I've been obsessed with the story of Jack the Ripper since I was a little-kid. Every-other-year, some idiot THINKS they've discovered who it was, and why-it-happened--they never will (cold-case, duh), but we can gain-insight into some areas of it simply by exploring the darkness-within. This film does that, and sometimes even goes-too-far, but it's all-fun here. The real--and only--reason to watch this movie is for the excellent-performance by Anthony Perkins, period. Everything is a setup for him to come-on screen, it's his baby, and I'm sure producer-Towers knew this was only going to be memorable because Perkins was in it. He was right.
"Edge of Sanity" is a melding of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and some elements of the Jack the Ripper story, with an added-dash of exploitation-fare (boobs, drugs, stylized-violence, and psychosexual-excess). As entertainment, it cannot-be-beat, it's a very-satisfying-romp, with lots of decadence to it. The main-problem with the film comes in the production-design, as it really looks like the late-1980s to-the-hilt, but this is not meant to be a solid period-piece, anyway, and more a fantastical film-reality, just a pure-genre affair.
But Edge of Sanity really has a passion to it--you see, the Perkins protagonist/antagonist is an unwitting-inventor of crack-cocaine, thus explaining the metamorphosis from his daily-life as a Doctor who bases his life on reason, to the base Mr. Hyde. It sounds nuts, but you knew this coming-in from the title, right? It's a bold-stroke, and a risk in the writing, but I think it paid-off in a way that resonates with our current "drug-problem". The Victorian era was also rife-with drug-abuse, though it was basically-invisible. People took-tinctures of Opium and Hashish as daily-tonics, and even gave Opium to crying-babies so-as-to-quiet-them. Everyone was "hooked", and that is sorely-missing in this tale, unfortunately, but Mr. Hyde DOES go generally-unnoticed until he gets-violent! The MGM DVD is pretty-good, and is widescreen with a solid-transfer and audio--it's never looked-better. People forget that just getting a good-copy of a film like-this was very-very-difficult until-recently, especially in the original aspect-ratio. The film shines, and it has some wonderful-moments of visual-beauty to it, as well as some incredible-makeup on the late Mr. Perkins, probably one of the best American movie-actors ever, and one of the horror's greats. This can only be a film about addiction.
"Edge of Sanity" is a melding of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and some elements of the Jack the Ripper story, with an added-dash of exploitation-fare (boobs, drugs, stylized-violence, and psychosexual-excess). As entertainment, it cannot-be-beat, it's a very-satisfying-romp, with lots of decadence to it. The main-problem with the film comes in the production-design, as it really looks like the late-1980s to-the-hilt, but this is not meant to be a solid period-piece, anyway, and more a fantastical film-reality, just a pure-genre affair.
But Edge of Sanity really has a passion to it--you see, the Perkins protagonist/antagonist is an unwitting-inventor of crack-cocaine, thus explaining the metamorphosis from his daily-life as a Doctor who bases his life on reason, to the base Mr. Hyde. It sounds nuts, but you knew this coming-in from the title, right? It's a bold-stroke, and a risk in the writing, but I think it paid-off in a way that resonates with our current "drug-problem". The Victorian era was also rife-with drug-abuse, though it was basically-invisible. People took-tinctures of Opium and Hashish as daily-tonics, and even gave Opium to crying-babies so-as-to-quiet-them. Everyone was "hooked", and that is sorely-missing in this tale, unfortunately, but Mr. Hyde DOES go generally-unnoticed until he gets-violent! The MGM DVD is pretty-good, and is widescreen with a solid-transfer and audio--it's never looked-better. People forget that just getting a good-copy of a film like-this was very-very-difficult until-recently, especially in the original aspect-ratio. The film shines, and it has some wonderful-moments of visual-beauty to it, as well as some incredible-makeup on the late Mr. Perkins, probably one of the best American movie-actors ever, and one of the horror's greats. This can only be a film about addiction.