{"id":5928,"date":"2024-10-14T23:48:18","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T03:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=5928"},"modified":"2024-10-14T23:48:18","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T03:48:18","slug":"dr-jekylls-dungeon-of-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/14\/dr-jekylls-dungeon-of-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Jekyll\u2019s Dungeon of Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dr. Jekyll\u2019s Dungeon of Death <\/strong>(1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rochelle Films\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Wood\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: James Mathers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marty Allen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: James Wood\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: 1979 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: James Mathers, John Kearney, Nadine Kalmes, Dawn Carver Kelly, Jake Pearson, Tom Nicholson, Peter R. Maloney.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0Have you ever come across a movie so incompetent it makes you smack your forehead like a guy who could\u2019ve had a V8 but didn\u2019t? Anybody who dares watch Dr Jekyll\u2019s Dungeon of Death<\/strong> will likely react in this manner saying \u201cWow, I could\u2019ve watched ANYTHING ELSE.\u201d It is an astonishingly bad horror movie that will have you screaming not in terror but with laughter. How did I not know about this movie until now?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Actually, I did know about it. As a movie-obsessed preteen, I loved looking at the movie section in the newspaper. I especially liked seeing what was playing at local drive-ins. One of the titles I recall seeing is Dr Jekyll\u2019s Dungeon of Death<\/strong>. It sounded cool, but I knew better than to ask the parentals. I knew what the answer would be. I forgot all about it until I saw that it was released on Blu-Ray this past spring. It\u2019s funny what things we store in the back of our minds, isn\u2019t it? After four decades, I finally got to feast my eyes on this forgotten fright flick only to discover there\u2019s good reason it\u2019s forgotten. It\u2019s bad on virtually every level, but its worst offense is NOT offering up any splatter. That\u2019s the least it could do after failing on all other fronts.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Unlike other incarnations of Jekyll & Hyde, Dr Jekyll\u2019s Dungeon of Death<\/strong> is Hyde-less. It focuses solely on Dr. Henry Jekyll (Mathers in his only significant role), the great-grandson of the original mad doctor who\u2019s been experimenting on humans with an amped-up version of Great Granddad\u2019s serum. Incorporating the work of Nazi scientists, it instantly drives the subjects to violence. It still isn\u2019t perfect which is why he sends for his former medical school professor, Atkinson (Kearney). He needs his help. He gets him to come on the pretense that his daughter and Jekyll\u2019s fiancee Julia (Kelly) died in an accident. The truth is he\u2019s holding her prisoner in case he needs leverage to make Atkinson help him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That\u2019s pretty much it as far as plot is concerned. A lot of Dr Jekyll\u2019s Dungeon of Death<\/strong> is taken up by Jekyll\u2019s testing his serum on human subjects. Some are condemned prisoners provided by the authorities; others are innocent people kidnapped by his assistant Boris (Pearson), a hulking mute who bears a striking resemblance to Blackenstein. Jekyll tests them in pairs. When injected, they become extremely aggressive and try to kill each other with kung fu. Yes, you read that right, kung fu. With all the fight scenes, you almost expect to hear the fighters speak in badly dubbed English. In fact, the actors playing the subjects were all recruited from a local martial arts school. Did working on this movie advance them towards the next degree of black belt or something?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Boris isn\u2019t Jekyll\u2019s only helper. His sister Hilda (Kalmes), described as \u201chopelessly insane since birth\u201d, lives there too. She had a lobotomy at some point so she doesn\u2019t talk; she mainly stands around with a goofy look on her face watching her brother commit atrocities in the name of scientific research. I\u2019m not sure what her exact job title is, but apparently her duties include being molested by her brother. Their kiss is 100 times ickier than the one between Luke and Leia in the first Star Wars.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although Dr Jekyll\u2019s Dungeon of Death<\/strong> is set in \u201959, you\u2019d never know it looking at the movie. Aside from one or two brief shots, there are no exterior scenes. It primarily takes place in Jekyll\u2019s \u201cdungeon of death\u201d, actually a basement laboratory that\u2019s more like a fight arena. Citing an allergy to sunlight, he keeps his house dark. I guess the makers didn\u2019t want to spend a lot on lighting. The cinematography by director James Wood is flat and unimaginative. The redundant fight scenes are filmed in a static, too low-key manner. The pacing is best described as glacial especially since nothing all that interesting happens at any point in the movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0That last statement isn\u2019t exactly true. The \u201cexcitement\u201d in Dr Jekyll\u2019s Dungeon of Death<\/strong> comes from lead actor Mathers\u2019 zany overacting. He\u2019s so OTT even William Shatner would call him a ham. It should be noted that he gets most of the dialogue which is only fitting since he wrote the screenplay. It consists mainly of monologues, one-sided conversations and yelling at his servants. When Hilda prepares his brandy incorrectly, he goes berserk with an ice pick stabbing away at the ice while shouting \u201cICE! ICE! ICE! ICE!\u201d at her. With such brilliant wordage and top-level acting, it\u2019s a mystery why he didn\u2019t become a major Hollywood player. Kearney, the only other major player using words rather than grunts, isn\u2019t much better. I lost count of how many times he calls Jekyll a fiend- e.g. \u201cYou fiend!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m not surprised that Wood, whose only other credits are a couple of porno flicks (A Game of Love and The $50,000 Climax Show), quit the filmmaking industry after Dr Jekyll\u2019s Dungeon of Death<\/strong>. I assume he did so out of embarrassment. Everything that possibly could\u2019ve gone wrong went horribly wrong. Not only is there no graphic violence, there\u2019s also no nudity or sex. There\u2019s nothing to justify the R rating. The only consolation is the unintentional hilarity. Dr Jekyll\u2019s Dungeon of Death<\/strong> is the very definition of ludicrous. It\u2019s only thing that saves it from a NO STARS rating which it richly deserves. This is ineptitude of the highest degree. I guess I wasn\u2019t missing much after all.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Jekyll\u2019s Dungeon of Death (1979)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rochelle Films\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 92 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Wood\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: James Mathers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marty Allen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: James Wood\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: 1979 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: James Mathers, John Kearney, Nadine Kalmes, Dawn Carver Kelly, Jake Pearson, Tom Nicholson, Peter R. Maloney.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A Rating: * \u00a0Have you ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Dr-Jekylls-Dungeon-of-Death.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5928"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6157,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5928\/revisions\/6157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}