Blu-Ray Review -The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne (1981)

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne is the follow-up release to Arrow’s much celebrated and instant collector’s item boxset “Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection”. It was left off the boxset because they were able secure the rights for both the US and UK which they couldn’t for the films in the boxset. It also fits within the Arrow Video canon more than Arrow Academy because it works as a straight up slasher/horror film than the more art house films contained in the boxset.

As the title suggests it’s a partial retelling of the old story by Robert Lewis Stevenson but the sex and violence is rammed up to the extreme. It all takes place before, during and after the engagement party of Dr. Jekyll (Udo Kier) and Miss Osbourne (Marina Pierro) and the last guest informs the party of a brutal murder outside of a child. They rest start to slowly die in mysterious ways and Jekyll asks his will to be written to a certain Mr. Hyde.

I’m still on the fence on if Borowczyk was a great filmmaker or not, I haven’t seen most of what’s in the boxset because of time constraints during the week of that release so I didn’t end up reviewing it. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne for the most part left me cold and uninvolved. It at times reminded me of Luis Buñuel’s masterpiece The Exterminating Angel but through a slasher film lens and like that film both films never leave their exterior location for the majority of the action.

The quote “genius who also happened to be a pornographer.” is often used in connection with Borowczyk and he certainly amps the sexuality of his films to the limits of taste. The depiction of Mr. Hyde is as a sadistic bisexual rapist with an enormous penis that is reminiscent of the horse cock in the opening of his earlier The Beast; an accurate title if there ever was one. Naturally with these films all the woman are in a various stages of undress so you can critique it as the work of a perverted old man and there is even a feminist critique of the film on the disc.

Udo Kier of course brings life to the role and initially he was supposed to play the dual roles. Borowczyk decided against that and cast Gérard Zalcberg as Mr. Hyde. Marina Pierro was a regular in Borowczyk’s films and the rest of the cast are European cult actors ranging from Howard Vernon to Kubrick collaborator Patrick Magee. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne may not have completely won me over it’s a fascinatingly mysterious and at times beautiful slice of European sleazy art house horror, if you have the boxset it’s a must and if not it should satisfy many horror fans.

The disc includes an appreciation by Michael Brooke who is producer of many of Arrow’s discs and long-time Borowczyk fan. The rest of the disc is loaded with new interviews with the cast, video essays, featurettes on Borowczy, a commentary among other features. The disc has over 3 hours of features, one of the most packed Arrow has one in a while.