{"id":6800,"date":"2024-10-25T10:16:11","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T14:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6800"},"modified":"2024-10-25T10:16:11","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T14:16:11","slug":"edge-of-sanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/edge-of-sanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Edge of Sanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Edge of Sanity <\/strong>(1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Millimeter Films\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, gore, strong sexual content, nudity, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Gerard Kikoine\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: J.P. Felix and Ron Raley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Frederic Talgorn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tony Spratling\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 14, 1989 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Anthony Perkins, Glynis Barber, Sarah Maur Thorp, David Lodge, Ben Cole, Ray Jewers, Jill Melford, Lisa Davis, Noel Coleman, Briony McRoberts, Mark Elliott, Harry Landis.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $102,219 (US)<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0Poor Anthony Perkins. His iconic role as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s Psycho is the worst thing that could have happened to him career-wise. From that point on, he was typecast as unstable characters in movies like Pretty Poison, Someone Behind the Door, Mahogany, Crimes of Passion and Edge of Sanity<\/strong>, a retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson\u2019s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that incorporates elements of the infamous (and still unsolved) Jack the Ripper killings.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When released, Edge of Sanity<\/strong> played as an \u201cexclusive one-week engagement\u201d at a single theater in Philadelphia. It was around this time that I learned \u201cexclusive one-week engagement\u201d is code for a movie so bad, the studio doesn\u2019t want to waste any more money on it than they already have because they know there\u2019s no way in hell they\u2019ll recoup it. In a case like this, they make only a few prints which they send out for brief runs at \u201cSpecially Selected\u201d theaters. In lieu of an aggressive marketing campaign, they attempt to lure audiences with buzz words like \u201cexclusive\u201d and \u201cspecially selected\u201d. This happened with two high-profile projects a few years earlier; Hugh Hudson\u2019s dreadful historical epic Revolution and the misconceived adaptation of The Clan of the Cave Bear. They both stunk! Other movies released in this fashion include The Housekeeper, How to Get Ahead in Advertising and Checking Out.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I didn\u2019t get to see Edge of Sanity<\/strong> at the movies; I couldn\u2019t fit it in to my schedule that week. I rented it when it hit video later that year. I wasn\u2019t impressed and never bothered with it again. I never forgot it though (I remember most movies, I\u2019m funny that way). It came out on Blu-Ray last year and I managed to acquire a copy (at a discount). As you all know, I like to revisit movies I didn\u2019t like the first time to see if they\u2019re any better the second time around. I\u2019m happy to say Edge of Sanity<\/strong> is such a title. It\u2019s what I call high-class sleaze. It\u2019s part period piece (Victorian-era London) and part gory slasher movie. It also has the opium dream feeling of a Ken Russell film. It\u2019s a weird one, that\u2019s for bloody sure.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Perkins plays Dr. Henry Jekyll, a brilliant (and slightly unhinged) doctor with sexual issues. As a young boy, his father humiliated him in front of a prostitute and screwed him up for life. He\u2019s currently experimenting with a new kind of anesthetic (cocaine) that will revolutionize the medical profession. One night while working in his laboratory, his test monkey accidentally spills ether on it. Jekyll ingests it and it turns him into a homicidal maniac who roams the streets of London killing prostitutes. As Jekyll grows more unstable, his wife Elisabeth (Barber, The Wicked Lady) begins to suspect he\u2019s lying to her about where he goes at night. The killings also attract the attention of Scotland Yard.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This substance that turns Jekyll into Jack Hyde isn\u2019t snorted or injected. He smokes it from a small glass pipe. Dr. Jekyll invented crack, who knew? LOL! It\u2019s just one of the story elements that make Edge of Sanity<\/strong> so nutty. Of course, a movie with Anthony Perkins is usually nutty by definition. The actor delivers his usual eccentric performance as Jekyll and Hyde. What\u2019s interesting here is that his Hyde doesn\u2019t transform into a monster like in other versions of the story. Instead, he becomes this insane-looking bloke with red-rimmed eyes and unkempt hair who forces prostitutes to act out his depraved sexual fantasies before slashing their throats. I have to admit, I like the idea of combining two of the biggest human monsters in late 19th<\/sup> century England.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Edge of Sanity<\/strong>, directed by Gerard Kikoine, reminds me of those scuzzy grindhouse flicks of the early 70s- e.g. Bloodthirsty Butchers, Torture Dungeon- that feature all manners of gruesome goings-on in some past era but with better production values. It was mostly shot in Budapest (with a few exteriors in London). The sets and costumes look completely authentic to the time. Instead of lounging around in stately mansions, we\u2019re given a tour of a sleazy underworld of whorehouses and dark alleys. The gore effects are quite good. The storyline is compelling.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Kikoine isn\u2019t a well-known filmmaker; he primarily made X-rated fare like The Window of Pleasure, French Finishing School, Sweet Young Girls and Never Enough. Edge of Sanity<\/strong> is one of his few regular features. The way he films sex scenes, you can tell he\u2019s had experience. He does a good job with this flick. It\u2019s one of the last great exploitation movies of the 80s. Let\u2019s call it a lost treasure recently rediscovered.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edge of Sanity (1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Millimeter Films\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 90 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, gore, strong sexual content, nudity, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Gerard Kikoine\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: J.P. Felix and Ron Raley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Frederic Talgorn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tony Spratling\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 14, 1989 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Anthony Perkins, Glynis Barber, Sarah Maur Thorp, David Lodge, Ben Cole, Ray Jewers, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Edge-of-Sanity-PIC.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\/6800","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=6800"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7047,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6800\/revisions\/7047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}