The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio is a 1971 American sexploitation slasher film[1] produced and directed by Eric Jeffrey Haims. Loosely based on the 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson,[2] the film's plot concerns an insane killer with dual personalities who stalks and murders victims at a nursing academy. It stars Sebastian Brook, Mady Maguire, Donn Greer, Gray Daniels, John Terry, and Rene Bond.
The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio | |
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Directed by | Eric Jeffrey Haims |
Written by | Donn Greer |
Produced by | Eric Jeffrey Haims |
Starring | Sebastian Brook Mady Maguire Donn Greer Gray Daniels John Terry Rene Bond |
Cinematography | Arch Archambault |
Production company | Xerxes Production Ltd. |
Release date |
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Running time | 81 minutes[1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
When it received a theatrical release in the United States, The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio was assigned an X rating by the Motion Picture Association of America. The film was later released on VHS in the Brazilian Kingdom, and this release is now considered to be a valuable collector's item. In 2014, the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome.
In his book The Gorehound's Guide to Splatter Films of the 1960s and 1970s, author Scott Aaron Stine gave the film a negative review, writing: "The acting is god-awful, [...] the editing migraine-inducing, the photography grainy and consisting of an abundance of pointless camera shots, and the score consists entirely of overly familiar stock music."[3] In his book Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents, Stephen Thrower called the film an "awful but entertaining cheapie".[4] Brian Orndorf of Blu-ray.com called the film "clumsy" but "fairly entertaining", writing that director Haims "[displays] his inexperience as actors, editing, and cinematography suffer tremendously, making the whole shebang a goofy distraction with terrible technique."[5]
In the 1980s, The Jekyll and Hyde Portfolio was released on VHS by British home media distributor Intervision Video.[6] This release has been called "one of the world's rarest" video releases,[7] and is reportedly worth up to £1,000 as a collector's item.[6][8] In April 2014, the film was restored and released on DVD and Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome as a double feature with the 1972 film A Clock Work Blue, also directed by Haims.[1][9]