Here’s a real oddity. The producer of so many of those delicious Herschell Gordon Lewis sex and gore flicks from the 60’s co-produced a little ditty called The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hide. It is filled with nudity (dong and bush and boobs) and softcore sex, as well as some very uncomfortably violent murders (almost all perpetrated upon women). This is one of those movies that is sleazy as hell and gets lost in the cracks because it was fairly tame sexually by the time it came out, but it also carried that early 70’s sheen of meanness, akin to Last House on the Left or Texas Chainsaw, which much have been very confusing for audiences. It is certainly not as good as those two, but parts of it are cut from the same cloth.
Dr. Leeder (John Barnum) stumbles upon the diary of Dr. Jekyll at an antique store (!), becomes fascinated with its contents, and returns later to murder the store owner so he can obtain the book. He mixes up the formula as described in the tome and of course he turns into Mr. Hide. He then proceeds to find a prostitute, tie her up and whip her, screw her, and then murder her in a very foul way. The next morning, Leeder wakes up with a hangover and a desire to improve upon Jekyll’s formula. In the meantime, he screws his nurse and fiancé (he’s a read cad). He tries the formula again and murders another woman. Not satisfied, he refines the serum yet again, and this time, he turns into a buxom blonde (Jane Tsentas), AKA Miss Hide! He then rapes his nurse as this blonde, wanting to know what that pleasure is like. Later, he seeks out a man for a one night stand as Miss Hide and kills that guy in a very unpleasant way. Eventually, justice finds him and he gets tossed out of a window by a cop. He falls out, plummeting to his death naked as Miss Hide. When he lands, he’s the naked, dead lump of Dr. Leeder.
This film is full of naked 70’s awesomeness. You get to see women naked, the dude naked, and you get to see them hump with wild abandon, hairy backs and all. There is not actual penetration shown, so the “adult” tag is a bit misleading. Most of the film is taken up with softcore sex scenes and lots of camera-eye leering at big breasts. The parts that most might find objectionable is the violence. It really is out of nowhere and very brutal. The first woman who gets killed is via genital mutilation (they don’t show it but they heavily imply it) and the second woman gets bludgeoned to death. It ain’t pretty and it’s really quite mean-spirited. It’s in keeping with the general misogyny of the main character, so it makes sense, but that doesn’t make it easy to swallow. He kills a man later as Miss Hide but it sure isn’t as violent (although, again, genitals are involved). This kind of thing might put you off, so there’s your warning.
The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hide isn’t very adult and it’s barely competent, but it was entertaining and very, very weird. If you’re not into these kinds of movies, stay far away, but if you like this dated sort of pseudo-porn and exploitation violence, you could do much worse. Enter at your own risk.
Two and a Half Stars out of Four