Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1976)

Powerful

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Best movie ever!

SPOILER Having, in years past, seen Blacula, Blackenstein, and Scream Blacula, Scream!, it was inevitable that I would get to this. It's the story of Dr. Pride (Wait! I thought it was Dr. Black. Maybe Dr. Black-Pride?), brilliant research scientist by day, and also by day, a volunteer at the Watts Free Clinic & Thrift Shop. Yes, you read that right. You can't make up the Seventies...When one of his serums turns a blackish rat white and makes it so violent that it attacks and kills the other rats in the cage, the good doctor takes it as a sign that this may just be the cure for psoriasis of the liver. Oh, did I mention that he's looking for a cure for psoriasis of the liver? Yep, he's looking for a cure for psoriasis of the liver. Anyways (that's for you, Debbie), Doc BP decides he needs to try it out on humans to get real, useful data...rules, regulations, and ethics be damned. So he tries it out on a patient that's been brought in for liver failure and is not expected to live out the night. She turns white, lunges at him, and promptly dies.This leaves the doctor with no choice but to try it on himself, which is strange, because he's never mentioned that he's even got psoriasis of the liver. Nope, not even an inkling that he's got psoriasis of the liver. This, of course, turns him into an angry white man with incredible strength, who decimates any brotha who stands in his way. Oh, and he also kills hookers because.....well.....um....psoriasis of the liver!!! Bernie Casey is actually pretty good (probably because he's an excellent actor) and the whole thing is a lot of fun. There's a really cool stunt involving him throwing a store clerk through several rows of vegetable bins--no CGI, and all done in a single take, and a bravura finale in which the evil Mr. White...er, Hyde (never called that) climbs the Watts Towers.For some reason.Oh, just go with it!

I like a lot of the movies that came out of the blaxploitation movie era of the 1970s, so I thought this example would be pretty appealing to me. While most examples of the genre were action-based, this is one of several having a horror theme. The premise - a black doctor coming up with a serum that makes him both white and homicidal - had a lot of promise. Indeed, the scenes that show the doctor in his monster personality are kind of fun. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is not. The rest of the movie is pretty boring, to tell the truth. Bernie Casey tries, but his charisma can't save things. And while the movie is rated "R", it barely earns that rating. In fact, it might have gotten a "PG" rating had the "f" word not been uttered a couple of times. Watch the trailer for this movie instead - it's campy, fast-paced, and a lot of fun - which the movie as a whole isn't.

I saw this film years ago on cable and enjoyed it for what it was. I suppose that's because I cam to it without any hype or expectations and enjoyed it all the more for it. The trouble with films like 'Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde' and the more famous 'The Thing With Two Heads' is that the gimmick often promises more than it delivers. Likewise when you get over the premise of 'Blacula', it's nothing more than an extended episode of 'Kolchak:The Night Stalker' held together by nothing more than the excellent William Marshall.But I digress. I think too many people expect these movies to have some meaningful insight into social issues of the day when many mainstream Hollywood films dealing with the same premise would be let off the hook. Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde is nothing more than the Jekyll and Hyde story told with a black actor and should be viewed on that basis alone.As a blaxploitation horror, this is competent stuff, though I'd recommend 'J.D's Revenge' over this as a better example. As a showcase for Bernie Casey this is far more enjoyable and one of the reasons I have remained a fan of this movie after many years.NOTE: DS9 fans will enjoy seeing Casey and Marc Alaimo together some 17 years before their appearance as Cal Hudson and Gul Dukat in the DS9 2-parter 'The Maquis'.

If anyone actually takes this as a serious commentary on race relations, they need counseling. Immediately.The tale, as you can probably take from the title, is more or less a riff on the "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" storyline, only this time a black doctor's (Casey's) experiments turn him into a rampaging albino-skinned monster!Pretty thinly-veiled commentary, eh?The monster attack scenes look like they should be played for laughs. The ZAZ (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker) brothers would have had a field day with this. Indeed, if you watch this, you'll find yourself laughing at every scary and/or racially-motivated moment.But no, it's played straight and all the sadder. Casey is a good actor, an important actor, even. Unless he was intentionally playing this for laughs, there's just no excuse for such inanity. The least they could have done was have Casey morph into Leslie Nielsen. Now THERE we would have known where we stood.One star.Great; I probably just gave Hollywood an idea for a remake.