Also known as Dr. Jekyll et Les Femmes and Bloodlust (none of which really make much sense), this is an extreme oddity directed by Walerian Borowczyk, most famous for The Beast, a movie that, like this one, features a lot of rape and an oversized phallus. In this one, Udo Kier plays Jekyll, about to be engaged to Miss Osbourne, played by the lovely Marina Pierro. Jekyll is receiving honorable, Victorian guests at his home (along with his bride-to-be and her mother) to celebrate the engagement, but has recently become further obsessed with his mutation experiments.
It's unquestionably weird. When Jekyll (Kier) undergoes his transformation, Gerard Zalcberg takes over to play Hyde, which sort of neuters Kier. However, when Pierro takes a dose herself of Jekyll's mixture, she's still Pierro. That's the least of the film's inconsistencies - scenes crash into each other often going unresolved, and sometimes the action is so frantic it's guesswork trying to figure out what just happened. The plot is often ludicrous, but it usually moves along at a good pace, helped along by the dirty, gothic photography and Bernard Parmegiani's (!) droning, unsettling synth and piano score.
Also it was interesting to see Patrick Magee here (playing a general who quickly becomes a near-comedy character), better known to me for playing the old man in A Clockwork Orange.
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