Gentle Lady (1971) and Dr Jekyll and Ms Hyde (1995); the gender-reversed Madame Hyde (2017); a Looney Tunes cartoon Dr Jekyll’s Hide (1954) where Sylvester the Cat transforms into a dog after taking the formula; the erotic/adult versions The Naughty Dr. Jekyll (1973), The Erotic Dr Jekyll (1976), Jekyll and Hyde (2000), Dr. Jekyll & Mistress Hyde (2003) and Jacqueline Hyde (2005); Dr Black and Mr Hyde (1976), a Blaxploitation version where Jekyll is a Black man who turns into a white-skinned monster; the amusing sendup Jekyll and Hyde … Together Again (1982); and a wacky children’s tv series Julia Jekyll and Harriet Hyde (1995); Killer Bash (1996) set in a frat house with an avenging female Jekyll; the excellent deconstruction Mary Reilly (1996), which tells the story from the point-of-view of Jekyll’s maid; while the tv series Jekyll and Hyde (2015) concerns Jekyll’s grandson (Tom Bateman) hunted by various parties during the 1930s. Dr Jekyll appears as a character in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) played by Jason Flemyng, in the tv series Penny Dreadful (2014-6) played by Shazad Latif and in The Mummy (2017) played by Russell Crowe, which all feature team-ups between Famous Monsters, while the animated The Pagemaster (1994) features a Dr Jekyll voiced by Leonard Nimoy.
Trailer here
Full film available here