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Seduction Cinema presents

Dr. Jekyll & Mistress Hyde: CE (2003)

Dr. Stevenson: What about sex?
Martine: Sex? What's that?- Julian Wells, Misty Mundae

Stars: Misty Mundae, Julian Wells
Other Stars: Ruby LaRocca, Andrea Davis, Boz Tennyson
Director: Tony Marsiglia

MPAA Rating: Not Rated for nudity and strong sexual content
Run Time: 01h:28m:27s
Release Date: 2003-05-20
Genre: late night

Style
Grade
Substance
Grade
Image Transfer
Grade
Audio Transfer
Grade
Extras
Grade
B- C+BB A-

 

DVD Review

In this campy, sexy retelling of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, Seduction Cinema and director Tony Marsiglia put their all-girl mark on the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This time, however, it's a controversial therapist named Dr. Jackie Stevenson (Julian Wells) who believes that females are in constant battle between two halves of their inner psyche. Stevenson is convinced that since women are demanded to be a "lady in public, and a whore in the bedroom," this repressive balance between being pure and lustful is a cause for emotional instability. The duality issue is escalated after she develops an experimental drug known as Euphoria, and injects it into an emotionally troubled young patient named Martine (Misty Mundae, decked out in a nasty black wig).

The drug quickly sends Martine into an unrelenting orgiastic state, which ultimately lands her in an insane asylum, outfitted with a fashionable straight-jacket (but of course, not until Martine and Dr. Stevenson get very familiar with each other). The story then loosely (very loosely) follows the original novel by having Dr. Stevenson inject herself with the drug, only to turn into the sexually liberated and insatiably horny alter ego known as Heidi.

Seduction icon Mundae easily steals this one from Wells, appearing not only as the troubled Martine, but as a doe-eyed hooker named Dawn. The slow-moving Bruce Hallenbeck (writer of the classic Mummy Raider) screenplay knows when to allow Mundae's characters to take over when needed, and her performance (in terms of genre innocence-gone-wild sex appeal) is a marked improvement over Wells attempts at unfettered emotion.

Bear in mind that these type of films are not high art, and in large part are just exercises to portray attractive women together in sexual situations, despite the fact that Dr. Jekyll & Mistress Hyde has more emotional depth (or at least tries to have) than a lot of Seduction titles. This is only the second film from Seduction director Tony Marsiglia, and while not as polished as the works of the great Terry M. West, he does steer far away from the usual lowbrow lesbian pile-ons of earlier releases, and work to establish a legitimate storyline, complete with a darkly downbeat climax. Marsiglia keeps his cast to a minimum here, and spends most of the time allowing Julian Wells, Misty Mundae and Ruby LaRocca to explore each other in appealing and stylish scenes of soft-core lesbian eroticism.

Rating for Style: B-
Rating for Substance: C+

 

Image Transfer

 One
Aspect Ratio1.33:1 - Full Frame
Original Aspect Ratioyes
Anamorphicno


Image Transfer Review: The 1.33:1 full-frame transfer reproduces the shot-on-video look of this film rather cleanly, with a palette of fairly sharp colors and decent black levels. Some of the night shots are little grainy, but I'd say the bulk of the transfer holds up pretty well.

Image Transfer Grade: B
 

Audio Transfer

 LanguageRemote Access
DS 2.0Englishyes


Audio Transfer Review: The feature is presented with a clean 2.0 stereo mix, with no noticeable hiss or crackle. Seduction titles aren't particularly known for their robust audio tranfers, but considering the low-budget nature of the film the presentation is just fine.

Audio Transfer Grade:

Disc Extras

Static menu with music
Scene Access with 17 cues and remote access
1 Original Trailer(s)
16 Other Trailer(s) featuring Lustful Addiction, Roxanna, Pleasures of a Woman, Mean Mother, Black Heat, Female Animal, Inga, Seduction of Inga, SpiderBabe, Lord of the G-Strings, Play-mate of The Apes, Erotic Survivor, Mummy Raider, Satan's School for Lust, Gladiator Eroticus, Erotic Mirror
Isolated Music Score
1 Documentaries
1 Featurette(s)
Packaging: Gladiator style 2-pack
Picture Disc
2 Discs
2-Sided disc(s)
Layers: single

Extra Extras:
  1. CD soundtrack
Extras Review: Another fine two-disc collector's edition from Seduction (much like Lustful Addiction), with one disc containing the film and supplements, while the second disc is an 18-track CD soundtrack. The CD features a blend of pseudo-orchestral themes, jazzy soft-core passages, and of course the film's signature piece of 1960s-styled pop, Something's Come Over You (which is presented in no less than three different incarnations here). Not as strong as the Lustful Addiction CD, the Dr. Jekyll & Mistress Hyde disc does make for good martini-sipping music.

Aside from the usual rash of Seduction trailers, the first disc also houses a Dr. Jekyll Documentary (01h:16:38s), which follows Misty Mundae and Ruby LaRocca from their limo ride to the airport in New York, to their arrival in California, to when they begin filming. Along the way, we seen them get lost in traffic, plan their off time, and discuss their roles in the film, as well as behind-the-scenes footage. Unlike LaRocca, Mundae seems mildly annoyed at a lot of the questions she's asked, but she does deliver plenty of great one-liners. As if too much information is never enough, Mundae fans are even treated to a shot of her brushing her teeth, which prompts a hilarious fake orgasm out of LaRocca.

The Interviews segment (05m:49s) features Julian Wells and Mundae performing traditional "talking heads" promotional blurbs for the film, going so far as to ascribe "David Lynch elements" to it, and compare it more than once to Mulholland Drive.

The feature film is cut into 17 chapters.

Extras Grade: A-
 

Final Comments

Maybe not the strongest Seduction title, but this limited edition two-disc collector's set follows the fine tradition set by Lustful Addiction by including a CD soundtrack disc as part of the package.

As an added bonus, Misty Mundae-philes will likely relish her dual-role status in this one.

Not for everyone, but Seduction Cinema fans will likely enjoy this nicely packaged set.

Rich Rosell 2003-05-19