NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES: Movie reviews. And one actual nightmare!

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde–the silent one with John Barrymore.

The two notable things about this movie are 1. Barrymore and 2. the changes made to the storyline. As far as 1., he’s creepy and awesome. Even at the story’s beginning, when he’s supposed to be practically perfect in every way, he looks ferocious and kind of like he’s about to bite the head off a bat. His fit during the first transformation is great. (…Though the second transformation slides into the ridiculous.)

2. is really annoying. Not only is Jekyll’s early perfection pushed over the top in a way it isn’t in the novel; not only is a Henry Wotton/Jimmy Stewart in Rope figure introduced, rather than having Jekyll seduce himself, play Richard to his own Lady Anne; but Jekyll’s downfall occurs when he… sees a fan-dance. Yep. Sex made him a monster. Not even the chance to see Nita Naldi could keep me from being desperately bored by this idea. I was really glad I’d read the novel first, since if I had assumed that this was Stevenson’s own storyline I doubt I would have bothered to read it.

Random notes: The intertitles are illustrated and a lot of fun. The close-up shot where Hyde’s horrible hands first begin to move is genuinely shivery–thrilling and frightening even to those of us raised on contemporary horror techniques.

Powwow Highway: There’s a pony in here somewhere.

…No, okay, it really wasn’t that bad. This is a demi-political road movie in which a rough-edged American Indian Movement guy and his best friend head out to find and presumably rescue the AIM guy’s sister, who was framed for drug possession. Both of the lead actors (Gary Farmer and A Martinez) were really good, and I’ll be looking for more of their movies.

But rrraaaarrrrrggghhhh, this was really predictable, sentimental, and cliched! It’s just not good. If the writer/director had decided to take this in a noirish direction, it could have worked so much better–there’s past (’70s) vs present (’89 I think), past (1800s) vs past (’70s), mysticism vs politics, attempts to escape the past and “the system” and one’s own personality…. I swear, this could have been a really good movie! Instead, it’s… not.

And my nightmare, in which I was in Jeepers Creepers 3! No joke. I don’t even know if there is a Jeepers Creepers 3–there is a 2, but I haven’t seen it. Anyway, for all my complaints about the original flick, it now joins Misery as only the second horror movie to give me actual nightmares. …Sometimes I was just watching the movie, in which survivors from the first one and the sequel teamed up against the eeeeevildoer. Other times the action was real, and I was one of the terrified characters. Other times I was the evildoer! Yipes.

Interestingly, two elements of the nightmare were drawn from things I genuinely liked about the movie: the golden afternoon, light-drenched, in which the first half takes place–just gorgeous to look at; and the full-throttle ending. I hated the very last shot (thought it was overdone and kinda goofy), but the way the plotline ended was very, very satisfying, and my nightmare picked up on that.