Jekyll + Hyde 2005

A QUICK EXPLANATION:

As part of the research process, to gather ideas and for fun, Aaron has taken it upon himself to check out various previous movie iterations of the Jekyll and Hyde story. He'll provide brief reviews here, as well as his thoughts, comparing and contrasting each film with the source material.


Jekyll + Hyde
2005

direct to DVD
horror/suspense/indie/foreign?


here's a provided synopsis:

The low-budget, direct-to-video thriller Jekyll + Hyde updates Robert Louis Stevenson's seminal 1886 novel to the Twenty-first century. Jeff Roop and Bree Turner star as medical students Jay and Mary, whose undying experimentation with an ecstasy-like drug yields a complete loss of behavioral control, followed by a sudden descent into unbridled madness, and Mary's death. As Jay begins to gradually alter the formula with the hope of saving himself, he instead becomes more and more controlled by the substance, with little recognition of the extent to which it is reshaping his life and personality. Meanwhile, he captures the entire experience on a series of video diaries that will tell the tragic story to the rest of the world. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide


This was a decent modernization of the story, especially because I thought it would be terrible.

So the major differences from this movie and the book are as follows:

- Jekyll's motivation for creating the elixir (more nutty professor instead of duality)
-Jekyll killed nearly everyone as Hyde
-Hyde only appeared a couple of times (also since there was no real transformation it was hard to tell them apart)
-The blackmail angle was completely dropped


other than these things though they did do a pretty good job of following the story as a modernization based at UCLA among medical students who experiment with recreational drugs way too much.

--Aaron

An Idea Is Born...

With our first major collaborative short film, The Tell Tale Heart, on it's way to festivals, Aaron and I recently began talks about what our next project would be. There were several ideas tossed around and debated (maybe some of them will come up again in the future), but one that we hit on that we both liked was the idea of adapting Robert Lewis Stephenson's classic, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We both appreciate a good, gripping story-- and are especially intrigued by the moral and thematic elements woven into the fabric of this classic thriller.

The story of Dr. Jekell and Mr. Hyde is one that I think most people are somewhat familiar with, but the parts that most people know focus heavily on the "monster-movie" aspects of the story, without digging deep into the meat of what it's all about. When evaluated closely, it becomes clear that the story is about much more than a man drinking a potion and turning into a monster, but rather is a deeply tragic tale which wrestles with difficult ideas including the duality of man, the lure of temptation, and the dangers of moral compromise.

We seek to make a film that stays true to the spirit and style of the book. We hope to create an entertaining, gothic, tale of suspense, which echos the moral themes and ideas presented the book and made it into the classic that it is today.

Realizing that this type of project will be impossible to accomplish on our own, we've already enlisted the help of Frank, who worked with us on TTH and will serve as a producer on this film. As the screenplay gets underway and we begin to figure out how much it'll cost to make, we plan to acquire grants and other funding in order to turn our vision into a reality.

This will all take some doing, of course... A lot of work, a lot of thought and discussion, and a lot of time. The purpose of this blog is to keep track of our progress, our ideas, and our struggles along the way as we seek to create something memorable. Let's get started!

--Josh