Edge of Sanity: DVD Review ("You'll Have to Catch Me First!")

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Edge of Sanity: screen grab from DVD menu

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Edge of Sanity (1988) starring Anthony Perkins and a bunch of people that get killed.

This is a strange one, folks. Check it out: Anthony Perkins, the superhero of onscreen instability, stars as Dr. Henry Jekyll, a star surgeon who is experimenting with cocaine as a topical anesthetic, and, of course, testing it on himself ("preparing a full study"). Late one night, his lab monkey spills some random chemical onto a bowl of coke (with a street value well in excess of ten grand), turning the yayo into a sort of crack-like substance. Jekyll huffs the fumes and turns into Mr. Hyde: his wrinkles deepen, his eyes get watery and red, and he no longer needs his cane, loping through the London streets with a spring in his step and poison in his heart. He is approached by the streetwalkers who haunt Whitechapel, only to spurn them in sweaty fear: see, Jekyll/Hyde has more issues than Vanity Fair, since he was beaten after catching his dad having a bit of how's-your-father with a hooker in a barn one stormy night, and his dad beat him whilst the hooker laughed menacingly.

Anyway, Hyde encounters a pimp who looks like Martin Gore, who takes him to a very exclusive gentleman's club full of prostitutes dressed as nuns(?!). They serve him whiskey, since it's a classy joint, but Hyde prefers to hit his crack pipe. He takes off, and encounters a prostitute who is somehow into Madonna, with big cross earrings and artificially-curly hair, who takes him abck to her place. He then freaks out as she's making a cup of tea and stabs her to death with a surgical scalpel... you guessed it: Mr. Hyde is also Jack the Ripper!

A lurid high-art bloodbath ensues, in which Jack Hyde runs amuck through the East End, encountering colorful characters and promptly killing them, waking up all hung-over and trying to keep things going at his hospital day-job, as his wife (who also played Soolin in Blake's 7) gets sick of his crap and takes matters into her own hands. The ending is a bit of a departure from the source material, as, in real life, The Ripper was never caught.

This is a total B-Movie in every sense: lurid, over-the-top, violent, and exploitative; however, the  production values are top-notch. The lighting is spectacular, the mood is suitably dank and the editing is tight and pacey. The locations were well-chosen (Wales and Prague), and Perkins' performance is daring, taking on those broad strokes with gleeful abandon and total commitment: his Jack Hyde is a twisted predator who makes Norman Bates look like door-to-door encyclopedia salesman.

The tagline on the original VHS release was "Double the terror! Double the fun!"; it does not disappoint-- however, this is not a date movie, and the subject matter, inherently disturbing, is handled with a gratuitousness that borders on the slapstick.

Arthouse aspirations: Check.
Violence: Check.
Toplessness: Check.
Drug Use: Check.
Maniacal laughter and spinning rooms: Check.
Anachronistic belt buckles: Check
The most hardcore Just-Say-No message of all time: Check.

The DVD itself is fine: the film transfer is lovely, retaining the deep colors and black blacks: crucial, since most of the movie takes place in murky darkness. The only extra feature is the trailer, which is sort of lame, but, as a small production, there wasn't a lot of publicity surrounding the making of the film.

Apparently, though, according to film legend, Anthony Perkins took the role so seriously that he hired a theatre in Wales and staged it as a one-man show, and got so stressed tha the had a friend send him some marijuana from the States. As fate would have it, another Tony Perkins was staying at the same hotel, and received the dodgy package, alerting the cops. Mayhem ensued, and somehow the film's legal team kept Perkins out of jail. 

Funnily enough, this film was rated R.