Few things are designed to set my heart aflutter quite like the words “HAMMER PRESENTS” emblazoned in large Gothic letters as red as the old “Kensington Gore” over the opening sequence of a Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation. Indeed, I am the person that Doctor Jekyll — the latest of Hammer Films’ post-2008 attempts to resurrect and reinvent itself — was theoretically made for: a Brit convulsed with nostalgia for the Hammer of yore, yet hungry for horror that reflects the modern world I inhabit. So I’ll attempt to say this as objectively as possible: I liked Doctor Jekyll rather a lot while still finding it muddled and underwhelming.
Doctor Jekyll is a New Interpretation of a Classic Tale
Directed by Joe Stephenson, Doctor Jekyll stars Scott Chambers (Malevolent) as Rob, a young man with a checkered past desperate to get back on his feet so he can see his baby daughter. His job search leads him to the isolated mansion of Dr. Nina Jekyll (Hannibal’s Eddie Izzard), a former giant in the pharmaceutical world who was forced out of the spotlight following a scandal. Nina needs a caretaker, and ignoring the protestations of her glowering estate manager (the superb Lindsay Duncan), she offers Rob the gig.
Of course, this is a Jekyll and Hyde story so there’s more to Nina than first meets the eye. Rob soon realizes that his boss’s mood — entire personality, perhaps — can turn on a dime; the bored recluse at breakfast who yearns for a bowl of “crunchy, nutty” Crunchy Nut Cornflakes becomes curt and eye-rollingly dismissive at lunch, before visiting Rob in his room at night with the demeanor of a kindly confidante.
We all know we’ll be seeing Nina’s alter ego, Rachel Hyde, before the end credits roll. But Doctor Jekyll seems uncertain about why exactly that is.
A Jekyll and Hyde story with an identity crisis
As Rob, Chambers brings an affable, awkward charm to Doctor Jekyll. But this is Izzard’s film through and through, and she plays her dual role with relish. The austere, dignified Jekyll is a world away from Izzard’s dancing, prancing, cackling vision of Hyde, a performance as mad as it is mesmerizing, yet always tightly controlled.
Casting a powerhouse trans performer like Izzard in the role inevitably raised the question of whether Doctor Jekyll would tap into the trans possibilities of the source material. This wouldn’t be the first time that Hammer has taken this route, intentionally or otherwise: 1971’s Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde saw Ralph Bates’ Henry Jekyll transforming into the gorgeous Sister Hyde (Martine Beswick) while trying to create an elixir of life. That film was almost progressive in its portrayal of gender identity, with Sister Hyde asserting herself as the true identity and coming through no matter how hard Jekyll tried to suppress her, but stumbled into troubling territory as Jekyll ransacked women’s corpses for parts and lulled victims into a false sense of security by deliberately approaching them as Hyde.
Exploring Gender, Identity, and Legacy in Hammer’s Fourth Adaptation
Doctor Jekyll doesn’t take the obvious route, which is a good thing in many ways. This is Hammer’s fourth go-round with Stevenson’s story, the previous adaptations being 1959’s comedically slanted The Ugly Duckling, 1960’s The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, which presents Hyde as the charming face of evil, and the aforementioned gender-swapping Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde, so it’s only natural for the company to want to do something new. Frankly, it’s also refreshing to see Izzard play two self-assured women for the price of one.
The problem is that Doctor Jekyll doesn’t know what it wants to be. Viewers might assume that Nina’s backstory as a disgraced pharma magnate would reveal a clear cause for her affliction, but Dan Kelly-Mulhern’s script gets lost in a confusing attempt to tie her back to the original Henry Jekyll, while also suggesting some form of possession. There are some interesting ideas at play about the way money and power corrupt a person beyond recognition, but the muddiness of the transformation itself only serves to make this concept feel hollow.
It’s not Hammer time — but it could be
Doctor Jekyll isn’t quite the return to form that Hammer fans may crave, but it is potentially a promising sign of things to come. Between the striking styling of Jekyll/Hyde, the delightfully playful and baroque score by Blair Mowat, and the bold but compelling choice to shoot Jekyll’s isolated manor primarily in bright sunlight, Doctor Jekyll has one foot firmly planted in Hammer’s Gothic past while another creeps into curious new territory. That’s not a bad position for a storied horror house to straddle.
As for this first attempt under new owner John Gore, Doctor Jekyll is not unlike the bowl of sugary cereal that Nina pines for at breakfast. It’s nutritionally lacking and won’t leave you fully satisfied, but that doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy consuming it.
Doctor Jekyll is available now on VOD platforms.
