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mst3kproject · 5 years

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Daughter of Dr. Jekyll

John Agar’s in this. So, for that matter, is Gloria Talbott from Girls Town and The Leech Woman, and it was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, who brought us The Amazing Transparent Man. It was released on a double-bill with The Cyclops, which I’ve already reviewed, and while all that seems to promise us an utter crapfest, the premise at least sounded intriguing. Then I actually pressed play, and was greeted by an opening consisting of gray fog, theremin music, and a bored narrator. Oh, yeah. This is gonna suck.

Said opening narration very (and I mean very) quickly introduces us to the tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in which a distinguished scientist used a strange potion to turn himself into a werewolf! Wait… that’s not what happened in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at all. Wasn’t it a story about how every person has the capacity for evil and that’s part of what makes us human, and… aw, fuck it, this is a John Agar movie. Okay, sure, a werewolf. Whatever you say, Portentous 50’s Narrator. Moving on.

Janet Smith and her fiancé George Hastings arrive at her family’s palatial home, which she will inherit on her upcoming twenty-first birthday. That’s not all that’s come down the family line, though. Janet’s last name is not Smith, but Jekyll, and she was born after his experiments in lycanthropy had begun. Might she pass it on to her children? Or might Janet herself not be affected? Or is her father’s old friend Dr. Lomas an evil hypnotist using her for his own ends? Wait… what?

After sitting through crap like The Incredible Petrified World and Creatures from the Abyss, I kind of want to give extra points to Daughter of Dr. Jekyll. It’s actually fairly well-constructed for the most part, it’s rarely boring, and the sets representing the Jekyll family estate are very nice. There’s a plot I can follow, I know who the characters are, and so forth… my standards have dropped so low, that’s actually kind of impressive. The creepy delivery guy who hangs around whittling stakes and sowing discontent is pretty effective, himself, even though he’s a very one-dimensional character.

There’s still plenty of badness to be had, of course. The movie appears to be set in the first decade of the twentieth century, but it’s not very committed to that. The sound is frequently weird, from the absolute cacophony of frogs at the opening to musical cues that I swear were stolen from Robot Monster. There’s a random cameo from a very 50’s pin-up girl who appears, gets killed, and vanishes without us ever even learning her name. The climactic fight between George and the werewolf is extremely shatnery and the werewolf makeup is even lamer than in Werewolf in a Girl’s Dormitory.

Even worse, there’s an entire subplot that kind of doesn’t even bother happening. Most movies that are going to involve angry villagers have some scenes in a local pub or something to show the rabble being roused – even The Giant Spider Invasion had that. In Daughter of Dr. Jekyll we hear about angry villagers from a couple of different people but never actually see them until the pitchfork-toting crowd appears out of nowhere at the end. It’s like an angry flash mob. All we needed was a few thirty-second scenes, but I guess this movie couldn’t afford villagers. The whole climax is obscured by fog that makes it very hard to tell who’s who and what’s going on.

As usual, we’re confused about who our main character is supposed to be. The person whose eyes we see the story through is Janet. It’s Janet whose arc we follow, and Janet who we learn the most about, but she’s a very frustrating character because she is entirely without agency. The only choice she appears to make in the entire film is agreeing to marry George, before this story begins. Otherwise, she’s letting him or Lomas tell her what to do, completely incapable of making her own decisions (she even says as much, when George asks her if she’d like to go to London and elope). When the action occurs, she’s drugged with sleeping pills or in Lomas’ hypnotic thrall.

Even the very premise strips Janet of control over her own fate. She is not the heir to a scientific legacy (as other descendants of Henry Jekyll in other movies have been) but to a genetic one. Tanya in Lady Frankenstein chose to continue and improve on her father’s work. She might not have. Janet, on the other hand, cannot opt out of the family’s potentially tainted DNA. This lack of control is reinforced through smaller events as well: George won’t let Janet change her mind about marrying him, and when the young couple tells Lomas they don’t want his money or estate, he reveals that both were actually Janet’s the whole time. Like Eddie in The Beatniks, Janet is basically a victim even when good things are happening – they always happen to her rather than because of her.

The character who actually tries to take control of the situation, and who I think we’re supposed to see as the ‘hero’, is George – but we know nothing about George. He loves Janet and he has terrible fashion sense, and that’s really it. It’s her family we learn about, and her mental disintegration that follows. George spends most of the movie just hovering on the sidelines watching, and even at the end he doesn’t do very much. He explains what’s really going on to Janet and the audience (though we’ve already figured it out) and gets his ass kicked by a geriatric werewolf. The monster is actually killed by the mob of villagers, while George just stands there with Janet sobbing into his shirt. The movie probably wouldn’t have been much different without him.

The thing that really takes the viewer out of the movie, however, and does so repeatedly for its entire seventy-minute running time, is that it can’t make up its mind what its monster is supposed to be. I already mentioned the narrator’s conviction that Mr. Hyde was a werewolf, but it gets way weirder and more confusing than that.

The servants at the Jekyll house also talk about werewolves, and tell Janet and George in threatening voices that they know how to deal with such creatures. On the other hand, when Dr. Lomas himself tells them what happened, he tells the story we’re familiar with: Dr. Jekyll wanted to separate the good and evil parts of a person, and ended up giving the evil in himself a free agency of its own. This made me think maybe the servants were just a bunch of superstitious peasants? Maybe they called Mr. Hyde a werewolf because they didn’t know what else to call him? That almost started to make sense… but then George picks up a book about werewolves, and in its pages he reads that a werewolf leaves its tomb on the night of the full moon so it can drink blood, and can only be killed by a wooden stake through the heart.

Wait. What?

That… that’s not werewolves! Werewolves are killed by silver bullets! Stakes through the heart are vampires! Werewolves don’t have tombs! What is going on here?

By the time the climax rolls around, we’ve already figured out Dr. Lomas’ evil plan, and sure enough, it turns out he’s hypnotizing Janet into believing she’s a werewolf so she will commit suicide and he can have her family’s money. That makes sense in a Scooby-Doo kind of way, I guess, and I can accept it for the sake of the movie… but then he actually turns into a werewolf and goes out to suck blood! What? What? How did that happen? Was he playing with Jekyll’s formula? But Jekyll turned into Hyde when he took the drug, not at the full moon! What the fuck?

The movie never explains itself. We’re just supposed to take this bizarre conflation for granted. But vampires, werewolves, and Mr. Hyde are three totally different types of monster! Vampires are undead corpses who avoid decay and death by sucking blood. Werewolves are living people who transform under the full moon and kill out of animalistic rage. Mr. Hyde was Dr. Jekyll’s repressed evil side given form. You could probably argue that all three have the same root, in our need to conform to certain standards in order to make society work, but Daughter of Dr. Jekyll doesn’t try to do that. It just mixes and matches story bits at all, combining conflicting mythologies and leaving very visible seams. In fact, we may as well consider this a Frankenstein movie, too!

I can only imagine the fun Mike and the Bots would have had with this confusion. I’m picturing a game show in which they must match the weapon with the monster, and if they lose, they get eaten. Tom would have figured out that you survive by picking what ought to be the wrong answer. Crow would not.

The opening narration of Daughter of Dr. Jekyll notes that Robert Louis Stephenson’s book is a classic, and it is so for good reason. It’s an exploration of the evil within us all, the intrusive thoughts and secret desires we would rather attribute to an alter ego than ever admit to anyone, and the fact that the sinner is as much a part of each of us as the saint. Daughter of Dr. Jekyll throws all that out the window by equating its villain with a vampire/werewolf, making him a sort of mindless monster. It’s confusing and annoying, and its compelling source material deserved far better.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #daughter of dr jekyll #oh shit it's john agar #50s #you is a warwelf #just fuckin weird

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enixamyram · 5 years

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Rose’s Q&A’s on Saturday

Rose was asked about World's End: She said it was fun playing a blue blooded fem bot.

Didn't hear the question but Rose said she joined a youth centre after school & did things like Joseph's technicolor dream coat and enjoyed it so much. Then she went on to drama school cause she's not really academic. She's more creative so discovered it (assuming it's acting lol) at 10 years old. Rose also said there were a few times on set where she did self tapes for American accents. And she made Andy (Andrew West) speak lines into her phone for her to listen to later, but would often break character and ask what the hell he was reading because it was all so weird.

Dog: Rose does not have a dog but Andy does and Rose loves her - there are also videos of Rose singing with Nala (his dog).

Chocolate Cake: Rose likes chocolate cake!

Superpowers: Rose would like to stop time, freezing and unfreezing whenever she wants. And apparently Rob a bank, since she wouldn't use her powers for good. (There was also a lot of talk about space time continuum XD)

Can’t remember the question but Colin is annoying and does Rose('s accent) all the time! He asked if she was excited to go home for Xmas. And she answered with a thick accent because she was excited and Colin teased and mimicked her so much!

Song to get her dancing (not allowed to say rock and roll): Dreams and You Make Loving Fun by Fleetwood Mack.

Character was a cocktail it would be: Tilly would be something like a gramble with a twist!

Describing life story in one sentence: uuuuhhhhh (then made fun of Andy for using one word rather than one sentence) and decided "take the work seriously but never yourself" because that's what she's like.

Tilly or Alice?: She loves both but got to explore Tilly so has a stronger connection to her. But would have loved to explore Alice in Wonderland more.

Favourite memory in S7: Andy opening the door during a scene with her and Colin and just looked really shifty. And also, Colin was being very camp!

Would she want to become the next Doctor: She'd rather be a companion because Jodie is killing it.

Which cast member was most welcoming: Bobby because she had all her scenes with him and he's so generous and told her stories about his work past.

Favourite part about Alice: Her resilience because no one believes her but she doesn't let that get to her and she’s very optimistic and fights on.

What she loves about the fans: That they travel with the show and are committed and she really appreciates it.

Memorable Scenes: Rose remembers meeting Andy for the script read during the first day. And the last day when everyone says goodbye to everyone.

Couldn't hear the question again but Rose said it was a massive scene to conquer Gothel and that was a turning point. So after the curse she picked up the pieces with her family.

What did Rose miss about Devon: Getting from A to B It also took her five hours to drive here but she did it! So woo!

How did she prepare for the role: She didn't have the pressure of researching a real person. But reading the books helped. She read Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass and then researched Lewis Carole and about him and his inspiration. She also watched the show to know the genre and style and wished she could have done more of her own Alice In Wonderland like the Spinoff.

If she could voice an animated character: She would be the voice of Penelope from Wreck It Ralph (or maybe Penelope's sistet).

(Sweetest lil girl just went up and said "I Love You Rose")

Hardest scene to film: Any scene where you cry cause you have to do it so much. They're hard and tiring because you have to be in that frame of mind for hours even between the breaks of filming.

Headcanon for Alice not trapped in the tower: (She didn't know what a headcanon was at first and we had to explain it to her lol) She'd love to see the places she could go and just sail to see the world and lands. Imagine seeing Wonderland by boat.

Fav scene in general: Scenes with Colin, Bobby and Andy. And when Rogers invites Tilly to live with him. And the improvised I Love You scene. Fav Tiera scene: First day they met for the make out scene when she introduced herself. She met her by saying "hello I'm rose were gonna be kissing in a few hours". But also loads of other stuff.

What would get her to make a deal with The Dark One: She would make a deal if Rumple could give them their superpowers (the ones they spoke about earlier)!

If she wasn’t an actor she would be: A nature photographer.

If she could be any other character: Rose would be Henry.

What live action Disney character would she be: Ariel. Or Aurora.

Missed the question but Rose is straight but was so happy and proud to represent a lesbian woman. She also added “happy pride month!”

Character she wished they could have done that wasn’t already in the show: She wished we could see the Jabberwocky!

What Alice wrote to Robin in her letter: "My Love, No matter where you are I will find you. I will always love you even if I forget, I will NOT forget. Even if I do, I WILL remember you."

Hidden talent or skill: No Apart from singing with Andy's dog.

Person who made them laugh: Andy who loved going to his whiteboard during the episode when she, Rogers and Henry were all together trying to figure things out. And after every take he would be writing different things each time.

Game Of Thrones Finale: She was very disappointed with Game of Thrones. She said it felt rushed. Some of the things she was happy about, and some she felt was too quick even if it was how she expected it to end.

And that’s it! There was a bit or a misunderstanding before Rose realised they were trying to tell her to wrap it up, lol.

#Once Upon A Time #Rose Reynolds #Alice Jones #Enchanted2 #Starfury #Tilly Rogers

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themattress · 7 years

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The GOOD things about the OUAT Finale

The finale for the sixth season and original series of Once Upon a Time was sadly not on par with previous finales (save for Season 5′s) nor the ideal series finale it could have been. But with that said, there were several positive aspects to it and I think they are worth looking at.

The Parallels - While the literal usage of the Dark Curse in order to give a sense of coming full circle was groan-worthy, there were many great parallels to the first season that came along with it such as Emma and Henry’s relationship, the evil gaslighting female mayor, Snow and Davd’s kiss and following exchange, the place they were married, Emma’s old apartment, Henry getting a sword from Mr. Gold just like Emma did in the finale, and of course the role-reversed True Love’s Kiss between Emma and Henry. That all worked.

Mayor Fiona - Fiona as the Black Fairy was a pretty lame villain, even with Jamie Murray doing her best in the role. The awkward attempts to portray her as the Ultimate Evil and sheer unoriginality of combining many past Big Bad traits into one character left me very unimpressed. But strangely enough, as the mayor of her cursed Storybrooke, Fiona finally became genuinely scary and despicable to me. How seamlessly she could adopt the mask of being a kind, caring person made her even more hateful than the over-the-top Mayor Mills of Season 1, and her absolute psychotic conviction that all of her manipulative villainy was for a just cause made her frightening. In the end, she was actually a pretty decent final foe.

The Multiversal Apocalypse - Even though the reason for it happening made absolutely no freaking sense (Why is the existence of all the realms suddenly bound to the Savior’s belief?), I still loved the stakes and intensity that it brought to the finale. It was also a fantastic visual. The image of a darkness consuming the world brings to mind the Nothing from The Neverending Story, which makes perfect sense for a show like this to reference.

Operation Cuckoo’s Nest - Thank you, Henry. Finally a real nod to the fact that the psyche ward nurse and janitor are so clearly Nurse Ratched and Chief Bromdan from that story.

Hook’s Speech - In front of the beanstalk where the Captain Swan relationship officially began, Hook makes a passionate speech to David that sums up exactly why the couple, despite the missteps made with it in the past two seasons, is so great. They weren’t some pre-destined pair that was guaranteed a happy ending by fate (the kind of relationship that Swanfire shippers insist that their ship was), it was two people who had to fight for their love and earn their happy ending. Even better, Hook acknowledges the fact that is barely talked about in-show and out of it: that he and Emma made each other better. Previously the show had been acting as if was just the love of a good woman than changed a bad man, while certain fans seem to think that Hook made Emma worse since S1 Emma is the pinnacle of strength and badassery (more on that later…), but in fact both characters have helped develop and improve one another over the course of their relationship. That is why CS > all.

Captain Charming - Following up from this, Hook and David’s beanstalk adventure and the reflection it shows on how their relationship has developed is beautiful. If you ignore the bullshit retcon about Hook killing David’s father like the show does once its purpose of contrived temporary angst has been served, then the Hook/David bromance has been one of the show’s most endearing bonds over several seasons, and it culminates with the exchange where David admits to Hook that “he’s not trusting a pirate, he’s trusting his son….in-law.”

Rumple’s Comical Misogyny - Rumple has always been a misogynist and usually it’s disgusting, but in both episodes of this finale it crosses the line into flat-out hilarity. The first is when Fiona, after some dramatic build-up, reveals the supposed fate of Belle under this curse to him. She has dared to pull a Milah, leaving her family to actually pursue her own dreams and sustain her own well-being by travelling the world! Rumple’s horrified face as he looks through the obviously Photoshopped selfies of Belle at foreign landmarks is priceless. The second is when Rumple kills Fiona. Not only is this another woman to add to his body count, but it’s his own mother! Rumple’s habit of killing women who oppose him has finally reached the point where he kills the very woman whose womb he came from, the very woman who birthed him! Again, his expression after this deed coupled with his shaking arm is hilarious, as if even he realizes just how fucked up his murderous misogyny has gotten!

The Book Burning Scene - The closing scene of Part 1, where Emma burns the Once Upon a Time storybook all while shit is getting real back in the Enchanted Forest, is excellently shot and scored. I especially like when Fiona is to the side of Emma, tempting her, with flames seen just below her to signify how devilish she is, and when Emma sees the burning page of Hook’s picture which triggers something in her subconscious memory. It’s True Love, people.

“Hello there, Mummy” - Just…that line from Hook to Snow. Best line in the whole finale.

The Evil Queen - One of the biggest surprises in the finale was the return of the Evil Queen who had been split from Regina and served as the main antagonist for the first half of the season. Not only was the plot hole of her previous “happy ending” addressed (it wasn’t safe for her in the Wish Realm), but she proved to be noble and self-sacrificing in a way that Regina seldom has been. I mostly liked the Evil Queen earlier in the season, and her performance in this finale just reinforces my firm belief that like with Jekyll and Hyde, it’s the alleged “dark” part who is truly the better half. I can actually get behind her happy ending.

Gideon Gold - I never cared for Gideon throughout this season. He was a whiny psycho who lacked charisma when he first showed up, and the retcon that his heart was being controlled by the Black Fairy still didn’t endear me to him. But, like his surrogate mother, he was actually more effective here. First he was a complete asshole under the curse which helped show how bad Fiona and what she has done is, then he was hilarious with his befuddled reactions to Fiona ranting on about magic and having his heart, and finally he was a truly sympathetic figure, forced to be a puppet who had to fight and kill Emma even when he didn’t want to, a huge improvement over his “I wanna be the Savior!” crap from before. I actually felt for him, and was glad that he was reset into a baby, giving him another chance.

Emma’s Character Development - Whenever people say they want “Season 1 Emma” back, they seldom mean the Emma who had great plot relevancy who got to be the hero, nor the Emma who saw Regina for the sociopath that she was and stood up to her. No, they mean they want the shallowly “badass” Emma who was cold and muted in her emotional reactions, wore leather jackets all the time, punched people, said snarky things to everyone, and who was cynical and unbelieving in magic…and who was also a sad, pathetic loner. She was someone with no life beyond her job, had no friends because she pushed everyone away with her “walls”, and refused to believe in magic that she was at the center of because her self-esteem was so low that she refused to believe she had any such worth. All that bluster about “punching back and saying ‘this is who I am’? Just a way to repress what she truly thought of herself: as an unlovable orphan. In this finale, they brought Season 1 Emma back, were not subtle about how negative a person she was, and then showed just how she’s changed for the better. Even when cursed to regress back to her Season 1 self, all of Emma’s development doesn’t just disappear. It’s still there in her subconscious, and thus she ends up doing something the actual Season 1 Emma would never have done - believe in Henry and believe in herself because she wants to be the kind of magical hero he insists that she is and she’s willing to take a chance on becoming that hero. She’s truly punching back - against her own bleak outlook - and defining who she is: the Savior, giver of hope and light.

Rumple Beside Himself - Why did it take until the last episode for Rumple in his present-day Mr. Gold identity to stand opposite from his manic, sparkly past alter-ego? Given how the Dark One was established to work in Season 5, this felt like a much more natural thing to have happen than Regina and the Evil Queen sharing screentime together. Robert Carlyle is fantastic in both roles, as Rumple is tempted by his own dark side into once again making the wrong choice and screwing everyone over, but for some reason or other, he’s not having any of it this time and does the right thing. This doesn’t redeem him by a long shot, especially since the current crisis is his own fault, but it’s nice to see him take a stand all the same.

The Final Battle - Fiona may go out in an anticlimactic way, but she does leave behind a pretty ingenious trap: she gives Gideon’s heart the command for him to kill Emma at all costs. If Emma is killed, then light magic as embodied by her will die. If Emma kills Gideon, who is an innocent victim, it will cause light magic to die too! In a callback to 6x02, Regina says Emma can find the third way that she could not when faced with a similar situation when the Charmings were attacked by the heart-controlled Edmond Dantes. She finds that third way by allowing Gideon to stab her in order to save him, hoping that a self-sacrifice like this will spare light magic. At the same time, Rumple gives Gideon’s heart the command to not kill Emma, which can’t fully override Fiona’s command but causes his stab to curse her rather than irretrievably kill her. And because good as represented by the Savior and evil as represented by the almost-Savior both did the right thing, both combatants of the Final Battle are able to survive it. I’ll admit it - that’s actually some decent writing. Still, I’d rather Rumple have died as a part of his contribution, since it’s pretty galling that he gets off scot-free.

The Closure - The happy ending montage is beautiful…for the most part, anyway. The “Swan-Mills Family” pandering moment is ridiculous, and Regina and Rumple’s big scenes are morally twisted and infuriating. But the closing scenes for Snow, David, Emma and Hook are all perfect, with the first couple finally getting a better house complete with a barn and David’s old dog, and the second couple patrolling the streets as sheriff and deputy, with the hilarious added detail of a siren put on the yellow bug. And if you’re actually able to stomach the presence of Regina, Zelena, Rumple and Belle, then the final shot of the big family dinner at Granny’s is pretty touching as well, especially when it turns into the final page of the book.

#Once Upon a Time #ABC #The Final Battle #Finale #Opinion #Analysis

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