Directed by Lee Raymond and produced by Byron Mabe (director of She Freak [1967] & bizarro-curio The Bushwacker [1968]), The Adult Version of Jekyll & Hide, also known as Adventures of Dr. Jekyll, was later picked up by (s)exploitation legend, David F. Friedman.
And what about the art on that poster, eh? Fucking marvellous!

Starring: John Barnum (credited as Jack Buddliner), Laurie Rose (credited as Jennifer Brooks), Rene Bond, Jane Tsentas and Jude Farese.

The Adult Version of Jekyll & Hide is a bit of a strange duck; released right on the cusp of when explicit (and unsimulated) sex was appearing to garner a level of acceptance; getting screened in mainstream theatres; beginning in 1969 with Andy Warhol's Blue Movie, followed by Mona: The Virgin Nymph (1970), it wasn't until 1972, that the era of "porno chic" was firmly cemented with the release and monumental success of both Damiano's Deep Throat and Jim & Artie Mitchell's Behind the Green Door. Why is The Adult Version of Jekyll & Hide a strange duck then? Because, although released during the era of porno chic, containing numerous scenes of explicit sex, and sporting a suggestive title, it is not actually a hardcore film. Instead, it mixes the nudie cutie t&a sexploitation appeal with roughie violence and the lurid bloodshed sensibilities seen in the "blood-horror" movies from Friedman's historical partnership with gore auteur, Herschell Gordon Lewis.



The plot very loosely follows the 137 year old Robert Louis Stevenson story, the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but only so far and likely has the spelling change from "Hyde" to "Hide" to capitalise and jokingly nod towards the sheer amount of skin on display. Aping the gender-swapping take on the tale seen in the earlier 1971 Hammer production, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (dir. Roy Ward Baker), but amplifying the amount of nudity and sexual content to the absolute max. To say there's a ton of nudity in this movie is an understatement, there's a bounty of both male & female full-frontal scenes and the sex is as graphic as it can possibly get without actually showing any penetration. Fear not, prudes!

The picture opens with a philandering doctor named Chris Leeder (John Barnum) having it off with his buxom nurse Debbie, played by a post-boob job Rene Bond rocking a pair of white go-go boots!
Chris takes a trip to a old-timey trinket shop with his actual, longterm girlfriend, Cynthia Carson (Laurie Rose). It's here that he stumbles upon an old notebook written by Dr. Jekyll, though he doesn't buy it at the time. He later decides that he wants it and returns to the shop in the evening, but the shopkeep refuses to sell it to him. Leeder strangles the shopkeep, exclaiming "Oh God, what have I done?" and flees with the notebook in-hand, thus beginning Leeder's spiralling descent into a murderous, transsexual madness.



I loved this, it's a delightful psychotronic sleaze-trip. The plot is wafer thin and exists as a means to an end to show everything they want to show you; bloody whippings, burning hot fire irons being forcefully rammed into delicate places, and back-alley castrations. The light moments of laughably camp villainy and mirthful hijinks are punctured by the numerous disturbing scenes of graphic sexual violence.

The performances from the cast are surprisingly good, although one does begin to tire of seeing John Barnum's saggy arse after the first dozen times. Barnum brings, other than his saggy arse, a certain charm to his role as the mentally deteriorating doctor, who becomes entirely consumed by the diary of Dr. Jekyll. Crafting and drinking potion after potion. Laurie Rose adequately conveys a believable genuineness about her character, Cynthia, enough to elicit a sympathetic reponse from the audience when the movie comes to a climax. The movie also sees Rene Bond in a non-hardcore role, but I'm sure the rabid Rene fans out there have already checked this title out!

There's an exceptional use of colourful lighting, enough to make the likes of Dario Argento or Nicolas Winding Refn blush. The garishness of the colour contributes to the cartoonish appearance of the film and allows the spectacles within to exist in the fantastique, removing any sense of vérité. Further enhanced by the soundtrack; bombastic, theatric, dramatic, and thoroughly over-the-top.

There's a rather outlandish scene that happens within the last 15 minutes wherein, whilst still transformed into his womanly incarnation, the good doctor lops off a sailor's cock after a tryst in a grungy back alley. During the finale there's another squirm-inducing scene that's permeated with an implied moment of necrophilia, or at least that's how I read it.



Often these days you'll hear individuals in certain circles spouting hyperbole like "this would never get made today", hell even I'm guilty of such utterances at one point or another, but I've come to think it's such mouthpiece bullshit. Exploitation movies still get made whether they're a new take on the label or an overt homage to the glory days of yesteryear. I just don't think those movies are produced today the same way they were during the '60s and into the early '70s. Since the advent of the internet and its ever-more accessibility, pornography of every conceivable variety (legal or unfortunately otherwise) is so readily available at the click of a button that the demand for nudity cuties or nudist camp movies merely no longer exists, except out of curiosity and to those with ab interest in film history. There are still a great many movies being made today that incorporate graphic kills and nudity thrills, but they tend to just go straight to disc or VOD. Perhaps then it would be more fitting for the phrase to be changed to "this wouldn't get theatrical distribution today".

In a way there has been something of a "revival" of the sexploitation genre only skewed a little for the 21st century. A prime example of what I mean would be the dire Netflix film series, 365 Days (2020-2022); it's got a plot that's ripped straight out of the roughie playbook and it's as near to pornography without actually showing a penetrative act as you can get, even going so far to use a prosthetic cock like it's a Tinto Brass flick. Classy, it ain't.



Anyway, now that I've got that out of my system, what I mean to say is that I had a lot of fun with The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hide. It's a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of colourful lighting, exposed flesh, unabashed sex, and bloody violence, all of which exudes a certain drive-in era glee that would make any fan of sexploitation/exploitation a fool to avoid!