Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980) User Reviews

Worth a "Heckyl", not much to "Hype"....

[Mister-6 · 5/10 · 4 June 2000]

Charles B. Griffith wrote the original "Little Shop of Horrors", and co-wrote and directed this little gem. Note that I say "gem" in the most facetious usage.

"Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype" plays as a reverse "Jeckyll and Hyde" (DUH!) when ugly podiatrist Heckyl (Reed) discovers a potion that makes him handsome and, subsequently, desirable to women. But he cannot consummate any relationships since all the women he tries to connect with end up dead ("And I'm still a virgin!"). But there are police, garbage men and strange people emerging from the woodwork to make Heckyl's life even more disrupted.

It's cute, but plays out too hectic to be considered even a good "cult" movie, as was obviously the intention here. The talent was there; Reed in a comedy? Who would have known? And Coogan and Miller's contributions add up. And it doesn't hurt to have beautiful women to look at (like the Brough sisters - ROWRRR!). But if there was a little more story to add to the proceedings, instead of dry laughs and off-kilter pacing, maybe we would have had something.

In all, interesting but not even a pretender to the throne of "Horrors". A nice try, anyway.

Four stars for the effort, plus one star extra for Reed. Good to see him play silly on purpose, for once.

Early Cannon

[BandSAboutMovies · 3/10 · 12 January 2022]

Charles B. Griffith - the Quentin Tarantino-named "Father of Redneck Cinema" - is credited with 29 movies but he probably wrote plenty more. From 1955 to 1961, he was Roger Corman's main screenwriter, starting with two unfilmed Westerns (Three Bright Banners and Hangtown) and moving on to an uncredited rewrite on It Conquered the World and his first credit Gunslinger. He went on to make Not of This Earth, The Flesh and the Spur, The Undead, Teenage Doll, Naked Paradise, Attack of the Crab Monsters and Rock All Night before making two movies - Ghost of the China Sea and Forbidden Island - for Columbia (which didn't go well).

Griffith reunited with Corman after and really went into the prime of his career of making movies, writing stuff like Beast from the Haunted Cave, Ski Troop Attack, The Little Shop of Horrors, A Bucket of Blood, Creature from the Haunted Sea and many, many more.

His films rank among some of my favorites of all time - The Wild Angels, Death Race 2000, rewrites on Barbarella - and he went on to direct, act and - as all must in the 80s - work for Cannon Films.

Beyond a script Cannon tried for years to get made - Oy Vey, My Son Is Gay - Griffith made this movie, which started as part of a series of joke movie titles that he shared with Francis Ford Coppola at a Christmas party. He showed them to Menahem Golan - half of all things Cannon - and after writing The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington didn't work out, Griffith made up a story to go with the title, all about a hippie who creates a drug that makes anyone that takes it into an ad exec. Golan bought it, as long as the ugly guy became the good guy.

In typical Cannon fashion, Griffith had three weeks to write and do preproduction, four weeks to shoot and two weeks to edit. Then, as always, the rug was pulled out Cannon style: They wanted Oliver Reed. Great actor. Maybe not a comedic actor.

Griffith told Sense of Cinema, "Heckyl and Hype could have been a very good picture. Oliver was great as Heckyl. Wonderful. He played the part with a kind of New York accent and everything, but when he was Hype, he didn't know how to do it... Reed played Hype as Oliver Reed, slow and ponderous."

It's a good looking movie, but man, it's a movie that has no idea what it wants to be. Kind of like Cannon at the time, which had just been bought by two Israeli madmen who were about to take the small New York studio and make it into something so much bigger than it was supposed to be. But that's a story for another time. Check back in March.

Enjoyable comedy with lots of great scenes.

[Serpent-5 · 1 April 2000]

Oliver Reed plays an ugly (almost monster like) foot doctor who turns into a handsome from a formula created by a fellow scientist (mel welles), but with violent reaction. Lots of funny moments and well-written film that should've been a cult classic. Lots of great supporting stars (which features most of the cast from Griffith's UP FROM THE DEPTH and LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS), but character actor Dick Miller steals the scenes as a garbage man who talks to himself (Miller told me Jonathan Haze was supposed to be the other garbage man, but couldn't do it, so Dick had to play other roles like a schizo!). I was surprised Reed did this film at the time, and he did a performance that most people would've never thought he could do. Maybe if this film was released bigger, more people would've saw Reed can do comedy. Recommended.

Oliver Reed's Heckyl Looks Like Robert Morse on Heavy Steroids

[BaronBl00d · 2/10 · 21 July 2012]

Dreadful. Just dreadful. I must be, as one reviewer noted, "One of those people..." who do not understand genius when faced with it. Well, if this is genius, we are all in trouble. Screenwriter/director Charles Griffith attempts to bring the Jeckyl/Hyde story into the 1980's in high comedic style. This time around the doctor is deformed, pale green, wart-covered(and a podiatrist to boot - pun intended)and his alter-ego Mr. Hyde is suave, classy, urbane, and deadly. I am amazed that a star of Reed's caliber agreed to do this schlock - not only does he do it - but he brings anything that is good in this film to it as well. His Heckyl is ...well..intriguing if nothing else. I swear he looks a bit and sounds a bit like Robert Morse. His Mr. Hype is classic Reed. Reed tries valiantly to do what he is asked but in the end all he does successfully is pick up his apparently much-needed paycheck. The story is supposed to be funny. Even by 1980's standards - it is painfully void of much humour. Some murders happen, lots of stupid, adolescent jokes that bomb occur, and we finally get to the much anticipated end credits - eventually. Laced around Reed's heavy-handed try at split personalities we get Roger Corman regulars like Dick Miller, Mel Welles, and others - not to mention Jackie Coogan. We also get bad foot jokes and visual gags that do not have a hope of making you even smile. There is lots of swirling fog on sets that look like fog would or could not be there. Did I like anything? I liked Reed's attempt. Sunny Johnson is quite lovely as the female love interest(what a pity she died at the age of 30!). Mel Welles has a few good lines, but the rest...no way. I cannot hype this film in any way at all. It was so boring.

Weak comedy proves lightning can't strike twice

[funkyfry · 2/10 · 9 October 2002]

Supposed spoof of Dr. Jeckyl/Mr. Hyde films turns out to be a lame attempt at a "modern" version. Perhaps the filmmakers (chief on the list of wrongdoers would be Griffith, who wrote great fly-by-night scripts for R. Corman) thought the reverse angle -- Heckyl is ugly but nice, and Hype "handsome" (we're talking about Oliver Reed here) but sadistic -- would sustain the film. It doesn't, and neither does Reed, up to his usual method-inspired hysterics here. When you see that this movie expects you to believe Reed is handsome with OR without makeup, you can realize how stupid it is. I mean, I like a comedy, but in order to be funny it has to hold up its straight aspects, for chrissakes.

Some redemption is that Reed's Hype is so distasteful that you actually start to like him in the bad makeup! Welles is a fellow podiatrist, and Coogan a cop chasing the monster. The dialogue is stilted, and if there was a laugh to be culled out of it you wouldn't be able to pick it up on the soundtrack. Some jokes that might make adolescent boys laugh just from the sicko aspects (body part fetishes, etc.). Awful photography. Just not a good film. Don't see it, even if you're a fan of Griffith and Corman, unless you really want to be bored.

apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson, indeed!

[FieCrier · 2/10 · 8 February 2004]

Pretty unappealing comedy/horror movie. More of a comedy, with horror elements that don't mix well. It has comedy sound effects, and sped-up footage and other pretty low comedy elements.

Oliver Reed is horrible-looking podiatrist Dr. Heckyl, with whom we're evidently expected to sympathize. However, he's pretty unappealing, even appearance aside. He turns into Mr. Hype, supposedly a very handsome man, but without compassion. However, as Mr. Hype, he looks like...Oliver Reed - who's hardly good-looking by anyone's standards, but we're expected to believe he is. Women see something "tacky" in Mr. Hype's eyes, and he invariably kills them in ways that don't really work in such a silly comedy, they belong in a real horror movie (albeit a bad one).

This title is out of print, and relatively hard to find. With any luck, it will stay that way.

The Very Definition of Schlock...and Worse

[docm-32304 · 1/10 · 25 February 2019]

I've loved the many versions of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde made over the years, but this one is not one of them. Oliver Reed must have ran out of money to pay either his bar bill or alimony, to have done this piece of garbage. Everything is bad in this waste...the acting, the makeup and....well I don't even think you can call the script, writing. Yes, it is supposed to be a spoof, but it lacks any attempt at being clever or funny. Don't waste your time. I turned if off after the first 35 min and only lasted that long to see if it might turn around.

Dated and unfunny Cannon comedy

[Wizard-8 · 2/10 · 4 August 2019]

Given that this movie was a production of the Cannon film company (one of my favorite studios), I searched for a way to find this movie for many years, but I couldn't find it anywhere. The recent news that the movie was getting a Blu-Ray release thrilled me until I found out that I would have to pay an arm and a leg for a copy of the limited release. But I decided to see if it was on YouTube, and I found it there... and I'm really glad that I didn't pay ANY money to see it! There are many ways the movie goes wrong, but the main reasons are due to its script. The central narrative is sometimes very rambling, as if the writers were making things up as they went along. A bigger problem, however, is that except for a couple of chuckles, the comedy simply isn't funny at all. The movie often seems afraid of going after really big laughs, and instead tries to be mildly "cute" most of the time in a manner that seems out of a movie made 20 or 30 years earlier. Actor Oliver Reed tries his best, but even he seems to be befuddled by the lame material and the half-hearted direction. By the way, while the movie got an "R" rating at the time, by today's standards it is quite tame, and would get a "PG-13" rating at most today.

An absolute fever dream (so bad it's good)

[anbublackops-commander · 2/10 · 15 March 2020]

Watched this with my girlfriend on Comet and it was beyond insane. Heckyl is a podiatrist with a foot fetish who steals a weight-loss drug that actually turns the user into an idealized appearance. This idealized self also takes the negative personality traits most associated with such people, in Hype's case being a murdering rapist with a very arrogant attitude. This is the only sensible part of the film, as everything else is completely bananas.

A stereotypical film-noir detective pops in at random intervals to advance the plot. A colleague of Dr Heckyl has some sort of tickle therapy and also kills himself near the end with a "switch-feather" somehow. Despite the 1950s town with public transit and other semi-modern fixtures, the police operate out of a medieval dungeon with chains and all. This only scratches the surface of the bizarre nonsense this film throws at you.

What's more, the very small production budget shows. The makeup, sets, and effects are so cheap that you can only stare in amazement.

Overall, if you like bad films like The Room but thought it was a little too lucid, this is your cuppa tea.

No hiding from the heckling.

[mark.waltz · 1/10 · 2 February 2022]

Looking like something that the bat threw up, veteran character Oliver Reed guess one of the worst and unfunniest performance of the 1980's. In fact, had it not been for the 1982 bomb horror comedy "Jekyll and Hyde Together Again", read might have actually been at the top of the worst. This has one Saving Grace over that one. This one directly to cable TV rather than getting a theatrical release, while the other one was fully released where it was born and promptly croaked. I guess Cannon films in one of their earliest efforts realized they couldn't get away with something this bad, and why start your run out of "Hollywood's Gate" with something this hideous. While Reed is a good dramatic actor, when he's doing drama, when he has been in the occasional comedy, t's worked because he wasn't trying to be funny, and here he tries too hard, bombing faster than the conclusion of "Dr. Strangelove".

A physically deformed physician at a rather wacky medical facility, Reed a patient's who aren't actually looking at him when they go into the office and scream in horror when they finally look up and see him. The other doctor in the facility treats heavyset women with a procedure that makes them lose weight immediately, but they walk out of the office with lemon puckered lips. Reed is experimenting with drugs to change his appearance, and when he succeeds, he turns into a handsome but murderous buffoon who accidentally kills the women he's trying to lose his virginity with. That results a bunch of unfunny slapstick scenes where all the women die in cartoonish ways. His efforts to pick them up make him look even more like a lunatic than before.

This is a type of film where the audience asks, "Is this for real?" I sat there like the audience in "The Producers" with my mouth agape, stunned that anybody who had seen any of the Mel Brooks parodies could even think this was remotely funny. The ensemble is collectively wretched, and the script is up there with "Slapstick of Another Kind" as one of the worst of the 80's. Good comedy certainly isn't hard because a lot of it is rotten. The only hype I can recommend about this is that audiences who dare to even make an effort to watch this will be running out of there faster than the guy whose feet Dr. Hype wants to cut off.

unexpectedly sweet

[cknudsen1988 · 8/10 · 19 July 2012]

it's obviously not supposed to be "great" movie, but for the hilarious horror/comedy it is, one would take this as it is. a breath of fresh air for the over bloated 70s/80s horror movie market. it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it shouldn't have to. viewing this ridiculous movie for what it is, it is a beautiful depiction of a shitty movie made enjoyable through writing and acting. oliver reed does a magnificent job playing both lead roles, even while switching between the two. looking for a well written movie with unexpected plot twists, it is obviously not going to rate very well. it was 1980, why would you make a super deep movie with every opportunity for criticism? while writing this i would obviously assume it's not to be under the scrutiny of every movie buff this side of the Mississippi. take it for what it is, a ridiculous horror movie with a brand new twist on the old, often retold, story of the doctor that creates more than what he meant to create. great for what it is, and hardly a moment wasted. 8 thumbs up.

A complete anarchic comedy, but not everybody's cup of tea

[t_atzmueller · 7/10 · 25 April 2013]

Reading the reviews and seeing how the film has the critics pretty divided, I decided to add my five cents and break a lance for "Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype".

The film is a rather bizarre affair, perhaps best compared to the slapstick-version "Jeckyll and Hyde … Together Again" (another underrated, pretty obscure spoof of Robert Louis Stevensons theme), although it's not quiet as slapstick-fueled and at the same time more anarchistic. If "Jeckyll and Hyde … Together Again" is a variation of "Naked Gun" or "Airplane", "Heckyl and Hype" seems to have climbed straight out of a "Mad"-magazine.

Oliver Reed obviously wasn't a born comedian but he has a rather dry, straight-faced humour that comes natural (which Reed has proved before in his portrayal of Tommy's father in Ken Russell's movie). This makes it much more comfortable than the forced slapstick of many actors who fancy themselves comedians. And of course (in his incantation of Mr. Hype), he isn't the Adonis that the movie makes him out to be; again, it's not the looks but his charm and there is no denying that "Sir Ollie" was a lady's man in his times. In his role as the ill-fated Dr. Heckyl Reed plays it lovable, evoking both sympathy and pity. Even if this type of humour doesn't tickle your funny bone, it remains an obscurity for being one of Reeds few comedic efforts.

Other than that, the movie is filled with weird & whacko characters played by Virgil Frye, Kedrick Wolf or Mel Welles. And, not to forget, the sadly departed Sunny Johnson as Dr. Heckyls love interest is cute like a button. And watch out for Dick Miller, playing a schizophrenic garbage-collector with multiple personalities, stealing all the scenes he's in.

As said: it's not for everybody. The fans of more intellectual comedies and followers of Woody Allen won't get too much out of it and, to mention that too, it's not altogether "politically-correct" – regarding obese women, colored midgets and paediatricians faces like a rubber Halloween-mask – but if you have a connection to that inner-child and a love for the trash-cinema of the 1970's and 80's, you might well give it a try and be pleasantly surprised.

Or maybe not – I still give it 7/10 points and that's based on personal preferences and as a dedicated Oliver Reed fan.

Horrible Misfire

[Michael_Elliott · 8 October 2012]

Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980)

* (out of 4)

Rather horrendous horror-comedy-spoof has Oliver Reed playing an ugly and disfigured Dr. Henry Heckyl. Most of the time the nice Heckyl wishes he could be beautiful and he gets his shot when a co-worker comes up with a serum that does a wide range of things including making him handsome. The only problem is that he also turns into a jerk and a murderer. Director-writer Charles B. Pierce made some good movies in his time but I'm really not sure what he was trying to do with this thing because the "spoof" of Robert Louis Stevenson's story had already been done with THE NUTTY PROFESSOR. This film here is really a complete misfire and for the life of me I can't see how this thing could have gotten a greenlight and especially in 1980. You could possibly see this coming out in the early 70s to a drive-in crowd but I'm not sure it would have played any better then. The biggest problem is that the entire film is just so slow and boring that it's impossible to really care for anything going on. At 97-minutes this here is at least thirty-minutes too long and by the hour point you're already willing to give up on it. The movie has a weird sense of humor but this doesn't mean that it gets any laughs. Most of the humor is aimed at how ugly Reed's character is and there's also a running joke of a doctor creating a chemical that will allow obese people to become skinny in the matter of hours. The make-up on Reed looks decent but at the same time it's more weird than anything else. As for Reed, he turns in a decent performance as Heckyl but he's rather too bland and boring as Hype. Sunny Johnson clearly steals the film as a love interest and we also get supporting bits by the likes of Mel Welles, Dick Miller and Jackie Coogan.

Fabulous movie, misunderstood by most dunderheads. Way ahead of its time.

[rob-901 · 9/10 · 4 February 2005]

I'm amazed that this movie was ever made and NOT surprised that it wasn't made my any of the big studios -- they're simply too stupid to understand or appreciate it. Everything about this film defies convention, in a smart, funny and effective way. The people who disapprove of this movie are likely the very people whom it is satirizing. The editing, directing, acting and sound editing are marvelous and refreshing. The dialogue is wonderfully acerbic and sarcastic. I only wish I could find in on DVD. As is, the only copy I have is a VHS taped from commercial TV. If you get the chance to to see it, by all means do. It's a rare pleasure.

UPDATE: Thanks to modern technology, I have now burned my VHS copy to DVD for preservation. As of February, 2006, the film is STILL NOT AVAILABLE anywhere. The viewer who wrote that he saw it on late night TV with Elvira is correct -- that's the copy of the screening I have, complete with her interspersed comments (and cleavage).

Sunny Johnson Sure Was Cute

[TheFearmakers · 6/10 · 23 May 2022]

What's considered one of Cannon Pictures and Oliver Reed's worst movies has ironical casting since Reed, back in his Hammer beginnings, appeared as a pimp-bouncer in their own Dr. Jekyll adaptation...

And in the satirical DR. HECKYL AND MR. HYPE, as a ghoulish-looking yet sweet-natured podiatrist, he alters into the dashing counterpart, an overweight Reed, not all that mainstream-handsome but fitfully formidable, as the best scenes are of the body count nature, killing loose women he dates yet still can't score with...

All the while in love with the film's best attribute in future FLASHDANCE sidekick Sunny Johnson, who seems to like even the ugly side of the friendly doctor, and, had this role been expanded in-between what needed more random murders around her, HYPE could've harbored a neat barrage of deliberately campy, ultra-violent fun...

Unfortunately too much time's spent on the scientific side of things with Reed's horrendously unfunny fellow doctors and a few trailing cops during hard-to-see 11th hour night-shots, punctuating the super low budget that actually looks pretty decent in the daylight, when Reed's double-performance is more visibly sympathetic and involving.

Another hard to finder

[wdking33 · 9/10 · 9 May 2007]

Saw this for the first time when I was in my early teens, on Movie Macabre. I had it taped from lovely rabbit ear reception. Eventually taped over, a mistake we all have regretted over time. Found an original copy on VHS through ebay about 5 years ago. Planning on transferring onto DVD as it is an undamaged copy. Would love to have the movie macabre version too.

I have been trying to keep track of quite a few of my movie macabre favorites, quite a few are available on DVD, some under other titles. This movie remains one of my favorites.

It really is a silly well put together creepy movie. Just the last 10 minutes of the cops chasing him around on foot makes it worth the watch.

Bizarre but worth watching

[horrorfilmx · 13 November 2005]

I caught this movie just once, years ago, on some late night horror show (Elvria??) having read about it in an interview with writer/director Chuck Griffith. It has a distinctly foreign look (shot somewhere in Europe, maybe Switzerland) and a very unsettling ambiance. Lots of bizarre twists and turns and fetishistic touches --- the main character is a mad podiatrist whose interest in feet seems more kinky than medical and another doctor practices some sort of "tickle therapy", highlighted in a scene where he tickles gorgeous identical twins to release their tensions (trapped by the police, he ends up tickling himself to death rather than be captured). The main reason to watch this is for the quirky humor (frequently very funny) and Oliver Reed's superb deadpan delivery of it. Reed didn't get to play comedy very often but when he did (see THE JOKERS) he had a very assured comic touch.

This is a strange and interesting .......

[dabommbei2 · 8/10 · 2 June 2005]

..... mixture of spoof, return to the earliest Three Stooges brand of yok-yok comedy, and morality tale. No one could ever believe in Oliver Reed as the traditionally handsome love interest -- so how about an off-beat, chemically alluring (artificial pheromones?) hunk of sleaze? this was written, cast, directed, filmed, and packaged as a Midnight Madness "D" grade flick for T.V. cultists. And very successfully. I get a huge kick out of it on those rare occasions when I have a chance to see it again. One of these days I hope to be able to save a copy of my own -- then I can see it at least once every six or seven months. If you want a real horror flick, though, look somewhere else. And if you only like Acadamy Award selections, DEFINITELY take a pass on this little marvel.